Topic: Play-Yan Gets an Upgrade

[WindyMan]

The PSP isn't the only one that can get firmware updates, you know.

Owners of the GBA Play-Yan Media Player will soon be able to upgrade the unit's movie playback capabilty.  An update is in the works that will allow for higher-quality MP4 format movies to be displayed, as well as the addition to listen to them in high-quality stereo sound.  Currently, the Play-Yan is only capable of playing back ASF format MPEG-4 video in mono sound.    

A 500KB patch file will be made available on the Play-Yan website toward the end of next month, which can be downloaded to a computer and transferred to an SD card.  Since the Play-Yan doesn't have any internal memory, the patch must be on the card with the MP4 format movie files every time the files are loaded.    

The current version of Media Stage, the computer program that comes with and encodes movie files for the Play-Yan, does not encode files into the MP4 format.  There are plans to release an updated version of the encoder so it fully supports the new video format as well.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Very interesting!

I also wonder if there'll be a Play-Yan type thingie designed specifically for the DS.

[stevey]

maybe there be a upgrade to let download game from the rev on it and play them

[Pale]

Maybe it will actually come to the US at some point.  ><

[Jonnyboy117]

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Originally posted by: Professional 666
Very interesting!

I also wonder if there'll be a Play-Yan type thingie designed specifically for the DS.

The only thing you could really do better on DS is show larger, sharper video, and that could be enabled with a firmware update.  The audio is already very clear, thanks to the Play-Yan's built in sound chip and headphone jack, or so I've read.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

What I'd like to know is whether the DS itself would make a better, and more financially convenient, media player than a pricey add-on player like the Play-Yan which apparently does the A/V decoding on its own.

I'd imagine another SD card bridge, like Play-Yan, but only houses decoding software, leaving the DS hardware to process all decoding.

[Nephilim]

Im wondering if I shouls buy one
but the problem is, I couldnt find a faq on play yen (lists mpeg4 converters that support the file types/translation of menu of play yen cd software)
Is the thing easy to set up?

[ruby_onix]

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The only thing you could really do better on DS is show larger, sharper video, and that could be enabled with a firmware update. The audio is already very clear, thanks to the Play-Yan's built in sound chip and headphone jack, or so I've read.

I thought the decompression of the video is handled by the GBA's CPU.

The DS's ARM9 is significantly better than the GBA's ARM7, so shouldn't a Play-Yan designed specifically for the DS be able to use more processor-intensive compression, resulting in a better picture, or a lower filesize, or both?