Adobe has put up a new media player on labs called AMP. I decided to give this a whirl this morning. First, calling it a media player is a little dubious. AMP focuses on video podcasts and internet tv, and doesn't allow for you to play music, or even locally saved video podcasts of specific mime types (this may have been my computer I suppose, but they worked fine in itunes/WMP). Its not a bad thing, I just had maybe expected more for the title myself.

First things first, if you have AIR installed already from B1 or prior, this install will NOT work. It even says right on the amp page, you must use a clean AIR install. That was a little annoying, but understandable I suppose.

The interface is clean, but nothing to get too excited about. Thats not a bad thing, just an observation. You also have to take into account that this is an early build of the product. Unfortunately unless I'm missing something, there appears to be no way to pause the video you are watching and check your downloads, then go back to the video you were watching where you left off. When I had tried it simply started my video over again. Its not a big deal I guess but it would be nice to see, especially given the 'framed' nature of the layout.

I fired up the latest episode of diggnation, which I had already previous watched a few days ago on direct download. First off, the video quality was extremely grainy. If you are a diggnation direct downloader, you would notice the difference immediately in my opinion. It also doesn't help that at the 2:38 mark Alex announces they are broadcasting this episode in HD, heh. The audio faired a bit better than the video and was mostly spot on, outside a few incidents of 'buried under a wave at high tide' syndrome.

I tried AMP both at work and home, which have vastly different internet connectivity (cable modem vs something significantly bigger). I noticed some skipping, and choppy video on both connections, albeit it was nothing that completely hindered me from watching the video.

Overall I'd say its a nice niche product, that is an early build and maybe needs some tightening and some wow factor to lure you away from your iTunes or media player of choice.