Develop Bugs

MS Bing...New version good, but caution

Just installed the updated Bing app. New features include GPS directions including spoken navigation. No charge. No money to AT&T, no app to buy. And it works. Here's the caution.
If you use the Windows Media Player for music or other media, the next time you ask the program to update the library, it will find all 60+ spoken phrases added by Bing for navigation, to your music library.
Hopefully this is a bug that will be fixed in the next version, but for now my music library is full of registry-looking items that play things like "exit", "road name changes to", "merge into traffic", "immediately", and so on. Not much entertainment value here.

bowserb said:
Just installed the updated Bing app. New features include GPS directions including spoken navigation. No charge. No money to AT&T, no app to buy. And it works. Here's the caution.
If you use the Windows Media Player for music or other media, the next time you ask the program to update the library, it will find all 60+ spoken phrases added by Bing for navigation, to your music library.
Hopefully this is a bug that will be fixed in the next version, but for now my music library is full of registry-looking items that play things like "exit", "road name changes to", "merge into traffic", "immediately", and so on. Not much entertainment value here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that happens a lot, where WMP or the Sense music player index non-music audio files. The best solution I've seen is to find the folder those odd files are in, and use Total Commander or something similar to mark the folders as hidden...they can still be accessed by the app that uses them, but the files shouldn't be indexed by the music player anymore.

switching from winmo, looking for apps (music/photos/more) - help!

I'm running a Desire build on my HTC HD2 (and loving it so far), but I'm looking for some apps that may not exist... or at least I can't find them via the Market or Google.
I'm looking for equivalent apps to programs I use for Windows Mobile:
- Conduits Pocket Player (specifically being able to load a folder of podcasts directly w/o a library, and auto keep bookmarks where I left off. Pocket Player also has a ton of options - basically looking for a loaded Droid player. Oh, also select my location for music library & don't look in any other folder)
- Resco Photo Viewer (ditto on specifying what folder to look into, and the smoothness of having thumbnails of pix)
- Phatnotes for Outlook (haven't yet found out how to synch Notes off Outlook server)
- Phoneweaver (auto audio profile switching - saw a couple freebies on Droid, but have not tested. preferably one that shows current state (day/night/vibrate) on the bar at the top. I'm using HTC profiles, but it only has silent/off/normal, I need at least 1 more for 'night' and the automatic switching part)
- Pocketshield (more powerful lock screen replacement where I can control what is showing and different ways to unlock). I'm not impressed with the lock screen at all & haven't found any place for settings yet.
- TCPMP (play divx movies, flash movies from youtube, etc)
Pretty new to Android and I have a lot of reading to do, but am pretty suprised I didn't find say a real good music player off the bat... and no powerful picture viewer with thumbnails & the like.

I got to download some music & picture players today. None quite what I wanted, but so far:
MortPlayer - allows me to manually load up a directory of music.
Yebisu player - seems ok, need to play more.
JustPictures - I was able to scan my SD card, then manually exclude all the funky stuff it found.

rock player - plays about every single video file ( dont know if it will work on your htc hd2 though, defo worth a shot )

mintvilla said:
rock player - plays about every single video file ( dont know if it will work on your htc hd2 though, defo worth a shot )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just read about it in another thread. Let's see what I can throw at it:
Home Movies (converted from digital camera) .wmv format (early ones for me) - nope.
Newer Home Movies (DivX avi) - looks good
Flv looks good (I think from youtube)
619 meg rip of movie (DivX) - perfect
Looks like I just need to convert some older wmv formatted stuff. Excellent, one to cross off the list!

Funny I just saw a tweet from SBSH - Weaver is coming out on Android tonight!
Getting confused in some of the threads I asked for help on, but am using WidgetLocker for my lockscreen, and Folder Organizer to keep my shortcuts clean.

[Q] WP7 Zune artist background list

Im still trying to figure out why when in wp7 zune player, why wont all of the artists appear on the background. im sure if we all put our heads to gether we can come up with a reason. i probably have about 30 albums or some on my phone heres is a list of the artists and albums which have and have not background images when using wp7 Zune. NONE of these have been downloaded from zune( as far as i know) and even direct ripped CD`s didnt always work.
Fail = No artist background
Pass = Artist Background
Artist
30 seconds to mars- This is war = FAIL
Alicia Keys - The Element of freedom = FAIL
Alicia Keys - As I am = FAIL
Beyonce - I am Sasha Fierce (deluxe) = PASS
Maroon 5 - Songs about jane= PASS
Paolo Nutini - Sunny Side Up = FAIL
Paolo Nutini - These Streets = PASS
these are just some examples, if anyone nelse has ANY PASS or FAIL please say here. I found it very interesting to see that 1 paolo nutini album worked and the other didnt!.....strange.......

I know, it's weird.
Many of us have the same problem. Hope Zune will be updated to solve this issue.
Did you try on your Zune (PC) to right click on a specific album and select "Find info concerning this album"? Sometimes it helps.
Also a soft named Zune Social Tagger can help. But it also messes up the tags sometimes (because tags used by Zune are themselves wrong)

Following the probelms I had with background not changing and no album art showing on "now playing" screen, I spent some time with this last night.
I wiped all the music from my phone, went through a chunk of albums and did the "find info for this album" thing then synced back with my phone (of course also making sure the setting under music and video on the phone "connect with Zune" is on).
Now I have all album art showing on now playing screen (finally!) and I also have backgrounds changing as well for most artists/albums (although it normally just shows 1 background per artist/album).
Major and newer artists like Foo Fighters, Oasis, Kasabian, The Who, Friendly Fires all change when songs are played. Others like Ocean Colour Scene and Sneaker Pimps are just black. Not sure If my tags are wrong on these or if Zune just doesn't have any images for these artists (is there any way to check if Zune has images)? Will have another play at the weekend!

dov74 said:
I wiped all the music from my phone, went through a chunk of albums and did the "find info for this album" thing then synced back with my phone (of course also making sure the setting under music and video on the phone "connect with Zune" is on).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't even have such a setting.

Tom Servo said:
I don't even have such a setting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange!? I tap settings then applications then Music & Videos and it's the only option under there (apart from a link for Zune account settings). Is this mabye just on the Mozart?

see my response to this question here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=833871

[Q] Streaming from Youtube?

Hi, guys. Technical question, I wanted to try making a quick application that streams from YouTube first, then I'll try other video sites.
I thought, since apps like SuperTube e LazyTube are out there, it must be possibile.
First thing, the player, currently I'm using SMFPlayer (Silverlight Media Framework Player), downloadable here: http://smf.codeplex.com/documentation, but there's one thing I can't understand, does it support only WMV9 clips? What about the mp4 you can get from Youtube?
So, here is my code, that doesn't work.
Code:
namespace WindowsPhoneApplication1
{
public partial class MainPage : PhoneApplicationPage
{
// Constructor
public MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
try
{
WebClient client = new WebClient();
client.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(client_DownloadStringCompleted);
client.AllowReadStreamBuffering = true;
client.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("http://youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=QjTKLFASeSI&fmt=18"));
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// handle error
MessageBox.Show( ex.Message );
}
}
void client_DownloadStringCompleted(object sender, DownloadStringCompletedEventArgs e)
{
PlaylistItem pli = new PlaylistItem();
// an exception, display the resource.
string token = "";
if (!e.Cancelled && e.Error == null)
{
string risultato = (string) e.Result;
int pos1 = risultato.LastIndexOf("&token=");
//int pos1 = risultato.IndexOf("&token=");
pos1 += 7;
int pos2 = risultato.IndexOf("&", pos1);
token = risultato.Substring(pos1, pos2 - pos1);
ApplicationTitle.Text = token;
}
else
{
ApplicationTitle.Text = "ERRORE";
}
pli.DeliveryMethod = DeliveryMethods.AdaptiveStreaming;
//pli.MediaSource = new Uri("http://ecn.channel9.msdn.com/o9/content/smf/smoothcontent/bbbwp7/big buck bunny.ism/manifest");
string mioPath = "http://youtube.com/get_video.php?video_id=QjTKLFASeSI&t=" + token + "&fmt=18";
pli.MediaSource = new Uri(mioPath);
Lettore.Playlist.Add(pli);
Lettore.Play();
}
}
}
I've tried:
1) using all the DeliveryMethods out there.
2) using both & and &, in the Uri's.
3) remove the &fmt=18 from the Uri's.
What is wrong? Am I using the wrong player? Is there some problem with the URL's? YouTube blocked them?
Thank you so much guys.
DT84.

To play YouTube videos you should research what is the MediaStreamSource is, and how to implement your own mss plus mp4 parser.
You may start learning things here: http://mediastreamsources.codeplex.com/

Try adding &ext=.mp4 at the end of the link. It works sometimes, kind of hacky but sometimes needed for the media player to understand the link is infact and mp4 file.
Than add this link to the mediaElement.source or someting like that. Its really not that hard

sensboston said:
To play YouTube videos you should research what is the MediaStreamSource is, and how to implement your own mss plus mp4 parser.
You may start learning things here: http://mediastreamsources.codeplex.com/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much, too bad the parsers need a Stream object, and currently I can't find a way to get a Stream object from my FLV/MP4 streaming clip. Any clue?
Marvin_S said:
Try adding &ext=.mp4 at the end of the link. It works sometimes, kind of hacky but sometimes needed for the media player to understand the link is infact and mp4 file.
Than add this link to the mediaElement.source or someting like that. Its really not that hard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't work, it looks like the player I was using just can't play mp4's, thank you anyway.

DT84 said:
Thank you so much, too bad the parsers need a Stream object, and currently I can't find a way to get a Stream object from my FLV/MP4 streaming clip. Any clue?
It doesn't work, it looks like the player I was using just can't play mp4's, thank you anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mediaElement can play mp4s, or just redirect it to the zune player. That also works. Note that playing vids does not work at all in the emulator, so its a PITA to debug it (pluggin/unpluggin constantly)

Marvin_S said:
mediaElement can play mp4s, or just redirect it to the zune player. That also works. Note that playing vids does not work at all in the emulator, so its a PITA to debug it (pluggin/unpluggin constantly)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's say I don't want to play just mp4s, but also... uhm... flvs. Is this totally impossible? I heard the video playback sucks in the emulator, but at least you can hear the video's audio. Just to say, damn, it's playing.
So... I think I have to dev unlock my phone, paying 100$ or whatsoever, just to debug my app?
Jeez...
Thanks for your help.

Great idea OP
i was thinking about this, but an idea is all i have
So the app plays flash video, but outside the browser, you get a button instead of the video in the browser which takes you to the player
and downloading would be great

mariu$ said:
Great idea OP
i was thinking about this, but an idea is all i have
So the app plays flash video, but outside the browser, you get a button instead of the video in the browser which takes you to the player
and downloading would be great
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahem... that isn't what I'm planning to do. ^^'

what are you trying to do
another youtube client?
im pretty sure that the flash failure is one of the biggest, close to multitasking, but someone is working on it
so you can correct that

mariu$ said:
what are you trying to do
another youtube client?
im pretty sure that the flash failure is one of the biggest, close to multitasking, but someone is working on it
so you can correct that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, neither.
It would be stupid to make another YouTube client, since the ones currently on marketplace are really good.
Streaming from YouTube is just for practicing.

Now I understand why few streaming apps are out there, it is a pain to try making one with that emulator, it just doesn't work, and I don't wanna dev unlock my phone before I even get my app to work flawlessy.
I guess that I have to develop something else first... >_>

You're wrong. It's not a rocket science of course; for experienced, professional software engineer the HLS implementation, 4 example, will take not longer than 1.5-2 month. But problem is: who will invest at least $30K (2 mo salary) and how investor will get money back? (I don't know, actually).
For newbie, I agree, it's kinda complicated project; much better to start from something simpler. BTW, I'm strongly recommending you to learn Silverlight/XNA before start coding for WP7, at least some basis.

Help Developers Please

i am trying to build a music player app that can play in any orientation (zune doesnt rotate !) my build is so basic and got few functions
i am completely new to building apps but i got this code from microsoft sdk and added the any orientation code from a website but cant find a code that makes the player reads the library also i wish any one help me or if anybody know how to make zune run in horizontal mode it will be great

AhmedtSadek said:
i am trying to build a music player app that can play in any orientation (zune doesnt rotate !) my build is so basic and got few functions
i am completely new to building apps but i got this code from microsoft sdk and added the any orientation code from a website but cant find a code that makes the player reads the library also i wish any one help me or if anybody know how to make zune run in horizontal mode it will be great
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if you know how to make the app play music or not, but ask if you need help. For the orientation, in your XAML code, you are going to need the following to support landscape:
Code:
SupportedOrientations="PortraitOrLandscape"
That goes in your XAML page, above the '>' character near the top.
Additionally, this can be used to default it to portrait or landscape:
Code:
Orientation="Portrait"
or
Code:
Orientation="Landscape"
With that said, that doesn't mean it will look good. No offense Layout can be very tricky and in many cases additional code is needed to handle the orientation change. Although, if you use proper layout (in this case meaning horizontal/vertical alignment correctly and not relying too much on margins), then your app may end up working fine in both orientations. If you use Expression Blend, it makes it a lot easier to do this stuff if you go into the devices window.

i am asking for codes that make the app read my music library i already did what you said!

AhmedtSadek said:
i am asking for codes that make the app read my music library i already did what you said!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, you are going to need a reference to the assembly 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework'.
Then add the using statement:
Code:
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media;
Initialize your library:
Code:
MediaLibrary library = new MediaLibrary();
Then to play, for example, the first song in the library:
Code:
MediaPlayer.Play(library.Songs[0]);
Also, try getting albums (or genres, artists, etc.)
This shows how to play the first song from the 11 album:
Code:
Album album = library.Albums[10];
MediaPlayer.Play(album.Songs[0]);
Of course, I would recommend showing them in a listbox or something.