Adobe Media Player

My first though was "Oh no, not another media player". Adobe Media Player is based on the Adobe Air plattform which has to be installed before the media player can be installed.Think of flash for the desktop and you are more or less there. The interior of the media player reminds me a lot about Joost or Bablegum. Users can select prerecorded shows that they can watch with the majority of content looking to be from independent publishers and only some well known tv-shows and publishers on board at the moment with CBS and MTV probably the biggest currently.

The Adobe Media Player is divided into two key areas. The first are the Genres like Documentary or News that loads a list of shows that can be watched in that category. All the shows are prerecorded so don't expect to be able to watch tonights shows live in the player.The genres do not contain the shows of the networks, or not all of them which is kinda confusing.

If you want to watch the latest episode of CSI for instance you have to click on networks > CBS > CSI and select the show in that menu. You cannot click on the Entertainment category or Drama (which is not existing) to access the show.

The image quality is surprisingly good and can be compared to that of Hulu, far better than the image quality of Youtube for instance. The interface however feels a little bit sluggish, it always takes a second or so before the next menu is showing up which would be fine for a web application but not for a desktop player.

There is no country restriction currently in place. This means everyone from all over the world may watch the latest episodes of Jericho, CSI or The Hills. You will see advertisement though. The Adobe Media Player will be popular with networks and content creators because of its ad displaying capabilities. It is not limited to in video ads which is a major advantage I guess.

One nice feature is that CBS has added many original Star Trek episodes to the player. If you are a Trekkie you are probably going to love that player. Streams started right away with no delay whatsoever. It surely depends on the Internet connection though and users with slower connections might experience those delays in the beginning until the buffering is sufficient to stream the show.

I won't be using the Adobe Media Player after this day because it is not offering anything that I would really need. I will closely observe the progress though and make the switch once they add content that is more interesting. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice media player but it does not offer anything that the other media players do not offer.

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