Kinoma on Monday announced an update to its Palm OS-based Kinoma Player 3 EX software that brings cubic Virtual Reality (VR) support to the software. Kinoma Player 3 EX enables Palm PDA users to play back a number of different media formats, including movies encoded using MPEG-4 and H.263, AAC audio and JPEG photographs. Cubic VR support enables Kinoma Player 3 EX to also play back files encoded using QuickTime VR, Apple’s software for producing cubic panoramas.
There are a few limitations — QuickTime VR images need to use JPEG image compression, and interactive features are not supported. Kinoma has also posted a tech note to its Web site to help QuickTime VR users understand how best to optimize their images for mobile devices.
With Kinoma Player 3 EX v3.1 installed, users simply copy the QuickTime VR image to a memory card — the Palm PDA can then read the image. Kinoma Player 3 EX uses dynamic resolution reduction to make sure the cubic VR images can be displayed regardless of the Palm PDA’s memory and screen size. Kinoma Player 3 EX v3.1 is a free update for existing Kinoma Player 3 EX users. The full version costs US$19.99. A companion Producer application is available for Mac OS X and other operating systems for $29.99.