The best video player for the iPhone is Olimsoft's OVideo

(This article is taken from my archives.  I originally wrote it in January and in March, I haven't changed my tune, and yes, this is another one of my rants on codecs and iTunes)...

I waited for a long time to see VLC show up on the iPhone - 2 years to be precise.  But having downloaded it on its first day of release, I have yet to use it.  Why?  Well, upon reviewing the early users of the program, although the reviews were good, one reviewer placed a very interesting comment, something to the effect of, "not as good as Oplayer..."  One didn't have to say this twice.  Immediately I took the opportunity to download the Oplayer program followning the VLC download.


The reason for a third party app, which believe me, we have all been waiting for, is due to the fact that Apple's Quicktime refuses to play anything other than .MV4, .MP4 files or other simple file types.  It will not play .DIVX or .MKV files.  I do not know if licensing is an issue or something else, but it has been a frustrating endeavour listening to the Jailbreakers and Android owners boast about being able to play different codecs.  So it was a hearty surprise when an app called CineXplayer was accepted into the iPad app store.  It allowed the above mentioned codecs to be played by going around Apple's codec limitation and allowing the .AVI files to be uploaded via iTunes.  I fully expected this to last for only a few days and be removed from the App store, but it wasn't.  The only problem was that I do not own an iPad.  So it was watchful waiting until the CineXplayer developers released a version for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  The rumor mills were filled with VLC entering the fray and I was thrilled to find out that VLC would be released soon.  I downloaded it the first day.  But it was Oplayer, an App that, until noted in the review, made absolutely no noise in the video environs, that eventually won me over.

I was able to immediately use the Oplayer App but not the VLC application due to the fact that the OPlayer application allowed for OTA (Over the air) downloads immediately.  The VLC application, similar to the CineXplayer on the iPad, requires iTunes to transfer its .AVI files to the device.  Ovideo does not. 

Ovideo may not be perfect, but I have not found any significant faults thus far.  It plays Xvid files and other .AVI files wonderfully, while distributing its .MP4 files to the Quicktime player, the native player of the iPhone, thus not duplicating services. 

One very interesting thing that Oplayer does is to change the port for each download.  It's a wonderful security measure, and obviously something that the creators of this software program thought about for a long time.  You may start on port 2456, and not the usual 8080, but after owning the software for a few weeks, you will soon see 5255, but never the same port on the same day.  Again, brilliant security feature.

Standard video plays better than HD video due to the iPhone using Hardware acceleration for its native Quicktime videos but not for standards that it does not natively support. But Oplayer even has a solution for that.  Just like in the Palm days, there is a Skip Frame feature whch may improve performance on HD.

Of note, you can also play .mkv, .3gp, .mov and .rmvb files, not to mention Microsoft's .wmv files.

Some things that I would like to see in the future are batch downloads, support for the Mac Centric AFP network for Airport and a working meter to tell how much longer the download will take. Other than that I really have no issues with the software.  It does its job very well.

So, if you are looking for an alternative to QuickTime, I think Oplayer is worth a look.  In fact out of all the video players that I own on my iPhone, I would rate this as the best.  The cost is $2.99 as of this writing and it is found in the App Store on iTunes.  The maker of the software is Olimsoft.

LDD.

Styletap may provide an answer for those of us on the wings

So this serves as the first post for the year. And what a discovery. Styletap, a company known more for their Windows Mobile products than anything else, specializes in creating Palm Emulation software for these devices. It would appear that our Windows friends have been taking advantage of the wonderful Palm software through emulation (and I must say they have kept quiet about it...:)).

Now the company has provided a proof of concept video that embarks upon turning the whole handheld market into disarray. For now, it's been Palm vs. Microsoft in the handheld space, with the former taking its knocks, almost becoming extinct. Now, Apple has joined the party. As I noted back in January of last year, Widgets will probably be the entry point for most software when the iPhone SDK comes out later this month. But what is now interesting is the fact that Styletap has created a Palm Emulator for the iPhone/iTouch! For those of us sitting on the side, wondering what it would be like to have an iPhone, but holding back because of software issues, this could be very interesting.

One of the programs noted in the video is iSilo. This is a must-have for most Palm owners who have medical software. The demonstration appears flawless and also incorporates the Apple virtual keyboard. Another program, Statgrowth from Statcoder is also shown (http://www.statcoder.com/). This important tool is a must-have if you need baseline numbers. The collection of software tools from Statcoder include:

1. Stat E&M Coder.
2. Stat ICD-9 Coder.
3. Stat CPT Coder.
4. Stat NCD Lab Coverage.
5. Stat Growth-BP.
6. Stat Cholesterol.
7. Grace ACS risk.
8. Stat Cardiac Clearance.
9. Stat Hypertension JNC 7.
10. Stat A-Fib Stroke Risk.
11. Depression PHQ-9 Score.
12. Stat Diabetes.

All of these follow the same engine and so should work with the emulator. Noticeably absent, and a major concern, is a relational database program or software that requires any form of significant data entry/storage. I would think that this would create significant issues with the disk. All of the programs listed are essentially, non-volatile ram resident programs. The type that would work on any non-nvfs file system or early Palm systems.

Of course, with the release of the SDK for the iPhone and iTouch, the emulator may become irrelevant, with companies deciding to "emulate" the most successful Palm programs natively. There are now 4 million + iPhones in the hands of customers, a large enough base to make it worthwhile for the software developers to look at this. As I write this, I am still waiting for an answer from Dataviz in regards to writing for the iPhone/iTouch. It would seem that this would be a profitable venture for them too.

Over the next few months, I think that the handheld space will once again become important as this proof-of-concept emulator may be the tip of the iceberg.

More on the LifedriveCF, Linux and a taste of Numenta.

Perusing through the Lifedrive Universe, I ran into a very interesting comparative video put out this weekend by PDAColombia. Here they compared -side by side- and running simultaneously the Lifedrive in its original format running with the Lifedrive CF. The most striking difference was the reboot times. There was an obvious advantage with the CF drive, taking about 1/2 the time to reboot as the harddrive version.

However, some apps appeared to run at the same speed and load at the same times as on the hard drive. That was very surprising. Overall, the Lifedrive CF appeared more robust and appeared to be faster on most counts.

For me, this video is a Godsend. I may in fact wait until October/November when the Linux based Palms hit the shelves. I am still debating whether to buy one, not wanting to be a part of the first adopter or bleeding edge candidates who purchased the Lifedrive. But if the price of the Lifedrive - used preferably - comes down, I may buy one and hack the daylights out of it.

PDAColombia.com video

Pdacolombia videocast 10
Uploaded by pdacolombia

Palm Linux



I have also spent some time this weekend over at hack&dev to see how the linux project is coming along. Those guys have made great strides. However, I am begining to wonder if they will curtail their project now that Palm will be supporting their own version of Linux. But you should pop over there to see some of the incredible strides that they have made with OPIE.




Linux Development on Palm.

Linux on Palm Screenshots.


Numenta

Okay, for the ultimate geek weekend, I spent 90 minutes listening to Jeff Hawkins, the founder of Palm giving a lecture on Hierarchical Temporal Memory: Theory and Implementation. First of all, I was really impressed by Jeff Hawkins' incredible mind and ability to comprehend not only the anatomy, but the inner workings of the brain. In addition, I truly admired his ability to stand up to some of the world's most distinguished Neuroscientists and Neurologists. The grilling that took place following the lecture reminded me of Grand Rounds given once a week, when a complete review of a case was done. It was one of the most chilling aspects of my life many years ago, particularly if I was involved in the case. If I was as knowledgable and confident as Mr. Hawkins, I probably would have saved a few shirts from the puddles of sweat that encompassed each of these grillings.

So, why was I listening to this lecture? It was not purely to learn about Hierarchical Temporal Management, which I found absolutely fascinating, but to get a handle on what's next at Palm. After hearing about Numenta, I am convinced that the project coming out in November is not what everyone has been writing about. Numenta is not a machine, but a thought process which attempts to emulate the brains' thought processes through non-static, mobile "guesswork" that dwarfs our thinking about events. It is preemptive. It is akin to thinking about a sequence of numbers and colors before they have been produced. It is akin to knowing the difference in texture between velvet and carpet. Some of the guess work appears to involve appointing memories of other objects and things and interpolating them to come up with what you are holding in your hands. A real life example would be putting out your hand and having someone tell you that you are about to feel a cup filled with hot cocoa. You already have a preconceived notion about the scent of hot cocoa, the ceramic feel of a cup, the warmth involved and the visualization of the cup, such that when it is placed in your hand you can translate it to mean: Warm cup of Cocoa in hand. All of these things are involved in making that decision. Numenta appears to be about trying to emulate these thought processes to come to these conclusions.

One can see quite readily that this has the potential for a lot of DoD type stuff: Face recognition, object identification etc. Mr. Hawkins has stated that the early project will involve food/recipe recognition to start with. There appears to be some semblance of software out on the website to experiment with Numenta for now.

I suspect that it would be possible to have some form of recipe program just placed on the next Palm Project without much fanfair or discussion just to see how this works. Given the fact that Numenta (let's call it a program for now) works on Linux and Mac OSX, I think that the new Linux device will incorporate this well.

What this lecture did for me was to give me an idea of where Jeff Hawkins is heading. I am not certain how this fits into the Palm ecosystem, but I do foresee something along the lines of Search algorithms coming out of this. Google has been the prominent search king for now, but if Hawkins' Numenta is capable of adaptive search strategies, we may be looking at a handheld device dwarfing Google's capablities. For example, say that you want to find a picture of a yellow lemon. With Google, we would have to place file tags on the picture. With Numenta, the search program would already know that it is looking for a picture and then it would have to analyze the picture, shapes etc to come up with the answer. The obvious problem - and hence the reason why I do not believe that this is something to get excited about in November (the expected launch date for the Linux Palm Series) - is that this would require tremendous computing power - way more than a Handheld can handle.

So, 90 minutes gave me some insight into the mind of Jeff Hawkins, but sheds less light on the new devices that will be running Palm Linux.




Bye for now.
LDD

(updated, thanks to Bryan :)).