Kinoma Player 4EX Review - Wow! Plays Flash Movies & YouTube On Your Treo...
Seasoned Treonauts will like me undoubtedly know that besides being a fabulous communication, productivity and information tool our Treo is also an absolutely terrific entertainment device.
Thanks to third-party developers we have an amazing video player with CorePlayer (was TCPMP), a superb MP3 music + streaming radio experience thanks to Pocket Tunes Deluxe, live TV and streaming video with MobiTV, audiobooks thanks to Audible, photo views with SplashPhoto as well as ebooks with Mobipocket and a ton of games (see my Top 100 Treo Software list).
Adding to our already terrific mix (just in time for the launch of the Treo 680 next week) today we see the release of the new Kinoma Media Player 4EX which has been completely revamped and improved from its previous version and among others now supports streaming of Flash movies. Also of particular relevance is that it includes an extremely useful ‘Kinoma Media Guide’ containing the most extensive list of hundreds of streaming audio, video, podcasts, videocasts and even photocasts that can all be played directly from within the application on your Treo.
The Kinoma Media Player 4EX (screenshots below) provides seven tabs for movies, music, photos, interactive media files, the Kinoma Media Guide and web bookmarks, playlists and a global listing of all media found on your Treo.
Movies
Kinoma has significantly improved its video player to now support full screen, zoom and rotation. Additionally, it also supports the playback of video and audio content stored in the following file formats (including Flash video!):
However, while the Kinoma Video Player will prove more than adequate for most Treonauts I would personally nonetheless recommend getting the CorePlayer which for me remains the best-in-class video player for your Treo – particularly because it plays the popular AVI format which Kinoma does not currently support.
Music
Again, the music component of Kinoma Media Player is good but pretty basic – lacking much of the sophistication and richness of the competing Pocket Tunes Deluxe – but at the very least it has now been upgraded to support ‘background playback’ which allows you to turn off your screen to save battery life and still listen to your favourite music. Also, both the music player and streaming music player support album cover art and other artwork (not shown).
Photos
The Treo already provides a pretty decent photo viewer but just in case this is not enough Kinoma includes one (pretty fast) for you too...
Kinoma Media Guide
Now we come to the core of my excitement… By far the single most important, interesting and valuable component of the new Kinoma Player is called the “Kinoma Media Guide” which is an index of hundreds of free streaming media from around the internet and is the best ‘mobile streaming portal’ of sorts that I have come across to date.
The Guide is filled with hundreds of links to popular podcasts, radio stations, streaming video, photo slide shows, live webcams and much more. All the media included in the guide has been pre-selected to be compatible with Kinoma Player 4 EX. The Kinoma Media Guide eliminates the need to search for streaming media compatible with your Treo by providing hundreds of compatible feeds, many updated daily.
The Kinoma Media Guide home screen (above left) opens to reveal a wealth of listings in categories from Internet Video (such as YouTube) and Sports to Arts Culture & Music.
The selections include streaming video (above left), streaming radio (my favourite SF station above right), podcasts, videocasts and even photocasts. Additionally, you can bookmark individual channels for later viewing as well as having the unique option to download some streams (YouTube for example does not support this) directly to your Treo or external SD Card for later playback or to forward it to a friend. Both of these functionalities are terrific additions to Kinoma Media Player.
Kinoma Media Player supports http, rtsp and mms streaming media protocols as well as several playlist file formats from .m3u, .pls, .rss, .asx and .opml.
However, as Kinoma notes, at this time, much of the digital media content available on the internet is optimized for playback on PC’s or dedicated portable media player devices with special accelerator hardware. This is particularly true for digital video. Kinoma Player 4 EX uses a variety of techniques to achieve the best possible results for each media item but it will not always be possible to achieve the same result that you are accustomed to on a PC.
Having said this, since all of the streams are free (please ensure that you have an unlimited data plan) and that unlike your PC you will always have your Treo at hand the slightly reduced quality seems like a fair compromise.
Conclusion
For me at least, Kinoma Media Player 4EX is not the best movie, music or photo player as it lacks the graphics, proper media management tools as well as other functionalities that I want. Nonetheless, Kinoma Player is the only software that allows you to view free streaming video and audio (also supported by Pocket Tunes Deluxe) on your Treo and its terrific Kinoma Media Guide alone should be reason enough to purchase this application. [Note: Kinoma’s technology already powers streaming media on the Treo 700p]
At this point I have to assume that the Treo 680 will also support streaming media but I wonder if both Palm and Kinoma will have included the essential Kinoma Media Guide as well… They definitely should.
Treonauts always have something to be wowed about…
Treo Software | Movies , Treo Software | Music , Treo Software | Photo , Treo Software | Radio , Treo Software | Television
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Comments
I bought and installed Kinoma Player 4EX.
It is a fairly good player, but it has 3 fatal flaws which make it unusable for me. If you are considering purchasing Kinoma, please BEWARE of these 3 things:
1) No Background Playback AT ALL
Kinoma takes over the entire Palm when it is playing.
Incoming PHONE CALLS will NOT RING, and they will be MISSED! Your callers will hear the phone ringing and ringing, but Kinoma will block the phone call and not let it ring through to the Palm!
You also can't do anything else while playing. If you try to switch away from Kinoma to another app, your playback stops.
2) Long loading time (media search) with NO WAY to skip this
EVERY TIME the Kinoma application is opened, it searches many directories on your memory card. There is NO WAY to skip this, and it does not remember what it finds at all: it repeats the entire search, from scratch, every time. This can take a very long time, if you have many media files on your memory card!
On the Kinoma forums, people are currently up in arms over this. At least Kinoma has forums for people to vent on and try to help each other out, unlike Pocket Tunes!
3) Playback interrupted by popping up dialog boxes
When listening to streaming stations, if there's the slightest hiccup in the network, Kinoma will stop playing and pop up a dialog box. Playback will be STOPPED until you dig out your Palm from your pocket, turn on the screen, and dismiss the dialog box.
This also applies if you use the keyguard feature on your Palm. Playback will come to a complete STOP while the Palm displays the "Press Center button to unlock" message. Kinoma, unfortunately, deletes the streaming buffer completely when this happens, and you will have to wait while the station reloads, all the way from 0%.
Kinoma should make an effort to retry and keep playing. It currently doesn't, and so you have to keep "nursing" it along, by dismissing dialog boxes as they come up. Very frustrating if you're trying to just relax, close your eyes, and listen to music.
This was on a Cingular Treo 680. I'll be pleased to talk with any Kinoma developers directly, if they want to have me test any new versions of Kinoma that solve these bugs (hint hint) :)
i've seen it working adn i am amazed that it can play flash videos. but i hate the interface. the videos must be placed specifically on the DCIM folder and every time you start kinoma player 4 ex, it scans the entire card for the files which takes some seconds of waiting. i too prefer core player.
I've seen it working and I am amazed that it can play flash videos. but i hate the interface. the videos must be placed specifically on the DCIM folder and every time you start kinoma player 4 ex, it scans the entire card for the files which takes some seconds of waiting. i too prefer core player.
On My Palm T|X, when ever I go to "m.youtube.com" if i click on a link with "Kinoma Player 4" NOT EX, it doesn't open kinoma.. and says that the link is not supported
Does Kinoma PLayer 4 EX Open videos directly from m.youtube.com on a palm T|X, and let you stream?
my kinoma player is not working I have my DAC and KC how do I reactivate
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