Any info on the ACI Flex 1000B portable (region free)

[wizkid2u]

Does anyone have any info on the Flex 1000B from ACI Electronics? I can't find any info on it anywhere. Supposedly it's Region free and completely convertible. It's on Ebay for $250 but I've seen it there around Christmas for a lot less. Any info or specs would be greatly appreciated![/img]

[Dan East]

I picked one of these up off of ebay for around $139, and it just arrived today. So far I'm very pleased with this unit. It's played every DVD, VCD, CD-R and CD-RW I've thrown at it. The unit is much smaller than I expected, which is good because I will be using it in the car.

I am also looking for info on this unit. It was a bit of a gamble when I purchased it because I could find next to no information on it on the internet.

One note is that this DVD player shows a picture of 2 dolphins when playing audio CDs. I believe Mustek does as well, so I tried all the mustek hacks but none worked. Do any other DVD players show dolphins when playing audio-only disks?

Dan East

[wizkid2u]

Thanks for the info! Tell me, have you tried any PAL discs on it yet?

[Dan East]

I don't have any PAL discs. However, the remote has an NTSC/PAL button on it which switches the output on the fly. Toggling it to PAL for viewing on my NTSC TV of course results in distorted video.

I had read a usenet post where someone complained about a crude GUI for playing MP3s. So far this does seem to be the case. I'll try and describe the MP3 playing capability. Basically you can jump to the previous / next song, as well as manually enter the song number. You can hit Guide and then jump from one subdirectory of songs to another. The Program gui shows you a list of every mp3 and directory on the disc. You can check / uncheck individual songs or even an entire subdirectory of songs at once. Unfortunately the filenames are displayed in 8.3 file format. It also does not show the name of the currently playing song; just a picture of two dolphins. It also does not allow for seeking within an MP3. I don't know if that is a standard capability of DVD players or not.

I have also come across a potential problem playing VCDs. The audio was out of sync by at least half a second a couple times. I could usually get it back into alignment by hitting stop / play a couple times. This is with homemade VCDs, but they play fine on my PCs. I'll play around with this more to see what I can figure out.

Dan East

[wizkid2u]

thanks! I really appreciate the info. I don't have many PAL discs myself, but it surely is handy when, for example, "Harry Potter" is released in Britain 2 weeks before the USA and you've got little sorcerers running around who want to see it NOW!
The ACI Flex appears to have been replaced by the Lasonic portable. Where did you find this on Ebay?

[Dan East]

Well, that's the only one I've seen on ebay. This player seems to be very rare, judging by the lack of posts and other info on the internet. The only two places I've ever seen it for sale are:
http://www.dvdspecialty.com/acipordvdpla.html
http://www.dvdshippers.com/itemaciflex.html

It's out of stock at both places (and they sell it for $239). They recommend the Lasonic 8090 as an equivilant item, but it is much larger (too large for my mounting requirements), and doesn't have an LCD status display. There are dozens if not hundreds of the Lasonic portables for sale on ebay, and they can be had for $100 or so.

I don't know if the Flex player is predominately sold under another make and model or what. I have done some extensive searching for a portable DVD player (without a built-in LCD monitor) for some time, and this was the closest I've ever found to what I need at a reasonable price. I have never seen a DVD that looks like this one under any other name either.

Dan East

[wizkid2u]

The ACI Flex 1000B was all over Ebay when I first started looking for a portable DVD player that I could take on business trips in my suitcase. I was particularly interested in being able to use it overseas. I was just overcautious---I should have snagged it then!
However, you're absolutely right, the Lasonic is all over ebay now; I considered it recently, but when I queried their customer service at www.lasonic.com, I was told that the D90B didn't have anamorphic capablilities---as I have a 16:9 tv at home, I'd really like to have that aspect as well.
I like the "dolphins" though. That's a nice touch. Certainly beats my Toshiba which displays the blinking track number while the CD plays..
because of your info, I'm going to set my sights on the ACI Flex 1000B. It'll show up sooner or later![/url]

[Dan East]

BTW, here's another portable player that looks pretty good. It was out of the question for me because it could not play MP3, which is a capability I will use often in the car:
http://www.laservision.co.uk/aiwa_xd_dv170.htm

Dan East

[vcd4me]

hey wiz kid, I don't know if you want to spend $230 msrp, but the apex portables(3models) are due out any day and the cheapest one is $230 and has 5.8inch screen.Apex is agreat inexpensive player and everyone says it plays everything well.here check out the new line
www.apexdigitalinc.com

Hope this helps
VCD4ME

[Dan East]

Okay, I found my first snafu with this player, but I was able to work around it. We finally got around to really watching some DVDs with this player (as opposed to just popping a few in and seeing if they would load up and begin playing). Well, subtitles kept getting turned on automatically. I would turn them off (either with the subtitle command on the remote, or going into the current DVD's menu and turning them off with its interactive menu). The subtitles would then stay off - until the next chapter occured. Then they would turn back on. I actually watched the entire movie The Others manually turning off the subtitles practically every chapter. Finally I went into the DVD configuration, and tried setting the Subtitle Language Setting to Chinese instead of English (as I have no DVDs with Chinese subtitles). That did the trick, and subtitles only appear when I tell them to. I just verified this issue by setting the language back to English - the subtitles would turn on automatically each time the chapter changed.

BTW, the manual to this DVD player is extremely sparse. Basically all it tells you is the most obvious functionality that even my 5 year old daughter already knows. The advanced features like bookmarks, programming, etc, are not explained at all.

Dan East