Review: Resco Media Suite for PPC
Posted by Chris Leckness on 04/18/05 in Mobilitysite Reviews
Developer/Vendor: Resco
Price: Approx. $49.95
Rating (out of 5): 
Resco Photo Viewer
Price Separate: $24.95 USD
Resco Photo Viewer is a very advanced program packed into a small package. It supports tons of different types of Movie and Video files and has easy ways to view and do minor editing to your photos.
So first off, you are probably wondering why should I buy an almost 25 dollar program when there is a built in Pictures program on your Pocket PC (for WM2003 Devices)? Well there are a few major reasons, first of all, the Pictures program that comes with your Pocket PC is very simple and only supports a limited number of types of files, second, there are no editing features like brightness and contrast control, third, the built in pictures program cannot support other types of files besides pictures like Power Point Presentations and movie clips. That is just naming a few of the advantages, there are many more that may be little, but can make a difference. The built in photo viewer on Pocket PCs really just shows standard images and that is all it can do, while Resco’s Photo Viewer can do so much more.
When your purchase Resco Photo Viewer, like most other Pocket PC programs, you download the trial and then they send you a serial you put in to register the program and unlock all the features. The serial is tied to your owners name so when you tell them your owners name during the purchase process, the serial they give you will only work with that owners name.
Installing is very simple and goes very smoothly. The installer also installs a program on your PC to convert images and power point presentations to mobile formats. After the program is installed on your Pocket PC, a popup comes up showing the main features of the program and another popup comes up asking you to associate files with the Photo Viewer.
The Photo Viewer works with a wide variety of file formats. You can easy select which ones you want to be associated with the program so you can just click on them with the file explorer and they will be opened with Photo Viewer. You select the associations during the install or you can select/change them later under the file menu. The following files work with the Photo Viewer Program:
- Video formats: MPEG I and II
- Camera formats: JPEG, PNG, TIFF
- Presentations: MS PowerPoint (converted by Desktop Album Generator)
- Other formats: BMP, CFX, PSD, PCX, GIF, Animated GIF, RAB, RAW, PGM, PPM
Photo Viewer is also fully VGA compatible so that all the buttons and menus look great on VGA devices like the Dell X50v and the HP hx4705. The pictures shown also look great and are in full quality VGA if you are on a VGA Pocket PC. Photo Viewer also has built in support for VGA output devices like Presenter-to-Go, FlyJacket, Voyager, and Pretec VGA. It has built in settings for each so that they work properly for displaying pictures (I did not personally test the output as I do not have any VGA output cards). I would also assume that Photo Viewer works great with the Dell Presenter Pack even though it is not listed.
One of the neatest features in the Resco Photo Viewer is the ability to make albums of your digital pictures from your digital camera or other sources. I love taking pictures with my digital camera and then putting the flash card into my Pocket PC to be able to make albums and slideshows to show to people. You can easily add text, shapes, and even voice notes to images. Then you can turn your images into a full screen slideshow with customizable transitions and timings.
(Crop)
(Crop)
For general image browsing, you can easily select a few different index screens using the buttons on the bottom of the screen, you can either choose 4 pictures by 4 pictures, 3 pictures by 3 pictures, 2 pictures by 2 pictures or a list function that lists 6 pictures and says the date created, size, and file size. Using any of these methods you can click on the picture to view it bigger.
(4×4)
(3×3)
(2×2)
(List)
Once you are viewing a picture with the normal screen, you can click anywhere on the picture once to go into a full screen version. You also can go into the drawing mode that allows you to add text and shapes, plus crop pictures. You can zoom in to areas, rotate, and adjust brightness and contrast levels via the photo menu. There also is a picture details viewer that you can use to see the EXIF data from your pictures (if your camera supports it) and view other details about the picture.
(EXIF/Picture Details)
(Main Screen)
The movie player is very simple, yet easily plays MPEG files full screen. It simply shows a bar that gives you your normal Play/Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind, Etc.
(Movie Mode)
To play Power Point presentation files, you need to first convert them using the program on your computer. Also if you copy a Power Point file to your Pocket PC directly, it will be automatically converted with Activesync. Once on your Pocket PC, the Power Point comes up as an album with each slide being a picture. This works well, except some animated formatting can sometimes be lost and there is no editing the content on the slides.
Overall this is the greatest picture viewing/editing program I have ever used on the Pocket PC platform. It has great editing and viewing features, plus fully support VGA. If you need the best Picture Viewer out there, buy this program, it is well worth the $25!
Resco Explorer 2003 (Ver. 5.13)
Price Separate: $24.95 USD
Resco File Explorer is a seemingly simple program to replace the built in file explorer on Pocket PC devices. After closer inspection and use you will find that it is packed with features that make it not only easier to use, but also much more useful then the standard built in file explorer.
When your purchase Resco Explorer, like most other Pocket PC programs, you download the trial and then they send you a serial you put in to register the program and unlock all the features. The serial is tied to your owners name so when you tell them your owners name during the purchase process, the serial they give you will only work with that owners name.
Installing is very simple and goes very smoothly. The installer also can install a program on your PC to encrypt files by right clicking on a file and selecting encrypt. After the program is installed on your Pocket PC, a popup comes up showing the main features of the program.
Unlike the built in file explorer, Resco Explorer is setup like your explorer on your desktop PC. The top portion shows the file structure of your Pocket PC and gives you the ability to expand and close folders. The bottom portion shows the individual files within the folder that is selected on the top portion. This setup makes it easy to browse files and folders and you do not need to be constantly going back to the previous folder level like with the standard file explorer. You also can adjust the division between the top and bottom portion so the top can be bigger or the bottom can be bigger or even hide the bottom portion all together to better see the file structure.
(Main Screen Showing Top and Bottom Portions)
Some of the great features of Resco Explorer Include:
- Built in ZIP Compression to compress and extract zip files
- Format Storage Cards
- Drag and Drop Files
- File Encryption
- Built in Simple Image and txt File Viewer
- FTP and Network Support
- Search
- Registry Editor
The built in ZIP Compression and encryption tool works great and is very easy to use. You simple hold down on a file or folder and select compress or encrypt. The Compression works great if you want an easy way to save space if you have lots of files you do not use all the time and the encryption tool works great to keep those personal documents secure.
(Zip Compression)
(Encryption)
With the built in viewer, you can select most image files and txt files and preview them before opening them in the associated program. It is nice not to have to open another program when you want to see what an image or file is.
(Built in Viewer)
One of the biggest selling points of Resco Explorer is the FTP and Network Support. With the FTP support you can connect to FTP sites and view/download files. The Network support allows you to browse computers and shares on your network and copy files to and from your Pocket PC. It also supports passwords so you can connect to password protected shares.
(Network Browser)
Another huge feature of Resco Explorer is the Registry Editor. It allows you to view and edit the registry on your Pocket PC (Please only do this if you know what you are doing!). The Registry Editor is built into the program but also can be launched separately via its own shortcut in your Programs folder.
(Registry Viewer/Editor)
Overall this is a must have program in my mind. It is a huge improvement over the built in file explorer and allows easier navigation of your files on your Pocket PC. With all its great features it is well worth the money and will make using your Pocket PC much easier. Even if you are a Simple User or an Advanced User, anyone can benefit from Resco File Explorer.
Resco Audio Recorder (Ver. 3.10)
Price Separate: $19.95 USD
Resco Audio Recorder is a replacement for the built in recorder program on Pocket PCs. It adds many new features and can give you better control of your recordings.
When your purchase Resco Audio Recorder, like most other Pocket PC programs, you download the trial and then they send you a serial you put in to register the program and unlock all the features. The serial is tied to your owners name so when you tell them your owners name during the purchase process, the serial they give you will only work with that owners name.
Installing is very simple and goes very smoothly. The installer also can install a program on your PC to convert the format of audio files and transfer them to your Pocket PC. After the program is installed on your Pocket PC, a popup comes up showing the main features of the program.
The main feature of Resco Audio Recorder is the ability to record in different formats including:
- WAV — for highest quality (8, 11, 12, 16, 22, 24, 32, 44 kHz sampling rates, 8/16 bits, stereo/mono)
- MP3 — for good compression (all sampling rates, 8, 24, 32, 48, 56, 96, 160, 320 kbps)
- Ogg Vorbis — higher quality than MP3 (all sampling rates, wide range of bitrates)
- Speex — designed especially for speech, unbelievable long recording time — more than 278 hours on common 256 MB SD card
- RAF — format created by Resco, based on ADPCM technology, very reliable with good compression ratio
You can easily select which one of these formats you want to use via the settings menu.
(Select Format)
The Recording area is very simple and easy to use. You can see the level of sounds that the mic is currently hearing via a bar on the left side of the screen. You can use the buttons to start/stop/pause the recording or you can even use a sound activated function that starts to record when a certain user set level of sound is reached. Also included is a timer function that can stop and start the recorder at certain times. There also are other setting such as selectable gain to make it easier to pick up quieter sounds.
(Main Screen)
(Timer Recording)
Another great feature is that the Audio Recorder also doubles as a audio player. It also supports MP3 tags so it can display the name/artist of MP3 music files. You also can playback all your recorded files and organize them into play lists.
Included is also a simple audio editor that you can use to cut long recordings into individual segments. It is useful if you have long recordings you want to break up, but for anything more advanced you will need another program.
The desktop component is for converting audio files and transferring them to your Pocket PC or a Storage Card. It does just that and is nice and simple so anyone can use it.
Overall the Resco Audio Recorder is a great improvement over the built in audio recorder on my Dell X50v and Dell X5. It provides higher quality recordings in a range of formats, plus it lets you cut them into different parts and even play them back. It also features great start and stop features like the sound and timer activated settings. If you record lots of conversations or notes, you need this program!
Thanks to Resco for the Review Samples!
Written by Chris Leckness · Filed Under Mobilitysite Reviews
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