When I first got my BlackBerry 8830 I was disappointed by the poor seeking ability of the Media Player. I like to listen to mp3s of 3-4 hour radio shows, and while the BB Media Player could seek, it did so in increments relative to the length of the song. The increments are determined by taking the song length and dividing it by 20. A 5 minute song will seek in 15 second chunks, and a 3 hour show will skip in 9 minute increments.
Rundown
Yesterday evening I tried out a few other players with little success. I didn't test any of the video options, but several of the applications are able to play videos.
Built-In Media Player
Free, included with OS 4.2 (8300, 8800)
This morning I installed the latest CDMA OS (4.2.2.148, which happens to be from Verizon, saving me the trouble of deleting vendor.xml) and out of curiosity tried the Media Player. The N/20 seek increments still exist, but an important new feature was added - holding down the ALT key while moving the trackball left or right allows you to skip in 5 second increments, regardless of song length.
Nice.
Make sure to grab the latest version of the OS from the links above. The forums have directions on how to install a different carrier's release onto your device or follow the directions here.
BerryTunes 2.0
$19.99, from Virtual Views
Want to liven up a dull evening? Just startup BerryTunes and you can be the life of the party!
Hot damn!
Unfortunately it requires a Windows client to install files which couldn't connect to my BB when I tried it. I didn't pay close enough attention to the security prompt so I'm not sure where it looks for files, but it only searches one specific directory. The Windows client also insisted on re-encoding any mp3 files I tried to add. That'll do.
mediaPlayer for BlackBerry 8800, 8300, 8100
$19.99, from Dollars5
This works fairly well, but you can't use adjust the volume using the side keys for some reason. I was listening to mp3s using the handset speaker and was unable to resume playing songs after taking a phone call. The UI kind of sucks too; sometimes the play button has a mysterious slash through it, and the time position vanishes while you're seeking. I wasn't able to seek beyond 35 minutes in a song either. While the UI indicated it was playing from 48 minutes in, it would play from the beginning of the song.
It has a decent file browser, but I still prefer the built-in Media Player's approach of scanning everything. mediaPlayer can also play video and internet streams. I don't have a Pearl so I wasn't able to test out the Dancing Trackball. Anyways, isn't BerryTunes supposed to make me the life of the party?
xPlayer beta
Free, from X-Berry Soft
This actually wasn't that bad for a beta, but it didn't support seeking. It's in open beta, take a look at the BlackBerryForums.com thread for more information and updates. Planned features include support for video and internet streams.
Summary
This isn't a real comparison, think of it as a notes on how a few of the media players out there met my needs. In the end I'm sticking with the build-in player since it does everything I need (for the most part), and it's free. The interface is definitely more polished and I really enjoy being able to hit the mute button at any time to play or pause the 'Now Playing' selecton.
For cutting the MP3s I used the fantastic (and free) mp3DirectCut created by Martin Pesch. It's very simple and lets you edit the MP3 directly without decompressing to WAV.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Hi, thanks very much for this information. I listen to a lot of mixed electronic music and am constantly annoyed by the seeking function. I am listening to a bit of music that is 2 hours long at the moment and it seeks in 6 minute increments! Since writing this I don't suppose you have heard of any improvements or alternatives?
Thanks
Alex
aphoodis@hotmail.com
February 19th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Hey Alex,
One of the OS updates provided a new media player that fixed this - hold down the Alt key when you scroll and it'll move in 5 second increments.
You can find the latest OS updates on http://na.blackberry.com/eng/support/downloads/download_sites.jsp and google "blackberry vendor.xml" to find out how to install an OS from a different carrier on your device
February 19th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Cheers mate, I can't tell you how grateful I am! It was really winding me up!
February 24th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Flipside is definitely worth a mention. It costs 20usd but is much slicker than anything else I've seen.
Neil.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
OMG thank you for the alt key tip! I've been looking for more than a hour on a way to bypass the long seek increments with the default player!
July 27th, 2008 at 2:58 am
Hey man install the New Blackberry OS 4.5.x and see the media player do wonders…. you ll love it!!
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
You'll love the new 4.5 Media Player.
Unless you want to play videos. Try, and your video player will freeze up and you'll not be able to stop playback. When the file does finish, your screen will turn white and you'll have to pull the battery.
I've recreated this problem on two different BlackBerry devices with multiple versions of the 4.5 OS
The 4.5 Media Player sucks. I've had no issues with the same video files on two different BlackBerries under two different OS versions. There's no problem with the video files.
The 4.5 Media Player sucks.