GBA Movie Player
Laptop Battery Disclaimer: Advanced Media Networks does not in anyway condone or support any acts of piracy. This includes, but is not limited to: emulation of unowned video games and piracy of licensed films.
Media Capabilities. Its all the rage these days. Its a feature that separates the men from the boys, or the boys from the men, or perhaps the girls from the slightly more manly girls, but really its just what separates Nintendos handhelds from Sonys. Ever since launch, PSP owners have always been able to hold their ability to watch movies and listen to mp3s on their handheld over GBA and DS owners heads, but no longer. With the release of the first party
Play-Yan and the slightly cheaper GBA Movie Player by Movie Advance (of which this review is about) even those of us who own only a GBA can now play movies, listen to mp3s, read text files, and even emulate NES Flash Card (FC) Games. All you need is the GBA Movie Player, a Compact Flash card, and a Compact Flash Card Reader. Once you have those three things your set to start your multimedia GBA/DS experience. Can such a cheap add-on really make our handhelds have the same media quality and capability of a PSP? Well after spending almost two months with my media player, I come away with some good experiences, some frustrating ones, and some down right awful ones.
Movie Capability: The main function that is advertised for the GBA Movie Player is of course its ability to play movies. The Player is compatible with most of the common movie file formats (*.mov, *.rm, *.avi, *.vob, *.mpg, etc.), but all files must be first converted using the Movie Converter available from the Player's main website, http://www.movieadvance.com. The download of the converter shouldnt take very long, but note that the download is the only part of the process that will actually be done in a timely manner, the actually converting takes a really long time. A quick glance at the converting program shows that it really is four programs in one. After installing your left with a movie converter, an image converter, a music converter, and a movie converter wizard. The movie converter, or movie converter wizard, both offer a bunch of ways to customize your conversion. You can adjust things like the brightness, type of audio, volume level, or just use presets tailored to either the GBA or DS.
I ripped several of my favorite DVDs to my hard drive and converted them over to the Movie Player format, which is .gbm for movies and .gbs for sound, and noticed that converting a movie produces one of each type, one for the actual video and one for the sound to go with it. This conversion took FOREVER! I found it easiest to leave it converting over night because not only am I impatient, but the converting also eats system resources like there is no tomorrow. In the end it ended up taking about 10 hours to convert a two hour movie. Please note that the DVD movie files I used were from DVDs I legally owned and paid for, I would never do anything illegal
*Looks around with shifty eyes*. Now to continue, I loaded these files onto my flash card and was ready for some Finding Nemo action
(oh hush you know its a great movie). I booted up the Movie Player and was greeted by an easy to follow menu that gave you the option to select from Movies, Pictures, Music, Book, FC Games, and good old Help. I selected Movies and saw Nemo.gbm waiting to be selected (Note: Files can only have names consisting of five characters, this isnt a problem with movies, but when we get to mp3s it gets difficult). I selected it and my DS went to a black screen. I sat and waited. I waited some more. Then it was clear this movie was not going to play. Needless to say I was bummed in the biggest of ways.
Computer memory is the quickest, cheapest, and easiest way to improve the performance of your system. Find RAM memory upgrades for desktops, laptops, servers, and printers all backed by a lifetime warranty and guaranteed compatible with your computer. Shipping is an everyday low price of $1.99! Computer Memory Outlet sells memory compatible with all leading computer manufacturers like Dell, Apple, Compaq, HP, Sony, IBM, Lenovo, and many more.”
[ Comment, Edit or Article Submission ]
