Play Yan

Cyberblade · Post by **Cyberblade** » Wed May 04, 2005 8:07 pm

Normally I'm not one to ask these questions, I tend to look up all the stuff on my own, but I'm looking for opinions from other people.

Recently, my MP3 player has started to go on the fritz. A problem thats probably not to hard to fix with a dab of solder to fix the connection to the left speaker, but I'd rather not do something temporary. I am considering picking up a Play Yan device for my DS to replace my dear old Mp3 player and would like some input on this. Before you all go screaming, "Buy a PSP!" you should know that it's not in my budget and I'm a diehard Ninty fan, so it just wouldn't do. I just want opinions on if it's really worth it to purchase a Play Yan for my music and possibly some videos.

*o* · Post by ***o*** » Thu May 05, 2005 1:48 am

buy a psp

Lucretius · Post by **Lucretius** » Thu May 05, 2005 5:08 am

Costs too much. Get the Movie Player for GBA and NDS.

cennar · Post by **cennar** » Thu May 05, 2005 8:39 am

yeah and never ever put your compact flash in a computer with win2k

Cyberblade · Post by **Cyberblade** » Thu May 05, 2005 8:43 am

Lucretius wrote:Costs too much. Get the Movie Player for GBA and NDS.

I looked at that aswell, and while it would allow me to buy a larger card for myself it has it's problems aswell. A. Sticks out too far, the Play Yan won't stick out quite as much on my DS and will allow me to keep it in my pocket and B. It's an un licensed accessory, I tend want something I trust will work perfectly, and I've had a good track record with licensed/official accessories.

Unidentified Assilant · Thu May 05, 2005 9:02 am

Why? What happens with a compact flash and Win2k?

Is it ok with XP??

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Thu May 05, 2005 2:35 pm

Pay Yan - Uses fast SD memory cards. But doesnt support Roms.

Movie Player - Supports NES Roms, but uses slow CF cards which limit the Rom size.

Catch 22, to say the least.

Lucretius · Post by **Lucretius** » Thu May 05, 2005 5:55 pm

soundwave wrote:Pay Yan - Uses fast SD memory cards. But doesnt support Roms.

Movie Player - Supports NES Roms, but uses slow CF cards which limit the Rom size.

Catch 22, to say the least.

Yea but if you want Roms, get a Flash Card.

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Thu May 05, 2005 6:09 pm

Well the movie player is like a two-for-one, if only it used SD..

goodie · Post by **goodie** » Thu May 05, 2005 7:03 pm

Note: If you plan on using it for videos, the GBA movie player has a really low frame rate. Everything looks stiff. I imagine that the Play-yan should have a better frame rate, since it is official and made for the DS which is more powerful than the GBA.

Cyberblade · Post by **Cyberblade** » Thu May 05, 2005 7:43 pm

Well, it looks like I'm getting neither, I pulled apart me MP3 player and fixed the problem. Laziness Vs Money for Laptop. Laptop money wins every time.

goodie · Post by **goodie** » Thu May 05, 2005 7:54 pm

I know what that's like.

Must...have....PowerBook,....only....a..few...thousand...more...dollars..to..go...

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Sat May 07, 2005 6:57 am

goodie wrote:Note: If you plan on using it for videos, the GBA movie player has a really low frame rate. Everything looks stiff. I imagine that the Play-yan should have a better frame rate, since it is official and made for the DS which is more powerful than the GBA.

About a week ago they released a firmware upgrade and new conversion software that takes advantage of the Crystal Engine, which is just a newer video codec that looks a lot better and has a higher video frame rate - I'm not too sure what it is, but the old one was 10FPS and this is definitely faster.

And on the NES front, you can get a hacked version of PocketNES together with a ROM trimmer so that ROMs up to 256KB can now be player, and you can save to any GBA cartridge with battery SRAM.

The Play-Yan is still a GBA cartridge, and does not make special use of the Nintendo DS hardware in any way, sadly.

It's pretty crappy as an MP3 player, though. You can either convert to the GBAMP-specific GBS format sound or use uncompressed WAV files - so you either have poor sound or not enough space to store your songs. Plus it uses the GBA's hardware to play the music, so it won't sound anywhere near as good as the Play-Yan.

If all you want is an MP3 player, the Play-Yan is rather expensive. You could get a decent 512MB player for the same price as the Play-Yan, and that's without any SD card(s). Unless you've got a massive SD card lying around the house, you'd be better off with a dedicated flash player. It'd be a lot easier to change songs, too.

goodie · Post by **goodie** » Sat May 07, 2005 4:42 pm

I downloaded the update and tried to install it on my player. But for some reason it failed. Now it won't even get to the menu. Whenever I start it up, it says:

Update Failed! This Card is a FAKE!! System Crash!!!

I tried re-flashing with an older version, but it doesn't even notice it. The new version sounded like it would be good, too.

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Sat May 07, 2005 6:01 pm

Yeah firmware upgrades on the Movie Player are really hit or miss, usually a miss. Try to exchange it at Lik-sang or whereever you got it (dont say eBay).