With MediaCenter, the basic Nationite MIDNite Xpress media player reviewed, it’s time to take a look at the alternative, the Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP for short) which is far meatier on functions.
See its skills after the jump.

Interface

Once the program’s up and running, one of the largest differences between MediaCenter and TCPMP is revealed.

Whereas MediaCenter’s home screen is bold colourful icons, TCPMP is a more basic list and menu affair, using the Windows drop-down lists for navigation.
That said, it’s no problem and sticking with it pays off.

The main ‘File’ menu gives the following options:
Open File…
Playlist…
Next
Previous
Chapters
Media Info
Benchmark
About…
Exit

Under the ‘Options’ tab comes these options:
Speed (ranging from 10% to 200%)
Zoom (including fit best, fill screen, stretch to screen, fit + 10, fit + 20, fit + 30, 50%, 100%, 150%, 200%)
Pixel Aspect Ratio (Auto, Square, 4:3 screen, 4:3 NTSC, 4:3 PAL, 16:9 screen, 16:9 NTSC, 19:9 PAL)
Orientation (Follow GUI, Normal, Left-handed, Right-handed, Upside Down)
View (tick boxes - Titlebar, Timeslider, Taskbar)
Video (smooth zoom (only 50%), smooth zoom (always), Dither, quality, GDI, Null Video, Disabled, Streams)
Audio (stereo, stereo swapped, mono join, mono left, mono right, preamp decrease, preamp 0, preamp increase, Audio driver: Wave output, null audio, disabled, streams)
Subtitle (sync adjust, decress, reset, incress, stream)
Repeat
Shuffle
Equalizer
Settings

From settings you get YET ANOTHER menu, each with their own huge amounts of break off settings. The headers of these are:

General
Player
Equalizer
Colors
Hot Keys
File Associations
Buffering
Advanced
Subtitle

So from the two main drop down menus, you can see that there’s a wealth of customisable options available with TCPMP and they’re just the tip of the iceburg.

For example, when opening a file, the menu can be further expanded to filter the files into any of the 60 file formats supported.

Music

The biggest and best difference between this and MediaCenter has got to be the equalizer.

Plugging in straight and then switching on the EQ reveals a world of difference. What was forced out, brash and cold music in an instant became warm, full bodied and of excellent quality.
And the best part? It’s fully customisable.

By accessing the settings tab you get EVEN MORE options, one being the equalizer display which allows you to tinker with 10 sound aspects and save up to 25 presets.
This is a fantastic addition and makes listening to music on the MIDNite Xpress a brilliant and fully customizable experience.

Navigation is done through Windows type menus but that’s no problem due to ease of use and multiple selection ability and playlists are easily knocked up, another trump card for TCPMP.

Playlists are obviously endlessly customisable and there’s no limit to the amount you can make and save.

Playback quality is, as mentioned, excellent and album artwork is displayed while the track plays.

These are the basic functions but there are endless tweaks you can make in this awesome software.

Video

Again there are a huge amount of options but the basic video quality doesn’t quite match up to that of the MediaCenter due to occasional but very minor stuttering during playback.

This can all be played with in the settings and just messing about yields some really interesting results, for example, zoomed at 200% and played at vertical orientation the picture’s razor sharp and super smooth.
Therefore it can be easily deduced that the perfect picture can be found in regular viewing but in terms of ‘plug and play’, MediaCentre takes it for video.

Photos

Like video, a tap on the screen rotates the image.
The image quality is slightly higher than that offered by MediaCenter but that does have the preview interface which is slightly more convenient than TCPMP’s list menu.
Picture are displayed bright, bold and really colourful. To demonstrate, it’s the return of the grumpy cat.

The verdict

In a word, huge. TCPMP is a vast, fully customisable media player that at the bare minimum gives the MIDNite Xpress excellent music playback and at the most provides fully customisable audio and video playback with an endless amount of useful and intelligent options.
This is a feat in free software and hugely recommended, mostly for the excellent EQ and then for the complete user control it offers.

Read part 1 of the media player tests here.

Discuss on the MP4Nation forum.