Kinoma media player

[jmorton10]

Well, I recently redid my system from scratch (I actually used an entirely different phone, but it was the same thing "a Verizon XV6800" as the original) & there was NO WAY I was reinstalling a bloated, memory hogging, buggy app like Kinoma on the new setup.

I flashed the stock Verizon XV6800 to radio 3.42.50 & ROM to dcd 3.2.6 so I now had WM 6.1 & a working internal GPS as opposed to the external Bluetooth setup I was using. After implementing all the GPS tricks with GPST & DMrouter etc, I get a consistent 6-8 satellite lock within 4 or 5 seconds in CoPilot Live 7, Google maps etc etc etc

The new system is fast as hell & has 21 MB of free memory at startup & even running Slingbox Mobile I still have 12 MB of free memory.

With the original WM version of Kinoma, I was getting out of memory errors even when the system had 14 MB free before it started that useless scanning "feature".

I had no idea that a new version had come out two days ago, I just happened to stumble across a posting about it & went to the Kinoma site to check it out.

I saw that some of the bugs that certain people (me) where complaining about had reportedly been fixed & others had not. I figured maybe I should give it another chance as I did pay for it & I really wanted it to work for me.

I did a new BU of the perfectly working system with SPB BU so if I was as unhappy with the new version as I was with the original, I could do a hard reset & restore the BU & be rid of it again.........

I have been playing with the new version of Kinoma for a while now & it is certainly a HUGE improvement from the original. Unfortunately, there is still no way to turn off the scanning & yes it still steals ALL the file associations without asking permission (this is a major serious programming flaw IMHO)

Other than that, the app is much better. The picture directory now actually contains the pics on my device & none of the 1700 GPS gifs etc that the original version showed as pics. The scanning now seems to exclude scanning from program apps etc so it doesn't take as long. It still irritates the hell out of me that if you open Kinoma, wait for it to scan, change absolutely NOTHING & then shut it down that five minutes later when you open it again it still insists on scanning once again (this is beyond ridiculous IMHO)

The new version seems to make it through the scanning of my 8 gig SD card pretty quickly, but I haven't put on the 2-3 full length movies I usually keep there in the video directory. I will load a couple movies tonight & then I will get a much fairer test of the new version vs the original.

~John

[jmorton10]

By the way, does anybody know how to redo the file associations to undo the damage caused by Kinoma?? I cannot figure out any easy way to do it like you can in Windows XP/Vista etc.

The way my system is now, if I locate an mp3 with the file explorer & click it open, it insists on opening the file with Kinoma & SCANNING the system just to play the one song........

[Charles@Kinoma]

Originally Posted by vwman18

Then, get a stream playing from Orb or the web played by either TCMP or Windows Media Player. I now get music played through my car stereo. Maybe that's the AVRCP magic?

That's A2DP, and Kinoma Play (and Kinoma FreePlay) supports it too.

-- Charles Wiltgen

[Charles@Kinoma]

John,

Originally Posted by jmorton10

I had no idea that a new version had come out two days ago, I just happened to stumble across a posting about it & went to the Kinoma site to check it out.

We post update news via our blog and Twitter (just 2-5 tweets/week), and the details for those are in my signature. Otherwise, Kinoma Play will automatically alert you about updates soon after they're available.

Originally Posted by jmorton10

I saw that some of the bugs that certain people (me) where complaining about had reportedly been fixed & others had not.

I know we haven't addressed all of your personal complaints yet, but hopefully it's clear that we are listening. We appreciate your patience.

Originally Posted by jmorton10

I have been playing with the new version of Kinoma for a while now & it is certainly a HUGE improvement from the original. [...] The picture directory now actually contains the pics on my device & none of the 1700 GPS gifs etc that the original version showed as pics. The scanning now seems to exclude scanning from program apps etc so it doesn't take as long.

I'm very glad to hear it. Customers have helped us indentify badly-behaved Windows Mobile apps that are storing application resources outside of application folders, and because of that the scanner is already much smarter.

Let us know how it works when you put your full-length movies back on the card, okay?

-- Charles Wiltgen

[jmorton10]

>>Customers have helped us indentify badly-behaved Windows Mobile apps that are storing application resources outside of application folders, and because of that the scanner is already much smarter.


You say "badly-behaved Windows Mobile apps", but they don't cause problem with any other apps we are running...... I really don't understand why we can't either turn the scanning off totally (that would be my choice), or at the very least let the USER decide what directories to exclude from scanning. Is there a reg edit you can provide to turn off the scanning?? The users on this site have no problems handling a reg edit.

One thing users on site like this will absolutely NEVER approve of is a new program stealing every single file association without asking permission first. That is all fine & dandy for noob users, it won't cut it on sites like this however.

~John

[shaggylive]

yea, sorry, but when it comes to storage cards, the user puts files there too. so what you expect users to conform to some "standard"? I know that'll never happen on my card, as I often randomly throw stuff on there.
while I understand that a good scan feature is important in a media player, it's still a feature and not a requirement.
I apologize for sounding harsh, but I refuse to even try the free player until this is addressed. (auto file association too)

[Charles@Kinoma]

John,

Originally Posted by jmorton10

You say "badly-behaved Windows Mobile apps", but they don't cause problem with any other apps we are running...

Sure, because those apps just throw their hands in the air and make it the customer's responsibility.

What we're doing is far harder for us and far better for the average customer. Even if given an option we know that 99%+ of them would use automatic media discovery exclusively, so that's our focus.

Originally Posted by jmorton10

I really don't understand why we can't either turn the scanning off totally (that would be my choice), or at the very least let the USER decide what directories to exclude from scanning.

Your feedback is burned into my brain! But I'm pretty sure you know I can't talk about future releases.

Just so I'm clear, at this point is Kinoma Play finding anything other than your playable media? Or is your concern mostly about the incremental scans on launch (which should just be taking a few seconds)?

-- Charles Wiltgen

[jmorton10]

OK, last night I copied three episodes of the Sopranos & the first two episodes of Sons of Anarchy to my storage card. I had saved them to my laptop hard drive with "BeyondTV"

I have watched all of them previously on the phone & they worked perfectly playing with Windows Media Player. After I was done copying, I started Kinoma & had it do its scan which took a LOT longer as it stayed for what seemed like an AWFUL LONG TIME on the video directory.

I then exited (or tried to anyway, how the hell do you totally exit Kinoma???) As I was trying to figure out how to shut down Kinoma, the system froze up (that's the very first time it's done that since I rebuilt the system) & required a soft reboot.

After the system was running again, I started Kinoma & went to the movie directory. In there correctly cataloged where all the videos. I clicked on the first one & got an error (it said "unsupported video codec). WTF, these videos play just fine in WMP (I tried again just to make sure). Not one of them will play in Kinoma even though Kinoma INSISTS on being the default media player.

If I go to WMP & click open any of these videos from within WMP they play just fine....................

While I am posting here, yes I am upset that I have to sit & wait for a new "incremental scan" every single time. When I click on an app, I want it to open as quickly & cleanly as possible. Having to wait for that annoying scan every time will make me think twice before opening it at all........

~John

[notrock]

Never mind I take it back. I just can't deal with the card scan. Save your money

[The Doctor]

I REALLY LIKE Kinoma's latest release.
I am running it on my Mogul with no problems.
The scan completes in a few sec. No major issues so far...
Worth a try
I got the full version through trial pay.
Just signed up for a FREE 14 day real player trial.
Got Kinoma Full immediately. Nice deal.