Kinoma Play for Windows Mobile

I installed the new Kinoma Play for Windows Mobile, and three days later when it stopped scanning the media on my device I was able to give it a try. Maybe I exaggerate, but indexing media seems to go on forever, and is the first thing that happens every time you start up Kinoma. Granted, it is shorter every time you start Kinoma, it still feels like forever. With luck, Kinoma's engineers will listen to their users and make indexing a manual/optional feature. Now that I've gotten the negative out of the way, let's take a look at what Kinoma has come up with for Windows Mobile.

First of all, there are actually two versions of Kinoma: Kinoma Play and Kinoma FreePlay. The full version is $29.99. However, Kinoma has done something really unusual here, and they are making the full version free (sort of) if you get it with TrialPay. According to TrialPay's website

Believe it or not, my favorite aspect of Kinoma Play is not youtube videos, but the photo viewing ability. All of my photos are available as thumbnails, and they have already been scanned and indexed. Kinoma allows you to view your photos one at a time, or as a slide show with many transition options. What I particularly like is the zoom capability. You can tap the screen to zoom to 200%, or you can tap and hold to zoom to any level you want, and depending on the quality of the photo, you can really take advantage of this. You can also tap the center of the 5-way navigation button for zoom and rotate options. Kinoma has also built in send support, so it's simple to email a photo right from Kinoma Play.

Probably the most popular feature of Kinoma is its youtube integration. Using Kinoma is the next best thing to actually logging onto youtube from your pc. It even has an option to log into your youtube account so that you can track your favorites or your own uploaded videos. You can even upload videos directly to your youtube account! You can search all of youtube, and if you have a 3G or EVDO connection, viewing is smooth.

Kinoma's Media Guide gives you a direct connect to many popular streaming media sites including youtube, Google video, Flickr, Audible, Shoutcast, and Clearchannel radio stations. Once you have established permissions, you can upload photos directly to your Flickr account from Kinoma. But you are by no means limited to these sites. The guide is feature rich, and includes almost all the major networks. Also included are many of our favorite podcasts including TheCellPhoneJunkie, msmobiles, and WMExperts. Evidently the next order of business is to request they include Mobility Today! Podcasts can be streamed or downloaded for later listening – the best of all possible worlds.

The one area where Kinoma is a disappointment is video playback. Its codecs are extremely limited. I could not use Kinoma as my soul source for media on my Palm Treo or Centro, and with my Treo 800w, I am still forced to use a second media player. I just don't understand why Kinoma can't play a standard like .avi. Knowing beforehand that Kinoma could not handle .avi video files, I used Camtasia Studio to convert my favorite video into .wmv and saved it to my sd card. But as you can see in the video demo at the end of this review, while the audio is great, there is no video support. The opposite holds true for video taken on my Treo – I can see the video, but get no sound. That is not as big of an issue, as those are usually small video clips, and I can view them natively. (I understand that is a proprietary use issue.) Right now I'm only seeing one of any four videos I've tried. That means checking carefully that your videos will play prior to getting on a plane and discovering you're forced to spend 2 hours re-reading Sky Mall magazine.

Audio on Kinoma is fabulous. It will sort or shuffle. You can view by artist, album, song, or genre. Setting up playlists is simple, and you can design as many as you want. The feel and function are way ahead of Windows Media Player.

Maneuvering through Kinoma is relatively easy. You can use the 5-way nav pad or finger navigation to go forward or back. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to the main screen, and you have to go back as many screens as you went forward. While this is not really a big deal, when you get back to the main screen, the most recently viewed file is shown at the bottom left of the screen – in the exact position where the back button was. So when clicking on that back button, you may find yourself back at the song or video where you started if you go too quickly.

Kinoma Play is a necessary addition to your Windows Mobile device that will allow you far greater flexibility with your media collection than you've ever had before. There are a few things that could be done better, but I've no doubt they will improve whatever is possible. They definitely listen to their users.