Don't know if anyone has had any experience with this player but any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks.

I think this is the same player my sister just picked up.

I haven't had a chance to really look at it but she seems pretty happy with it.

I believe it comes with a car adapator.

The speakers are pretty loud (much louder than the Toshiba 2000 and Samsung L100), though the quality isn't that great.

The battery fits on the bottom like on the Toshibas.

It has some menu controls on the player, but not all as I couldn't figure out how to get the player settings menu to pop up, but then I only played with it for about a minute.

Unless it has a setting in its setup menu, it will stretch out all non anamorphic material. This will make 4:3 TV shows and older movies look shorter and fatter.

Screen seemed decent, though I didn't get a good look at it. Pretty good size though. Her kids have really been enjoying it.

If I get a better look at it, I'll post more later.

Spent a little more time with it. She actually has the 8" version, so not sure if the info is useful....

The screen is a little odd: it defaults to "full" and has a "normal" and "zoomed" setting. Normal makes anamorphic movies windowboxed, and shows 4:3 material in the correct aspect ratio. Zoomed causes it to zoom in till the sides of the film touch the sides of the screen, causing it to lose part of the top and bottom of the picture. Full seems to stretch everything out to fill up the screen. Very odd. Also, Normal causes 4:3 material to fill up the screen from top to bottom but has black bars on the left and right. It's like it's not an anamorphic screen and acts like a regular fixed aspect ratio LCD screen.

There are no fast forward buttons on the unit (it had chapter adv, but holding them down didn't cause it to FFW/REV).

The digital out is optical and will require a mini plug adaptor. If you do a search on the Samsung DVD L100, I posted a review in a Toshiba P2000 thread that includes links to a place you can buy this adapter from.

The unit seemed solid enough, and almost a little heavier than I would have expected. And that was without the battery.

Video wasn't great, but it was very watchable...seemed a little grainier than it should have been.

It starts up pretty fast; doesn't remember where you were in the film once it's turned off.

The A/C adaptor was plug--->brick--->player and the brick wasn't too bulky either.

It did act a little funny once. I was switching video modes on the fly and the buttons (stop/menu/ch. adv/etc) stopped responding. I finally used the on/off switch and it started working again.

My sister complained that the placement of the on/off switch was bad. It's a slider on the left front side of the player. You push it toward the back of the player to turn it on. If you pull the player towards you by the sides, it's too easy to accidentally turn off the player.

She said she'd bring in the manual tomorrow, so I'll report more then if there's anything interesting.

And it looks like it can serve as a video display for a camera or video camera.

Thank for input.

I have the older 6.8 and am super happy with it for the price.

Blade I had the same windowing issue with the screen and it was freaking me out. Its a menu setting to switch it to wide screen. Its default setting is 4x3 . I took me a while to figure out and it was more then a year ago but I had the same issue.

The Initial stuff is made by Shinco / Shinsoinc / Mintex in China. My only beef is on an airplane you will need very efficient or noise canceling headphones.

A big plus to me is the thing reads cdr file structure and show jpegs from cdr Great way to share photos if you have a digital camera.

Bottom line is the price. I figure this will hold me over for a few years until the better players come down in price. Plus it was easy to find a second battery in Hong Kong (I go alot) which gives me ~ 3 movies!

Another option is to get a device to boost the volume to your headphones. My (cheap) noise cancelling headphones are a little bulky, so I use my boostaroo on interisland flights and it's pretty decent.

I have some noise cancelling headphones, but they're a little bulky, so I like using this instead.

I got a cheap pair of NC headphones with 98dB efficiency that are about the size of the standard airline head phones.

At the risk of sounding like pansy, cranking up the volume with headphones in a noisy environment invites permanent hearing damage. A good rule of thumb is that if you have to turn up the volume beyond what’s comfortable in a quiet space, it’s too loud. Planes are very loud. Good noise canceling phones like the Etymotics ER-6 (~$130, very small, and effective) provide a much safer solution.

No, I know what you mean.

But have you ever tried turning up the volume on a poorly tuned in radio station? It doesn't help much, and what you are hearing is at a higher volume than what you'd normally listen to. These volume boosting devices are more like boosting the signal for that radio station so you're getting the full signal. As such, the volume doesn't have to be turned up as high as when you're only getting some of the signal (I find cranking the volume with just the headphones tends to get pretty tinny sounding). So while you're still turning up the volume, it isn't necessary to blast it in order to understand what people are saying in the movie. I hope that makes sense.

I'm familiar with noise cancelling headphones, but I needed 2 (for me and my wife) and at $130, even one of these is far too expensive for how infrequently I would use them (I fly about two times every 2-3 months). I did get some really cheap noise cancelling headphones (JWIN, they cost about $26/each) that worked fine (used them when I went to Vegas last Nov.) but they're too bulky for my island hopping (I go for work and do everything carry on).

But you're absolutely correct, you should be careful with your hearing, so if it hurts after you've been listening for awhile, you're playing the volume too loud.

Just did a quick review on my initial 7" at this thread:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...itial+portable

I went to Wallmart today to check out the Inital portable. I really didn't like it, i could see the scan lines pretty clearly, the image wasn't clear at all and the player itself was pretty loud.

Maybe you looked at a "bad" one? I have heard that quality varies from set to set.

I don't think mine looks as good as my Sony Wega, of course, but it looks pretty good, all things considered. Actually, it looks clearer than the old 27" Signature in my family room, circa 1988. If that's saying much.

Or, maybe my standards are so darn low I'll accept anything... (shrug) Anyway, it works for me.

Well, I settled for the 7" Audiovox "Eddie Bauer" from Target (not a bad deal @ $289).

To my surprise the quality is very good, the picture is bright clean and clear, the sound is very adequate (can hear fine while in the mini-van) and very simple to use.

It came with all sort of cables (S-Video, RCA Video, Audio, AC and Car adapter), remote and battery (I've gotten anywhere from 3 to 3.5 hrs.).

All in all I am very pleased with the player and know that the kids will enjoy it.