Game Boy Movie Player 2.0
System/accessory by PlayAlpha (www.movieadvance.com)
Reviewed by Philip "Pocket Squirrel" Wesley
Released: 2004
Use with: Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy
Micro. (Also can be used on the Game Boy Player, but.. why?)
Quick Opinion: OWN!

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Opening Snide Remarks: Okay, this is a bit of a questionable product because
of its ability to play *.gba and *.nes ROM image files that are under 256kb.

However, that limit -and lack of saving- make it so the most people will be
using that option for is homebrew. For that matter, the other functions here
are way more exciting, that I am going to leave out any such review of this
devices ability to play those things. Sorry, but I prefer to keep things to
a legal extent. But if you must know, the device can run PocketNES, Goomba,
and a lot of public domain homebrew including calculators or a nice piece of
homebrew known as LumineSweeper. Do a Yahoo! or Google search on it. The rest
of this review is devoted to the more legal uses for this device.

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Impressions: This device is only $25USD from Lik-Sang and is definitely worth
that price. The GBA MP 2.0 is shaped a bit like an AMC Movie Card adapter that
Nintendo licensed in Japan. The difference is that this device uses CompactFlash
cards instead of AMC-3 cards. CompactFlash (CF) cards come in sizes ranging
from 32MB to 6GB and are a bit cheaper that Sony's PSP Memory Stick Pro Duo
sticks currently. Because I prefer to be evil, I asked for a 4GB card for
Christmas. Turns out that Dell sent the card to the wrong house, so Dell sent
another card to replace the other one. Thankfully, the people who received it
were honest and sent me the 4GB card they received. I called Dell, but it was
too late as I received the second 4GB card the next day. Needless to say, I
now own two 4GB cards. One for a camera I bought later and one for this device.

So, my GBA SP can currently beat a PSP in a memory size fight, that's pretty
funny, I think. So, what does the GBA Movie Player DO? Well, it plays movies,
text files, BMP files, LRC files, WAV files, and GBS (Not technically GBS, but
that is the extension. It feels more like rotoscoped WAV) files. I will get
into more detail now.

Upgrades: The device is upgradeable by putting a file on your CF card and
hitting A when the device prompts you to update. Easy to do, and the updates
have been fantastic, adding multiple language support, and improvements on
playback of music, movies, text files, and picture files.

Turning it on: When you first turn the device on, you are greeted by an all
red text reminder that this device is NOT (in capital letters) licensed, or
endorsed by Nintendo in any way. I LOVE THAT. You are then presented with a
menu (which you can customize with *.img files, if you feel so inclined) that
features six options. Those options are MOVIE, MUSIC, PICTURES, FC GAME, BOOK,
and INFORMATION.

MOVIES: This is the first option and it is indeed interesting. You have to
change the format of a movie before playing it on the GBA Movie Player. The
software the device ships with is outdated, but the new "Crystal Engine"
conversion software is online and really easy to download and use. The
software can convert the following files into GBM format: ASF, MPG, MP4,
RA, MOV, QT, AVI, MPEG, VOB, and a few others. If you can play it in your
Windows Media Player, you can convert it into GBM format. The new Crystal
Engine also has a better synch rate than the previous software and the
software currently used for PSP conversion on some formats. The software
has several different options, since I have an enormous amount of space,
I use the best options and fiddled around with it a bit. The files it
makes can be very small or very large depending on your settings. For
instance, the movie Office Space takes up 316MB at the highest
settings for graphics quality and sound. Needless to say, it is rather
sharp, and I converted it from a DIVX file that was over 1GB in size. I
converted the ADV DVD Gunsmith Cats and got all three episodes straight
from the DVD for under 300MB at the highest setting. Currently, I have
a couple dozen commercials, music videos, two movies (Office Space, The
South Park Movie), a couple dozen episodes of anime (All of Gunsmith Cats,
the first episodes of Noir, Kaleidostar, Sgt. Frog, R.O.D. The TV, Aqua
Teen Hunger Force, family Guy, a ton of web animation including Rejected,
Happy Tree Friends, Neurotically Yours, and others. I'm currently using
less than 2GB of space.

Movie Quality at its worst is the same quality as the GBA Video cards
that Majesco sells, and at its best is better than Actimagine's DS Video
in quality. Do not expect PSP or Play-Yan quality on this device. If you
are able to watch a GBA Video, The E3 Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
DS trailer, or the hidden video in Metroid Prime just fine; than you will
have NO PROBLEMS with the video quality in this device. In fact, you will
love it. The colors look a little awash on the GBA SP, dark on the old
GBA, perfectly fine on the Nintendo DS, and absolutely PERFECT on a Game
Boy Micro. Yes, the video is sharp enough to still be able to read the
subtitles in some fan subs. But you should really support the anime
industry by BUYING and NOT DOWNLOADING anime. While the movie options
here will not whip UMDs, or the Play Yan adapter; they stand perfectly
fine on their own. The better quality the source, the better quality the
end result. VERY impressive, and more cost effective than buying a PSP for
viewing movies on the go. The nice part about the device is that it does
not use a moving medium to play movies. So, I can shake and toss my GBA SP
around like a mad person and the movie playback will not miss a beat. You
can fit a huge amount of stuff on this thing.

If the movie you converted is out of synch for some reason, pressing the
SELECT button and then L or R will right the problem. The controls while
playing movies are easy to understand. A plays, right skips forward 1
minute, left skips back one minute. B stops and exits to the last menu
you were in. Start displays movie information while it plays. A quick
note that I should mention, you can arrange movies and movie files ANYWAY
THAT YOU WANT. Unlike the PSP, they do not have to be in a specific folder
and you can name them what you want. You can also have folders that are
several folders deep. For example: MUSIC VIDEOS/ANIME/EVANGELION/and so
forth. The only catch is that the GBS file that holds the GBM files
sound must be in the same directory. To clarify, the earlier sizes I
quoted were the combined size of the GBM and GBS files. Movie Playback
is pretty sweet on this device, although if you MUST have the sharpest
movies possible, buy a Play Yan and use that. It's MP4 and -thus- damn
pretty. Movie sound output is in mono or stereo depending on how you encoded
it.

MUSIC: You can convert WAV, MP3, and a few other formats into GBS files, the
files are not true GBS files, but something closer to WAV format. This part
here is fine, but you're better off using a Play Yan as your music player as
music files here have exaggerated sizes and are not quite as quality as I
want. Right now, I have a handful of music files I got from OC Remix as well
as the KFSS Studios release of "The Trance Album." I think instrumental music
sounds better on this device than vocal music. There are A to B Repeat options
and that is pretty cool. The Play Yan has a shuffle option though and no
conversion is needed to play MP3 files. Music wise? This is a decent product,
but better quality devices exist. This is not your new MP3 player and definitely
not your iPod Shuffle replacement. An interesting part of the music options is
the ability to play music and browse pictures, the help options, or books at the
same time. You can also download LRC files and display song lyrics while you
play music. Like with the movies, you can have folders that are several folders
deep.

PICTURES: You have a lot of interesting options here and you can run a slide show
as well. This only displays BMP files, but you can convert any other image file
into BMP or specialized GBA Color BMPs. Images are pretty sharp and you can zoom
in or out on them. Hitting the R button or the L button advances the pictures
easily. Also, you can scroll through larger pictures. It works pretty well. Like
the music and movies, you can have folders that are several folders deep. On a
system like the DS or the Micro, pictures seem as sharp as an iPod Photo would
display them.

FC GAMES: I'm skipping this section. Just because you CAN play Punch-Out with
this device, does not mean you should do that. Why not wait for Nintendo to
release Punch-Out in a real portable form?

BOOKS: This is a bit of a disappointment as it only plays TEXT files. However,
it is great for holding a small address book, shopping lists, the latest
Harry Potter book, etc. Same as the previous options, multiple folders are
possible.

HELP: A copy of the instruction manual as well as what each update does is
listed here. Helpful? Yup.

The software available for use on this system is pretty well done, and moving
items to a CF card is painless if you have a CF card READER/WRITER device
attached to your computer. You can buy those for as low as $14.95 in some
stores.

Liked: Easy to use, perfectly fine movie quality, picture displaying options
are nice, text is easy to read, that FC GAMES section is pretty versatile
for being nothing we want to speak of.

Hated: Music playback on this is fine, but the Nintendo Play Yan takes it
to town in a SEVERE way. Early software glitches were annoying, but the
updates fixed those. It sticks out a bit from the GBA/GBASP/DS/Micro units.

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Improve: REAL MP3 PLAYBACK would be a nice feature. However, all the Play Yan
needs is the ability to display TXT and JPG/BMP/PNG and the Nintendo made
Play Yan would thoroughly make this unneeded.

Oh, removing part of the case on this device makes it possible to use MICRO
DRIVES on. So, yes, Type II CF Microdrives can be used on this.. but it is
certainly not pretty looking after that. (Although 20GB Micro Drives are
like DAMN, you know?)

Maybe a chassis redesign and an included SRAM battery would be nice. You
know, for saving options and play lists. This thing needs the ability to
shuffle and make play lists. Also, some form of Nintendo DS support would be
nice as it currently just plays on a DS via the GBA mode the DS has.

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Final Words: I would definitely recommend the purchase of this device if you
like the idea of playing movies, viewing pictures, and reading books on your
Game Boy Advance. If movie quality is a big issue for you and you do not care
about viewing pictures, or text files: than get a Nintendo Play Yan.

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Score: 87%

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Secrets: Nope!