Using the YH-999

Perhaps the best way to test drive the YH-999 Portable Media Center is to take it on the road with you. To that end, I actually had the opportunity to bring the YH-999 on a cross country trip five hour trip. I usually take JetBlue flights across the country primarily because of the DirectTV broadcasts that were available on their flights. (Of course there are other reasons to take JetBlue but I won't go into that today!) On this recent trip, I was unable to take JetBlue so it was the perfect opportunity for me to use the YH-999 to kill some time.

Before my trip, I loaded most of my music collection and some of my videos onto the YH-999. If you have to synchronize a large video collection then make sure you have ample time in your schedule for any transcoding that needs to take place. Windows Media Player 10 does a wonderful job of converting different video file formats into the WMV file format but it does take time. How much time it takes is entirely dependent upon the processor used in your computer system. My dual processor XEON 2.8GHz system was able to convert a 2 hour DivX video into WMV format in approximately 30 minutes. Our MCE 2005 PC using the Athlon64 3200+ processor took approximately 45 minutes to convert a one hour television file. The video conversion process is the one sore spot with the PMC devices. It would have been better if the PMC devices were able to support more than just the WMV and ASF video formats.

Once I had all the content necessary for my trip, it was time to use the device on my flight. First off – I love the YH-999's kickstand. Bring out the kickstand, place the device on your food tray, and sit back and relax. Now onto the rest of the PMC! I used the YH-999 to watch the entire length of the Pirates of the Caribbean (which was converted into WMV format using a program called “”). It takes a little bit of time to get used to the 3.5 inch screen. If you're used to larger screens, then the YH-999's screen will surely disappoint. However, the bright TFT screen more than compensates for the physical size of the display. Videos played back without any difficulties on the YH-999 PMC. I was able to switch from one video to another at ease. If I wasn't happy with the current media selection, I was able to go right back to any other file and resume playback from where I had left off.

Once I had finished with Pirates, I switched to my music collection and listened to some MP3 files for the remainder of my two hour trip. It's a small thing but I found the inclusion of album covers a very nice addition to the user interface. It brings a certain amount of familiarity to the music collection that you bring along. To conserve battery power, the display will turn off during song playback after a few seconds (this being configurable by the user)

After the five hour trip was up, the YH-999 still had some battery life left and I was left thoroughly pleased with my experience. Before my trip, I was not sure that the PMC concept was going to be truly useful. I've always believed in the portable digital audio player market (such as the Apple iPod) since these devices were usually small and useful in a variety of scenarios. However, I wondered whether the portable video player market would take off or not – how often would a person actually sit down and find the time to watch a video while on the go? Well – there are certainly situations where the PMC is truly useful. For users who are traveling or commuting often (especially on long distances), the YH-999 is a great companion since it allows them to catch up television shows or downloaded movies or really anything. You can bring precious video recordings with you to your friends and show them off on their television sets. The included A/V port is a great feature on the YH-999 that allows you to display the content on a larger screen. Let's not forget about the ability to play back images. You can store your entire image library on the PMC and display them to your friends and family wherever you go. It would have been nice if the YH-999 had a media slot for CF or SD cards which would allow users to easily transfer images taken with their digital cameras while on the go.

Finally...

Before we finish up here, I wanted to briefly mention the quality of the TV out port on the YH-999. I hooked up the device to my home television set and set the display output of the PMC to the screen and voila! - I had the PMC interface on my television set!

If you have a large televison set then the output from the YH-999 won't be satisfying - primarily because of the video resolutions. However, putting that aside, it's extremely convenient to be able to pipe your music, videos, and images to any television set at will.

So what do we think? Well the Samsung YH-999 is just awesome! If you've bypassed the Creative Zen in hopes that this device was the one to get - then you won't be disappointed. Samsung has done an incredible job with this first generation PMC device. The few faults that it may have can be attributed to the PMC OS as opposed to anything Samsung may have done. The device is snappy and the output is top notch. You won't be disappointed IF you have a Microsoft centric media collection.

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