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Set for release in the US next month is this basic but tidy looking player from Aluratek.
The Cinepal PMP has a large 8.9 inch display and comes with 4GB of memory, SD/SDHC expansion slot and 6 hours of video playback via the Li-ion battery.
Playback includes all the regular audio and DRM DivX video, along with AVI, VOB, DAT, MPEG, H,264 and MKV. List price $179.

has that ondaish look about it

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My Rig-,Cube h700 hdh/Cowon D2 /Ramos T12/sansa fuze/pihilps gogear aria 16gb/window g83hd

Here are my impressions of the Aluratek APMP100F CINEPAL PMP.

This quite large PMP features a 8.9" LCD screen with control on the top of the unit. The screen is "ginormous", which is a huge plus. The casing is fully plastic, but has a decent build quality feel to it. a full sided SDHC slot is mounted on the side of the unit along with the USB port, video out and the mini headphone jack. The unit also has a flip out stand on the back, which makes the unit look like a picture frame. The unit also comes with a carrying case, component cables, rca jack audio cables, remote control and earphones.

A note on the large screen. At first I thought, "nice! a huge screen", but when I actually got the unit in my hands, I wondered "would this be too cumbersome on a plane?"

The operating system looks similar to many Chinese PMPs; simple and functional for playing videos, mp3s and photos. The control buttons and UI are very responsive.

The LCD screen's viewing angle from all angles are quite acceptable, however from the bottom angle the picture blacks out at about 45 degrees.

I did not test the battery life (because of the major issue I uncovered), but Aluratek indicates a 3 hour battery life for playing HD content. Not so good for a coast-to-coast plane ride, but likely acceptable for short plane trips or road trips in a car.

The "honeymoon" ended here... I successfully played 720P AC3 encoded MKV files; very smooth. DivX or XviD files in an AVI container play beautifully. DivX encoded files in a DivX container render an "Invalid File!" message.

This is where I stopped testing. Aluratek's website says that it plays DivX files. I would assume that this meant that the player is fully DivX compatible, which it is obviouslly not. I got on a chat session with Aluratek, and they said that there were not aware of any problem and their system was tested successfully with DivX files. They said that it must have something to do with my encoding. My files play back on every other DivX certified device that I have.

In short, if you have .divx files forget about the Aluratek AMPM100F completely. If you're only going to play back MKVs you might consider this unit. On the other hand, at a $150 retail price there are probably better players out there that play everything.

Thanks for the review. An 8.9" screen is huge.

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Any chance you can post some pics of the device in action?

It's a rebranded Gadmei PMP900 like I used to have.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17205

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Media players: Meizu M3, Ainol P810 16GB
Phone==> 4G+ MTK 6575 Android phone
Notebook==>Belinea 13.3" super thin notebook running Windows 7
GPS: iGO8.3 5" generic Chinese GPS
Tablet: Viewsonic ViewPad 7, HTC Flyer 3G 32 GB

Wishlist: MSI X-370 notebook

Ah ic, thanks.

I got a chance to play around with it at the shop yesterday. I brought my USB drive with me to test some movie files. It look very nice from front, kinda IPAD look. The screen look nice (color, contrast..etc). Only bottom viewing angle are bad, when you tilt it down 10 or 15 degree off you can notice right away. First i test a 640x352 xvid avi rip, it look very good on 1024x600 screen. The picture quality even better than some portable DVD player that play straight from DVD disc. Then I test a 720p bluray rip with DTS audio from WIKI, to my supprise it play smooth. Also It resize video correctly, when you playing 2.35 aspect ratio movie in full screen mode without streching the video. The only bad thing about it, the spec quote the battery last only 4 hrs, so you might get 3 hrs or less. Otherwise I would have bought it.
Just wonder what chipset it use?

Rename you file.divx to file.avi and it should work. Most if not all pmp don't recognize divx files.

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My first PMP: Mustek PVR-A1 (scrapped after 2 weeks)
My second PMP: RCA Lyra RD2780 (earphone Input broken)
My third PMP: Creative Zen 16Gb (still going)
My fourth PMP: Ainol V6000HDV + Ipod Touch 32Gb 3rd Gen
My actual PMP: Samsung Galaxy S (16gb+16gb)

Just received Cinepal from J&R - lowest price around. Agree that is is limited, but can not complain for money spent. The manual could be written a little better. The screen in great and I am looking forward taking it to my coast to coast trips. If it could read PDF files, it would be even more valuable to me. My MKV rips from Handbrake made for big screen (High profile preset, CQ RF:20, pass-thru audio, loose anamorph) played great, but stuttered a couple of times. Overall impression is very good, the unit does not feel "cheap", package contents includes all cables and protective sleeve. Controls are bit confusing at the beginning.
Now - big question. As I am a complete dummy when it comes to transcoding - could anyone recommend Handbrake settings for best combination of file size - picture size - picture quality specifically for this PMP, given that files will be played only on this device and not on big screen. Thanks in advance.