Helio Ocean Review - Multimedia
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Richard Baguley Published on May 16, 2007 Comment on this |
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Helio makes a big thing of the multimedia capabilities of the Ocean, and the audio and video capabilities of the phone are well deigned and implemented; it does a decent job of playing back both audio and video. However, it is not without its quirks.
Accessing Music Software (3.85)
We measured the time it takes to go from the ocean in standby mode to starting to play a song at 5.2 seconds; a little on the slow side. Part of the problem here is that the music player software rescans both the internal memory any the memory card every time it starts irrespective of if anything has changed or not. You can either start the audio program by selecting Video & music from the menu or holding down the play button on the side of the device; both approaches took about the same time. Dedicated Music Controls (8.0)
When playing music, the directional pad is the main way of controlling the tunes. The center button acts as a play/pause control, while pushing the directional pad left or right fast forwards and rewinds. Pushing the pad up sets the repeat mode, while pushing it down opens the playlist screen. The music controls on the side of the device provide a more convenient way to control the device when it is in a pocket, though; the dedicated volume, fast forward. Play an rewind buttons are easy to find by touch and work when the phone is closed.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (5.0)
The music player software is well organized and easy to use; most of the functions are obvious and easy to work with. The equalizer controls for the player are rather weak, though; it comes with just 6 presets and no way to create your own equalizer settings.
Online Song Downloading (5.5)
Helio runs their own online music store, which allows you to buy songs and download them directly to the phone. This service is pretty easy to use, but it doesn’t have a huge selection; only three tracks from the Arctic Monkeys were offered for instance; iTunes offers 74. The previews of tracks that the service offers were also rather slow to download and were of low quality, and the service charges $1.99 per track; double what iTunes charges. And you can’t use other online downloading services; the Helio store is the only one that works with the Ocean.
Streaming (0.0)
We were unable to get streaming audio to work on the Ocean; the web browser didn’t seem to know what to do with links to streaming audio files such as online radio stations or streaming media services such as Orb.
Podcast Support (0.0)
There is no podcast client included with the Ocean, but podcasts can be synced to the device like ordinary music files if you have a separate podcast application running on your PC or Mac.
Music Sync with PC (2.0)
Helio provides their own Music Mover software for synching music with a PC, but this has not yet been updated to work with the Ocean. Helio claims an update will be available soon that will automatically convert both audio and video. In the meantime, you can manually copy music by putting the Ocean in Mass Storage Mode (so it appears as a hard drive when you connect it with the USB cable) and dragging and dropping files onto either the internal memory or the storage card.
Music Formats and DRM (4.5)
Music stored in MP3, WMA, AAC and (rather unusually) AAC+ cam be played back by the Ocean. It does not, however, support any DRM formats other than their own, so files from subscription services like Napster and Rhapsody won’t work on the Ocean.
Music Interruption (10.0)
The Ocean did a fine job of pausing music when a call came in; the music stopped as soon as the phone started ringing. After the call was over, the music resumed exactly from where it stopped.
Video
Video Software Access (3.64)
We timed the process of opening the phone, starting the video software and starting to play a video at 5.5 seconds: a reasonably speedy time. However, the video software has the same annoyance as the audio software; it scans the internal memory and memory card for video files every time you start the software up, and this can slow down the process considerably(we test with just a handful of videos on the device).
Video Controls (5.0)
The video controls are the same as for audio; the directional pad can be used to fast forward and rewind, and the music buttons on the side of the phone also work with videos, allowing you to fast forward, pause and rewind videos.
Video Software & Organization (6.25)
The video player on the Ocean has most of the functions that you’ll need; you can create and edit playlists, scale videos to fill the entire screen and easily switch from portrait to landscape mode. However, there is no support for metatags on videos, or for searching videos.
Video Sync with PC (2.0)
The Media Mover software that Helio offer does not, at present, work with the Ocean. This means that the only way to synch videos is to copy them over manually. Helio did say that they are updating Media Mover to work with the Ocean, but were not able to say when it would be available.
Video Formats (1.0)
The Ocean only supports playing back videos in the .3gp and .3g2 formats, compressed with the MPEG-4 codec, and only those compressed with a bit rate of less than 256kbps. Other videos (such as those compressed with the DiVx standard, or MPEG-2 files) won’t play back on the Ocean. The Media Mover software will convert videos to this format on the PC when it is available, though.
Video DRM (0.0)
No video DRM formats are supported by the Ocean, so copy protected videos will not play back on this device.
Video Playback Smoothness (4.0)
WE test video playback smoothness by trying to play back a video file encoded at a range of bit rates, but the Ocean wasn’t able to play back many of these files; it only supports files encoded at less then 256kbps. However, the files that it did play back looked fine; the video was smooth and the audio played back correctly.
Online Video Downloading (2.0)
Helio offers a number of music videos for download through their own service. Some of these are free (including excerpts from sources like the Onion News Network), but most cost $2.49 to download. That’s a lot to pay for a music video you can watch for free on YouTube.
Video Streaming unscored
We were not able to get streaming videos to work on the Ocean; like streaming audio, the web browser wasn’t able to correctly interpret the links to streaming video sources, and the video player does not seem to be able to display streaming video.
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