App review -- doubleTwist media syncing

**watadoo** · 04-07-2009, 06:17 PM

This is my first Crackberry review and I wanted to tell you about doubleTwist, an application that syncs all your media (music, videos and photos) to your Blackberry and any other device, for that matter.

The concept is simple: doubleTwist takes media from your iTunes and/or WMP, your My Videos and My Pictures directories and syncs them to your device. Any conversion necessary for video or audio playback in your phone is automatically done by dT so you don’t have to mess with or worry about formats and conversions. doubleTwist works for most all models of Blackberry, though if you find an older unit that isn’t recognized, you can tell the dT engineering team about it here.

Oh and by the way, double Twist is available for Mac as well as Windows. Your platform will be sniffed when you hit their site so you’ll get the proper download that works with the machine you're using at the moment.

And it’s not just a solitary pleasure. You can send your media to your friends as well by, well, choosing a piece of media, inputting one of your pal’s email address or choosing from your friends list (anyone you’ve sent media to who accepted ) and clicking send. This makes it a snap to share your photos, videos and audio files with friends or just to move them about from one machine to another without having to clog email or use up CD’s

The application also functions as a video/music/photo player and viewer so any files you get from a pal can be viewed without leaving the app or having to launch another media player.

The entire app is 1-2-3 easy to understand and to use and if you’ve got other devices in your home other than your trusty Blackberry, like an iPod or PSP or even <shudder> another make of phone, doubleTwist will work fine with them as well.

Downside: they haven’t got support for every phone under the sun and one of my favorite features from the Macintosh release (out a month or two early) if a drag and drop video from Youtube feature. It’s coming soon they tell me, but I can’t wait. What it is, is a feature where any video you can view on Youtube can be immediately downloaded to your media library and then to your phone or media device simply by dragging the youtube.com URL of the video. Again, dt takes care of the forming and downloading – all in one shot. Sweet.

Check it out here. It’s free of course, like all good Internet apps. They have an active community for submitting your feedback and product ideas or getting help if you need it, and seem very willing to take advice from the user community goring forward. I have doubleTwist on three of my PCs and one Mac laptop right now.

**PittsDriver** · 04-28-2009, 05:43 PM

It wont sync playlists?

**watadoo** · 04-29-2009, 08:18 AM

Yes, it syncs your iTunes or WMP playlists.

**thebignewt** · 04-29-2009, 01:34 PM

Will it synch a single album from iTunes? A single photo from My Pictures?

**watadoo** · 04-29-2009, 01:38 PM

Right now that is only available for the Mac version of doubleTwist. The windows version will get a single file drag and drop capability within the next few weeks. for the time being its sync the whole directory -- but after seeing how much our Mac community liked the ease of single file transfers, we decided to add it to the Windows version as well.

**zinadork** · 04-29-2009, 02:02 PM

Drag and drip is essential for me. I have an 8gig card and cannot load my entire directory. Does it take a random sampling of tracks to fill your card as bb media sync does? I like the way that bb media sync allows you to leave a designated amount of space free on your card. Also, how does it handle album art? I am going to have to wait for the next windows version. I am happy to get rid of roxio media manager, it is resource hog. Can you adjust the quality of the video?

**thebignewt** · 04-29-2009, 02:52 PM

Yeah, the album art in iTunes is of interest to me. I used BB Media Synch for iTunes playlists but when I "upgraded" to the new version it crashes on me so I deleted it.

**zinadork** · 04-29-2009, 03:20 PM

bb media sync has always been reliable for me. I would love to see the bb media player incoporate a ratings system for songs. I know that Itunes has it and factors it what making genius list. But, it doesn't help when must of my listening is on the device and not itunes.

**PittsDriver** · 04-29-2009, 05:44 PM

Does it sync to the appropriate folders on the memory card? Like picture albums to the picture folder on the memory card.

**captainhaddock** · 05-04-2009, 07:37 PM

it did for me on my BB curve, though it doesn't appear to retain the directory structure of the image syncs. Not at this point in time. i'd love it if they'd add that feature as i have a wheelbarrow full of photos and like to keep them organized.

Drag and drop is important to me, too. I have a huge library and don't want to deal with sycning the whole library when i want cuople of new songs on my device or a single podcast. however, i own a mac as well as a PC so all is well. i guess the windows version of single file drag and drop is coming soon. so no worries.

**captainhaddock** · 05-20-2009, 05:24 PM

drag and drop are coming to windows shortly, I'm told by a mole. lots of swank new features coming in just a few ticks.

**captainhaddock** · 05-28-2009, 02:24 PM

Just released a wheelbarrow of new features with doubleTwist version 2.1. Download a Youtube video to your box by dragging and dropping the clip's URL to doubleTwist library, single file drag and drop from library to phone or device, reverse sync from phone to computer. Good stuff representing a very solid 6 week sprint.

release notes: http://forums.doubletwist.com/defau...posts&t=578