A media player is about entertainment—and it's not entertainment if it's not fun. Adobe's new media player is just not fun enough to offer any real reason to use it—yet. The company's Flash technology—both the player and the servers—powers most of the video that's watched on the Web. Now the company wants in on the content side, too, with this conduit between the media companies and your desktop. Adobe Media Player (AMP) takes the company into territory occupied by iTunes, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, and others, offering standalone Adobe-branded video player software for the first time. Getting going with AMP requires downloading and installing three pieces of software: AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), Flash Player 9 (chances are good you already have this one, however), and the AMP software itself. The standard, simple AIR app installation ensues. For those not familiar with AIR, it's Adobe's platform software for turning Web applications into desktop applications that keep their ability to access the Internet. AIR programs have full access to your system as well as to the Internet, so be sure you trust the source for any AIR app you install. At any rate, Flash Player 9 is also a good update to have on your system, as it supports the H.264 encoding used by HD video. When you first run AMP, you're presented with a simple black window with just four sections: My Favorites (empty to start with), Catalog (which highlights partner content, like new videos from Geffen), Personal Videos, and Options. The top of the window offers Home and Back buttons. Clicking on an entry in Catalog brings up a list of videos you can play along the left, with the player window in the center. H.264 and HE-AAC support mean that the player is capable of excellent image quality, but most of the content I found was not high-def. The player can zoom your show out to full screen, so it's ready for higher-def content. The AMP interface, however, is somehow just not as inviting as most other ways to get video on your PC. It's hard to know how to get into it, where to start. "Catalog" somehow doesn't grab me, but that's where you'll generally start getting content. More at (www.pcmag.com)