Portable dvd player rental

So how good is the Microsoft Portable Media Center (PMC)? Not bad, not bad at all, especially for a first-generation product. It has a good user interface and was pretty intuitive to use, despite a few glitches.

Effectively, the UI is a new version of Windows Media Player (version 10). I've never been a huge fan of WMP, despite its decent performance, preferring the UI in jukebox software like Musicmatch. But the new version is a lot cleaner, with the basic controls now on the top (instead of on the side), and with more intuitive controls such as Rip and Burn. And it finally lets you create MP3 files without a third-party add-on.

The new version adds a Sync screen, where you can select material to be copied to a PMC or a supported music player. From this screen, you can select music, recorded TV shows, video, or photographs to move to the device. You can also set it up to sync automatically, transferring the most recent content to the device.

The PMC devices, and other upcoming music players that support Microsoft's new Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), will also let you take music you are renting—say from Napster's streaming service—and put it on the devices using Microsoft's new "Janus" DRM technology. This lets you play the music, but only if you sync often enough for the software to verify that you're still licensed to listen to the music. This is an interesting development, though I wonder how many people will pay extra for the ability to take their music with them on such a device.

In general, everything worked pretty well for me—transferring songs I ripped, renting songs, and downloading tracks I purchased. And I was barred from moving rental songs I hadn't purchased, which is what DRM is supposed to do.

It also transferred recorded TV shows from a Media Center PC relatively well. One significant issue is that you really do have to set up the device to sync automatically in order to do things like move playlists (though the songs move anyway) or convert the TV into the right format in the background; you can do a manual sync, but it takes much longer (converting a show takes about as long as the show itself). Also, the machine is not designed to let you take DVD content with you, since that is typically copy protected. The Creative unit is very simple to use, and it works very well. Both it and the iRiver unit look a bit like two-handed gaming machines (think Game Boy Advance, but just large enough not to fit comfortably in your pocket). The Samsung unit looks more like a small TV and has a nice little stand. I expect it will have a shorter battery life than others, but it's easier to cart around.

If you mostly want to carry your music along with you, you're still better off with an iPod or other hard drive-based music player—they tend to be smaller and less expensive. But if you want to take TV with you, this is a good way of doing it.

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Copyright ?? 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.