SlingPlayer Mobile for PalmOS Review (Page 2 of 6)
Categories: Palm Mobile Phones / Portable Devices
Using SlingPlayer on PalmOS
The software will officially be available on Wednesday, March 28 from the Sling Media website. You can also download the installer PRC directly to your Treo from this page. Installation is quick and easy. Just sync the installer PRC to your Treo (or download it directly) and run it.
The software comes with a 30-day trial period. It will prompt you to register each time you start the client, counting down the number of days until the free trial expires. As with the Windows Mobile client, the PalmOS client will cost US$29.99 to register.
Adding your Slingbox is straight forward, see the screen capture tour below. Once you've connected to your Slingbox, playback is easy. The player UI is fairly minimal, but functional. I would like to see the UI better reflect the device being controlled, much as the desktop player has different remotes for different devices. While the screen is too small to allow for a full remote, it would be nice to have the icons change in the remote bar. But that's a minor quibble.
The player UI is always present, there is no way to eliminate it and play the video full screen. However, I don't think that's an issue as the screen is 1:1, aka square, and video is generally 4:3 or 16:9. While the video uses the full width of the screen, it cannot also use the full height without being distorted, so there is room for the UI.
Navigation is simple and effective. The best tip to learn is that hitting the space bar turns on '123' mode. This allows you to use the 5-way pad for on-screen navigation on connected devices. When using something like TiVo, this allows you to use the 5-way pad just like the controls on the TiVo remote. I also suggest learning the keyboard shortcuts (see the Help text, or screen shots thereof below) as they make life much easier.
My only real complaint is that the navigation is a bit 5-way-centric. As an old-time PalmOS user, I tend to use the screen a lot. But there are things you can do from the 5-way that you can't do with the touch screen. For example, if you enter the Remote Control screens you can go 'up' in the menu hierarchy by using 'left' on the 5-way, but all you can do on-screen is close the menu and return to the video. I'm used to PalmOS apps being fully navigable from the screen, so this still catches me at times. It isn't a major problem, but I would like to see it corrected.
One issue which is mostly out of Sling Media's hands is battery life. The Treo 680 has a small battery, and playing video consumes a fair bit of power, so you may want to purchase one of the third-party, extended life batteries and/or spare batteries if you plan to watch a lot of video away from a charger. I believe the 700p has a similarly sized battery. This isn't unique to SlingPlayer. Other video players, such as Kinoma, also use the battery at similar rates.
Picking Nits
There are a few things I'd like to see changed or improved about the client. I realize this is a first release, and it is a good job, so consider these simply suggestions for the future.
The Help menu could be broken into a sub-menu screen instead of 15 screens to scroll through. Break the help into topic areas and give each a menu item.
An Image Zoom function would be nice. To avoid distorting the image when viewing a 16:9 source, you need to set the SlingPlayer to be Letterboxed. But, for example, if you're watching 4:3 content off of an HD TiVo, the TiVo will pillarbox the content. Combined you end up with black bars all the way around the video, wasting screen space. It would be nice to be able to zoom the video area to use the available space.
One thing I definitely noticed in using SlingPlayer on PalmOS with my TiVos is the lack of an Instant Replay keyboard shortcut. This is one of the most commonly used functions on TiVo, and the only way to access it is via the menus.
If I dare to dream, I'd like to see the keyboard shortcuts user-defined. Allow users to alter the shortcuts and define their own to best suit their needs.
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