iomega screenplay hd multimedia drive, usb 2.0/av, 500gb - 34200

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-24
Nice HD storage unit, easy to use remote
This unit installed effortlessly on my main computer via a USB connection. After loading it full of pictures & videos, I took it over to a TV at a friends house. Using the ordinary yellow red white audio video out cable, it plugged right into the TV front panel. It displayed all the movies, image files, & even the audio files stored on it. It's nice and small, easy to carry. Will fit in a small handbag. Has very good outputs for audio & video including HDMI, & component video, and digital audio coax. It doesn't have a fiber optic audio output connection. It does have some type of European standard socket that kind of looks like a VGA or printer output but it's not. I am not familiar with it either. The internal operating system seems to handle most all of the ordinary mp3, mp4, avi, divx, jpeg type files I copied, but on it's own - it doesn't play back everything. There were some files that will play through on my desktop computer, but won't play on the internal operating system of the drive when connected to an external audio/video device. Overall, it's a really neat little external hard drive, and a really oustanding value at the $220 or so selling price. I like the portability, the remote control, & the fact that it will plug into just about any kind of t.v. set or projector. Audio & video quality are very high quality. And, I like it's very large 500gb capacity.

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-11
Compact Portable Movie Library
This drive is exactly what I expected it to be - a compact, portable drive that will play a library of movies without having to get up and change the DVD's. I can take the drive over to a friend's if we're in the mood for a movie, but cannot decide which one, or leave it in my bedroom so I can tap into the uncut, unedited version of my favorite movies if inspired by a showing on cable TV. Transferring files are easy via a simple "click and drag" or saving directly onto the unit as though it were a portable hard drive.

The unit comes with RCA, component, and HDMI ports to accommodate the various connectivity options a user has. I have it hooked up via the HDMI and have had no problems. Audio and video are crisp. There is also a credt card sized remote that conveniently snaps onto the bottom of the drive for storage/transport ease. The only thing I wish was better is the setup features. There are no explanations for what the different audio options are unless I test it out via trial and error. The instruction manual on the installation CD will tell me if no "x" then no "y," but I can still get the unit to produce different results despite what the instructions say.

I'm not sure why the other reviewers believed this drive is meant for high definition (HD). The box says it upconverts the picture and processed the "HD" picture. I processed "HD" to mean Hard Disk. It's the same shorthand used for camcorders - HDD is hard disk drive.

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-09
No Virgina, it doesn't mean high definition
I also bought this unit to archive video from my new hidef camcorder. Since it won't handle HD, it's just another external hard drive with somewhat buggy software. Oh well, back to the return bin.

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-09
Complete waste - HDMI flawed, playback clunky, performance weak
Unfortunately, all the features that are supposed to make this device stand-out, fall on their face. The HDMI port is a joke. I plugged this into two different model HDTVs (both 720p/1080i max resolution). When you power it on (which takes about 30-45 seconds to initialize) the display color isn't correct. In fact it's missing two of the color channels - RED and GREEN.

I had to actually plug the included (non-standard) component adapter into the TV, turn the drive on (without HDMI plugged in), get into the menu, switch the drive's display settings to 720p. Then while leaving it on, plug in the HDMI cable and switch the input on the TV for it to display all the colors. If you turned the drive off - or it froze and you had to reset it, you had to complete all those steps from the beginning.

Also, the device tends to freeze - A LOT. I had to reboot it by holding the power switch in the back so many times I lost count (it was over 10 times in one sitting). If you do actually get it to play back an AVI DivX movie, don't hold your breath. It completely froze 5 times with 5 different movies, all of which play fine on my Xbox360, Xbox (softmodded), and computer. This device, though potentially the most useful device for storing and playing back a large library of ripped DVDs, doesn't even work like its manual and ads say it should. On top of that Iomega decided to format the drive NTFS - which means you have to reformat it if you want to plug the USB into a Mac or Linux computer to start copying your library to it.

Avoid this thing like the plague. You can get a 500GB external drive, and a Philips upconverting DivX DVD player with HDMI and a USB port to plug a drive into for $40 less - and it works better than this piece of garbage.

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-09
Great Product for Movie files/Photo files & HDMI
I've got lots of video photos and music so I was happy to see these media hard drives. I was cautious so I looked at reviews and support forums to find out how user friendly they were. This one was only a little more expensive than a comparable 500 GB hard drive so I felt like it was worth a try.

For movies, I've had a few issue with the audio sync in the Divx format. TMPGEnc Express 4.0 & Divx Converter have been the best tools to get video into this format. TMPGEnc is better subtitles & avoiding audio sync issues. MPEG/VOB files play great and I haven't had any problems with them. Xvid is supposed to work but it hasn't for me since the audio is always out of sync. High quality video files look just like a DVD when playing on my HDTV.

For photos, the pictures look great in HD...some of the portrait type photos get cropped but it's only been a problem for about 1 out of 20 pictures...I plan to just crop them in my software so they look better on the screenplay. The slideshow speed slows down a bit when you have pictures that are 12 megapixels. There are a few different slideshow speeds to choose from and you can add a music file to your picture folder and get a soundtrack to play along with the pictures. There are no slideshow transitions or motion effects but the HMDI connection allows the pictures to look like they do on a PC Screen when played back on HDTV.

For music, I have mp3 files and they play fine, but the features for playlist and shuffle are done with a seperate software (on the installation disc)...so I haven't used it much for music.

The biggest limitation of the device is that it's hard to navigate through the hundreds (or thousands) of files it can store. Use the PC to get things organized in subfolders BEFORE you try to find a specific file while hooked up to the TV. Overall I'm a big fan of this kind of device & so far this is my favorite in the category for price/features. The HDMI connection isn't available on all these devices, so if you have HDMI on your TV you should consider this one.

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