Earlier this week, Adobe announced that their acquisition of CBS, MTV, and Comedy Central programming into their new Adobe Media Player. According to the press release, their selection now exceeds “15,000 pieces of content.”
Being the TV addict that I am, I immediately was intrigued to check it out. My high hopes, however, were let down.
Promising Promo
This is the promo for the new media player that visitors can watch on the Adobe website. It explains how it can be used to organize your own clips, queue instant downloads, and watch “what you want, when you want.”
After the painless 2-minute installation, I had the Adobe Media Player instantly up and running only to find out that the “15,000 pieces of content” were mostly 2-minute long clips. In fact, The only full-length network shows I could find were CBS’s Swingtown and MTV’s Cribs.
The Breakdown
After fooling around with the player and exploring the content for about an hour, I came up with a list of pros and cons:
Pros:
- Fast Loading Times
- Easy Navigation
- Search Box
- Full Screen Option
- Higher Quality Full Episodes
Cons:
- Occasional Ads
- Mostly Low Quality Content
- Mostly Short Clips
- Mostly Independent Content
The Bottom Line
Adobe’s Media Player is much slicker and easier to navigate through than other competitors, however, the content that it has can already be found on sites like YouTube and Hulu. If Adobe wants to stand out, they are going to have to get more full episodes.
Clearly, they have the “when you want” part of their slogan down. Now they need to work on the “what you want” part.
