The Samsung YP-T9 (a.k.a. Yepp T9) is a portable Multimedia player series that is competing with the iPod nano. It has several extras compared to the iPod nano

• Plays videos
• Cheaper!!
• Smaller
• Larger Display
• A radio tuner with recording possibility (up to MP3 196kbps)
  
• A Voice Recorder
• Supports OGG Vorbis audio files (Great for Linux lovers)
• Any file browser on any operating system (so also Linux FreeBSD etc.) can be used to add, delete, rename or play files, because it shows up as a seperate drive due to USB Mass Storage support (NOTE this only works if you have firmware version 1.60 installed)
  

Reviews

• Review Bluetooth version by hardwarezone.com (3 Jan 2007)
• GenerationMP3 (in French) many pictures (6 Dec 2006)
• Review Engadget (22 Nov 2006)
  
• Review 4GB (black) by CNET

Features

General Features

• Audio Formats: MP3, Ogg Vorbis, unprotected WMA and WMA with MS DRM as used by Napster and Rhapsody music stores
• Video Formats: MPEG 4. 208 x 176 pixels at 15 fps. Video currently should be in SVI format
• Photo Formats:JPEG
  
• Display: 1.8-inch TFT LCD screen, 262,000 colors
• Games: Flash games. Three included: HoneyBey, PizzaDelivery and Baseball. At this moment it's not clear if there will be the possibility to add flash games yourself. Currently they are part of the firmware
  
• Battery life: 30 hours when playing audio. 6 hours when playing video

Specific Features

• Street mode: A feature that boost soft sounds so you can hear the music better when you are in a noisy environment. It can be enabled/disabled by pushing the center button. An S will appear on the screen
• DNSe: A 3D sound technology which gives you the impression that your are listening to 5.1 speaker setup
• Background: You can select flash animations, album art or a specific picture as a background

Manual

For more info I suggest you take a look at the manual (2MB) of the YP-T9

Available Models

• YP-T9JQB with 2 GB storage (500 songs) (Black)*(official site)
• YP-T9JQU 2 with 2 GB storage (500 songs) (Purple)*(official site)
• YP-T9JAB 4 GB storage (1000 songs) (Black)*(official site)
• YP-T9 8GB Announced on Dec. 18. Not available yet

• YP-T9B series: basically the same as the YP-T9J series but it sports a Bluetooth interfaces so you can use a wireless bluetooth headphone

Accessories

Power Adapters

• Samsung K5/T9 Power Pack

Cases etc.

• 3 in 1 mp3 player case belt holder shoulder or hand purse lady pouch black/gray for Samsung YP-Z5 YP-K5 YP-K5JZB YP-T9
• Horizontal Leather Case with Belt Clip/Loop
• Neoprene Sports Armband for Samsung T9
• Belkin jacket
• DLO action jacket

Car mounting

• Holder for windshield mounting
• Holder for dashboard mounting
• Holder for mounting on ventilator of dashboard

Upgrading Firmware

Latest firmware of the YP-T9 is version 1.60. You can find the firmware version of your YP-T9 by going to Settings -> System -> Firmware Version

It adds the following compared to the 1.27 firmware with which the T9 is sold currently

• OGG Vorbis audio is supported
• An extra game HoneyBee
• It uses UMS storage instead of MTP
• Pretty background effects

See also the forum discussion about the 1.60 firmware

Install new Firmware

• Download YP-T9_1.60.zip (7MB)
• Unzip YP-T9_V1.60.zip
• Copy the two extracted files in to the root of the YP-T9 If that does not work try copying them in the Data folder. The YP-T9 you should normally see as an icon when you open "My Computer" on Windows.
  
• Disconnect the T9
• Power on the T9. The firmware will be automatically upgraded

Caveats:

• The device now runs in UMS mode and does automatically update its database. You have to do this manually by going to Settings -> System -> Library Update
• Radio recordings with the 1.50 firmware are in mono
• A track order sorting bug
  

Making Videos for the YP-T9

The videos on the YP-T9 have to be in Xvid files with a maximum frame rate of 15 frames per second. Furthermore they have to be in the proprietary Samsung SVI format. The included Samsung Media Studio automatically converts videos to this format.

How to make SVI videos yourself (on Linux)

SVI files are actually renamed AVI files with some special metadata in the header. Among others the text YP-T9 is present in the header. If you change that text to something else the T9 will refuse to play the content. Sofar I don't know of software (like for example ffmpeg, mencoder or gstreamer) which can write these tags.

Tagging your MP3's correctly

A free open source tool for Windows that I have to work well is MP3 Tag Tools

Feature request for Samsung Engineers

• Make the T9 play normal XVid encoded AVI files. So remove the check for the metadata and the extension
• Do an automatic update of the T9 library when the T9 gets disconnected when using UMS mode
  

Feedback

If you have additions, corrections or comments for this website please send an email to unofficial.samsung.t9@gmail.com