Media evolution

I've been playing with a Samsung PMC for the past week or two. As I mentioned I am still flying home on the weekends until my family relocates up here in June, so I was in a good position to really see what it can do.

OK - so this has 20GB of storage and uses the Microsoft Portable Media Center software. It's much like the "big" Media Center 2005 PC operatin system that has been available for a few months - it enables you to listen to music, view pictures, and most importantly view video (including shows recorded on your Media Center PC).

I "made backups" of some of my DVDs using Pocket DVD Wizard, which handily created WMV files in my "My Videos" folder. The stuff in there auto-syncs with the Samsung when you plug in the USB 2.0 cable. It takes a few hours to create the WMV so I have been kicking off the proecss in the morning before I go to work and then at night. If you drop MPGs or AVIs in there they will automatically get converted to WMV by the Windows Media Player software - nice.

I watched Spiderman 2 on the flight last week using my Bose headphones and I have to tell you - it rocked. I also listened to a new Steve Earle album.

Wishlist on this device:

• 16:9 screen - most of my DVDs are in this aspect ratio (although I guess TV recordings would be sidebarred, so what?)
• Audio quality is OK - not great. I heard some overdrive on the low end.
• Very difficult to get DVDs on there (unless you spend a week's worth of evenings trying different tools like I did), but that seems to be more of a copyright issue. Fair use?
• 20GB is not enough - 60Gb would make this my music and video player
• I'd like to see Alpine support the PMC interface. They could even drive video to the in-dash unit!

Next step is to give it my kids to entertain them on the flight up - I'll just need a Y-adapter so you can plug in two sets of phones. It has rubber gaskets to cover the ports and THANKFULLY a hold switch to keep the kids from accidentally turning it off or whatever.

As loyal readers know, I've been a big iPod user for a long time. No doubt it does the music thing very well (and I like the scroll wheel). But this unit shows that you can listen to music and show video with great ease. There's really no need to go audio-only anymore - that's so 2004!

Comments

[David]

I did something similar but went the PSP route. Why? It was $250 and can do more than videos and music. However, it doesn't have a hard drive so all your videos must be flash media based.
Not a huge issue - write up on my blog.

[David]

I did something similar but went the PSP route. Why? It was $250 and can do more than videos and music. However, it doesn't have a hard drive so all your videos must be flash media based.
Not a huge issue - write up on my blog.