Freeware of the day...... Day 16

Today's freeware is a multimedia player that's widely used by Palm OS and Pocket PC owners alike. And that would be The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP).

TCPMP is one of the most versatile media players available for the Palm OS platform capable of playing AVI, MPEG, OGM, and WMV (WMV is limited to video only, no audio) video file formats, as well as MP3, WAV, and OGG audio formats. Some other media formats are supported as well; a full list can be found at the program's forum. Also, it's a hefty 2.3 MB - 2.5 MB of RAM space, but well worth it.

Although TCPMP doesn't have a final release yet (it is still version 0.71a at the time this review was written), there is nothing wrong with any parts of it to date. The GUI is a little stripped down, consisting of only a few buttons on the front screen. Within the preferences menu you can change video and audio settings, and even set the playback speed (faster or slower than normal), change the audio/video synchronization, and enable the Sony GE2D video feature on select Sony Clie models (UX50, VZ90, TH55) provided that you have installed the proper plug-in file. There is also a plug-in for the Tapwave Zodiac that lets TCPMP make the most of the built-in ATI graphics chip. Loading and playing video and music files is very simple and easy to do. One bonus feature of TCPMP is that it can also load JPEG image files, although it is still a little buggy and may cause instability.

So if you're going on a road trip, and want to kill some time with a movie or some tunes, TCPMP is definitely what you're looking for. And it can be found at the CoreCodec.org site, or directly linked here.