File Manager:
Being able to move, rename, or even delete files on the go is extremely handy. The MPM-201's File Manager does its job rather well. You are able to create folders, delete and rename files, and even search for files on your player. There is an additional menu option, copy, which is grayed out unless you are viewing SD or Compact Flash memory cards. This is a great function! While you are traveling, you can slide your SD/MMC or Compact Flash card into the MPM-201 and unload it to the player using the File Manager.
If you find you need to create a folder, rename a file, or search for a file, you can enter text using an electronic keyboard. Shifting the characters is done using the volume knob. While this may seem difficult, I did get the hang of it pretty quickly, and found it to be useful while on the road where a PC was not available.
 
I found that you could play audio or video from the File Manager. The most interesting part though, is that if you play a video this way it has different play options than if you play it through "My Movies"! First, you can't advance to the next video, or go to the previous video. Second, when it's done playing a video it goes back to the play list! So obviously the player is capable of doing that and they should allow you to turn that on while playing a video through "My Movies"!
TV / DVR Functions:
Sliding the player into the cradle will activate the TV mode. Not much to say here, it is very easy to put into the cradle, and easy to take off again. The little purple LED bar will change colors depending on the mode the player is in. It will be blue if the cradle is getting power, and purple if the player is in the cradle and turned on (or in stand-by). When you are watching a channel, you can hit the little red "REC" button and it will automatically start recording at your default settings.
The TV mode screen is pretty basic. The Video input option allows you to select where the player will look for a video signal, either the TV, a/v, or s-video inputs. Which ever you select, it will switch to that mode almost immediately. The Auto-Scan option will scan the TV input for the available channels. It will then put all available channels into the line-up. There is no way to remove a channel once it has detected it, though.
Setting a program to record is very easy. Simply choose the date, start and end times, the channel, and the frequency of the recording. The frequency of the recording you can select is Daily, Weekly, and Once. While having this ability is very handy, I found this to be my biggest complaint. You can only schedule one recording at a time. It would be more desirable if you were able to schedule several programs to record. The second thing is when the recording does kick off, the unit's screen and volume turns on. While I can see the point in this, it may cause issues if you schedule something to record at 3AM.
One setting to be sure to adjust is the recording quality. You are limited to three quality types; QVGA (1Mb/s), VGA (2Mb/s) and VGA Fine (4Mb/s). Obviously the quality of the recording will be impacted greatly by the quality of the signal. I found that all three modes were sufficient to play on the screen. However, in QVGA mode you could see some pixalation when played back on a TV screen.
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