Customer Reviews

Philips Portable Media Player, 30 gig, MP3/WMA and Video Movie Player

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The screen is bright, clear, and big enough to watch for hours comfortably. Audio, through headphones, is good. Built-in speakers are nice, if you are in a quiet environment, as volume is small. Navigation is simple and intuitive. Battery life is very good. I can get through two full movies and still have a little left to listen to music. With my iPod Video, I am lucky to make it through a single movie. The PMC7230 also comes with a little kickstand to prop up the unit.

The reason why this unit does not get a 5, is because of the transfer of files to the unit. Transfer of MP3 files through Windows Media Player is slow, as they have to be "converted." Included video conversion software is very slow, but the good thing is that there are free alternatives available on the web.

Another bonus is the ability to record TV or other content.

After getting the content on the player, you undoubtedly will enjoy the experience, and notice many heads turn.

I love my iPod, but it's clear that iPod is for audio. The PMC7230 is for video.

Don't waste your money - the device could be good but who will ever know. It is crippled with PlayForSure mandatory requirements for the playback of all video.
In other words if you want to watch any video you *HAVE* to convert it using the ArcSoft conversion program. For a simple movie this takes hours on a good PC with 4 Gb of memory! Who has the time or the patience to do that.
I have a load of mpg files I wanted to transfer and play but could not just copy them. They had to be "converted" (in this case read crippled with some copy protection. DRM is stopping fair use and innovation. The whole point of these small devices is to allow playback anytime anyplace anywhere - I suspect this portable media center could do it but I will never know.
Hours later I am still waiting for the first file to be converted.

I just received this media player about 2 weeks ago. I read trough the reviews, but I purchased it because this is one of the few media players out there that lets you record directly though an external source. i.e.. TV or SAT service. I have loaded my MP3 library with ease. It does need to "convert" but I didn't find it to be a long process or problem. I have not used the software to "convert" movies. I have recorded about 10 movies (1.5h - 2.0h) long. I've got about 150 songs and 100 pictures on the media player; and I have only used about 15Gigs. I have the movie setting set to "medium" quality, which is still good.

PROS:
*can record directly from external source, such as TV, SAT Service, DVD
player
*3.5 LCD color display
* bright screen
*Timer to schedule TV recording
*Easy synchronization with Windows XP PC
*good speaker w/o using headset
*ability to view movies recorded on the PMC7230 on the Television


CONS:
*Battery life is about 3hours for movie playback
*When you record directly from an external source into your "video"
folder; the movie cannot be named. This make is difficult to identify
which movie is which. They are categorized by date recorded.
*I have gotten a message that you cannot record due to "copywrite" law;
only on a few DVD's.

All in all I am absolutely pleased with this PMC7230. I gave it a 4 because you cannot name the movies to be able to identify them better. This is something I can live with, given the performance of the product. I would definatly recommend this product.

This is a great player and it works with Windows Vista. Don't install all the software first. Connect the play to you PC, drag and drop the files and try. If you cannot play the file, install the converter software, but you don't really need to convert anything. After installing the converter software, everything is good for me.

I had low expectations for this unit but it was surprisingly usable. It has a big enough screen, drag and drop files, feature rich - records live TV amazingly simply. Using vista, you just plug the device in and it automatically detects everything - no drivers necessary. Then you can drag and drop music and pictures. For videos, you need to run it through their software - without using mediaplayer - and it converts AVI/WMV pretty quickly on a decent computer. Slideshow for pictures. 4 stars for the price.

This player is simple to use and a good value if you get it for $139 on sale as I did. But I need decent video quality and at least a small amount of features so this unit is lacking in several areas.

Pro's:
3.5 LCD color display is fairly clear.
Full audio/video input and outputs is a rare and useful feature.
Solid construction
Decent battery life
Syncs with Windows Media player (if you use that).
Timer function to schedule TV recordings
AC adapter is a decent "switching" type power suppy that is compact and runs on any voltage from 120 to 220V AC.
Built-in stand on the back that pops out.
Li-Ion battery is good quality and fairly powerful for the size.
Has a built-in speaker. It's really tiny though and only adequate in a quiet room.


Con's:
No FM Tuner or FM Recording.
No built-in mic or microphone jack for voice recording.
No file editing, renaming, or deleting on the player itself. File operations of any kind requires a computer connection.
The built-in screen is adequate for casual viewing. But I like things clear so the limited resolution is a bit blurry to me.
There is no dedicated LCD/Video-out button. It needs one because the TV output is disabled by default.
To enable the TV output you have to navigate through several menu's and it shuts off again if you turn the unit off. .
Plastic screen (vs glass on some others) may require extra care.
Audio recording levels can't be adjusted.
Video Fast Forward and reverse controls are slow to respond.
ArcSoft MediaConverter is a single threaded application, so it's still very slow on a high end dual core CPU.

The main issue of this player / recorder is the low video resolution of the video recordings both on the unit itself or with any files converted through the ArcSoft program. Even at the highest setting the video recordings are marginal with only 320 lines of resolution at 640Kbps. That's about 1/2 the quality of a standard TV so the reduction in quality after recording is easily noticeable. It's useable but certainly a compromise with a lack of sharpness and a surprising amount of motion artifacts during any fast motion on the screen. Granted, it looks ok on the players small screen and we can't expect too much from 320x240 resolution anyway.
Although some players do support full TV resolution and that would be much clearer.

The player can't natively display or play common file formats such as JPG, AVI, or MPG without converting (and compressing) the files using the extremely slow media converter software. Some audio files work ok when using Windows Media player to transfer the files though.

MPEG2, JPG, and DVD VOB files (which are already compressed) must be processed again by ArcSoft Media Converter and that is slow program. It took 2.5 hours to process one movie on a high end dual-core computer with 2GB of RAM. Then the movie ends up as ~ 20 individual clips or files that have to be played individually. There must be a better way.

Perhaps other people have had better luck but even with updated firmware the player doesn't seem to understand any common functions in Windows Explorer such as copy, paste, or file rename when viewing the player like a disk drive. You can see the file names using Windows Explorer but it seems unable to "do" anything with them. Maybe that's part of their copyright protection scheme by forcing you to use Windows Media player which checks for digital licenses.

Some people will be very happy with this portable media player/recorder. However, if you like quality things with good resolution and features then it's probably not up to the task.

Philips USA PMC7230 30GB Portable Media Center , best music player right now in market...nice design.. i baught it Total 5pcs in good price better than other player,picture resolution excellent,easy of use,even my kids using,its user friendly product , thanks philips and amazon.

This is an excellent player for music and videos. it is so easy to record from tv for later viewing. the menus and options for playing and viewing are easy to use and more than enough for me. i've been using mine for about 6 months now and it has never given me any problems. i love it!

This is a great product, All of my recorded tv (250+gbs of TV compressed into 30gb)in the palm of my hand, The kickstand is awesome, battery life is great, screen is pretty high res, FF and REW is a little laggy takes a bit of getting used to but is functional. Volume doesnt get too high but i didnt expect it to. I bought it on sale for 139$, For that price it is very well worth it. Do your research before purchasing, I saved myself over 250$ just by doing a bit of searching around.

DO NOT INSTALL INCLUDED SOFTWARE ON VISTA, It works perfectly when you just Plug N Play!

Works PERFECTLY With amazon UnBox, Should be added to the Amazon List of UnBox compatable players! I have all of my movies on there with 20gb's to go! Amazing player! Best purchase i've made in a long time. Standard Video out cables (yea!) Standard Mini-USB cables (yea!) Kickstand (awesome) UnBox Compatible (amazing), Recorded TV compatible, Works great as an mp3 player too...this is a seriously overlooked PMP.

Ok - I don't know what the other guy's problem is, but if you want what this player does, then it is a great item!

I got my Philips PMC7329 a few weeks ago. My primary interest is to load my cd collection on it and put the CD's away. I was organizing at the house, and I just didn't want to add more shelves to hold all the CD's (about 500). So now I have transferred them to the computer, and I am packing the "hard copies" away.

I have stored the CD's on my computer as wma files at 128 (not 64), using Windows Media Player 11. The wma's sync easily to the PMC. And contrary to some other reports they sound good through headphones - that is, using some better headphones than what comes with the unit. The screen is easy to view. I have not used it with video, so I can't really comment on that aspect of it.

I have used both iTunes and Windows Media Player in their native environments, and I highly prefer the WMP interface. So this was a consideration when deciding between the PMC or the iPod.

I have not had any trouble putting songs I've purchased electronically onto the PMC. I have to wonder if other reviewers updated the software, etc.

You can view the CD's with the covers, or by category, or artist, or song or other ways I don't remember right now. You can transfer playlists from your computer, and you can also create a temporary playlist on the PMC.

One word of advice - download the update from Philips before you start loading the device. I didn't at first, at it was a little wacky the way it loaded stuff. But after the download everything was great.

So I really like this thing - It is hooking up to my home stereo so I know where all my CD's are ;) . And I think I'm gonna get another one!