Customer Reviews

Iomega 34386 ScreenPlay TV Link

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This gadget lets you connect, in theory, a portable hard drive or flash drive to a TV or projector. Unlike other similar devices, including those by Iomega, it does NOT come with any on-board storage -- you plug your own storage device into the USB drive.

On the plus side, it's tiny, lightweight, and only requires a lightweight power supply and the desired AV cable (component, composite or HDMI). It has a configurable menu that lets you choose PAL/NTSC; widescreen, 4:3 letterbox or 4:3, and a variety of audio options.

When you turn it on and plug in a compatible hard drive, it displays the content in the same folders that you have on the disc. You can also rip a DVD (I tried with a homemade disc), and when you click on that folder, it will read it just like a DVD and display the menus. I also successfully played xvid and mp3 files. For travel, it will be great to just bring this device and a tiny portable hard drive instead of a DVD player and a bunch of discs. It comes with a miniremote that seems to work well.

The device worked successfully with a Toshiba 320 gig portable HD, but only one of the three properly formatted (FAT32 or NTFS) thumb drives I tried. The device failed to recognize the other two. So beware -- it does not work with every type of portable media. Maybe Iomega can fix this with a firmware update... but that leads to my next point.

As of this writing (12 Aug 2008), despite the statements in the "getting started" flyer included in the package, there is no user manual or support page for this device ANYWHERE on the Iomega web site that I can find. And I've looked and looked. All the searches at Iomega either lead to the sales page or support pages for its TV Link devices with an integrated hard drive. A search by serial number on their support page leads you to an old mp3 player. This is incredibly clumsy on Iomega's part, but not unusual given my past experiences with them. (If anyone finds a support page, please leave a note with a link in the product's forum here -- I'd really appreciate it.)

Overall, this product has a lot of upsides, but as is typical with Iomega, it falls a little bit short. This is nothing Iomega couldn't fix with a little effort, and I'll be glad to eat my words if they get their act together with respect to 1) flash drive compatibility and 2) product support.

Edited to add, 26 August: Since I posted this, Iomega has added a support page for this device, and they also contacted me as a result of this review to try to resolve the flash drive incompatibility that I experienced. I give them full credit for being responsive to their customers.

Edited to add, 30 December: I'm still pleased with this unit. I've taken it on several trips, and it's great to be able to watch what you want in a hotel room. (It works in any hotel with a tv that has accessible composite or component inputs.) The upscaling is great -- even on an HDTV, plain old divx/xvid files look great. I use it almost exclusively with a portable 320 gig western digital drive, and the unit always finds the drive without problem. All in all, for the price, this is a great unit.

I heard about this from a WD media player review and bought this because it is cheaper. It played 1 out of 10 movies I tried (mp4 and avi). I was too busy to return, so I lost. The WD has played over 100 movies without one failure. So it would take at least 100 of these to equal one WD.

Tested with 160GB, 320GB and 500GB WD passport drives, and all of them worked perfectly. This is a great product overall.

I bought this after buying the 500GB Screenplay. I love both. My only gripe is that, until today, none of the 6 thumb drives I tried worked with the ScreenPlay TV Link. I got a free thumbdrive with a netbook I just bought at [...] and what-do-ya know!!! The thumbdrive actually works with the ScreenPlay! Hallelujah! Finally. The brand is "X-Digital Media 4GB Travel Warrior".

Does exactly what it says and works perfectly. Was setup and running after 5 minutes. Very happy with this buy!

Pros: Cheap, if it recognizes your drive its very good about playing mp3's and photos, in fact it even supported my playlists I had created with winamp. Picture very good on analog tv, at least as good as archos or ipod video players
Cons: Does not recognize most of my external drives, and on the few that it does it will not play any videos except for AVI files, as a Mac owner most of my files are MP4, but the unit does not recognize them, and I don't even use the h.264 codec for these. And on the AVI files its hit or miss whether the unit will support the fast forward or reverse features, some files it does, others it doesn't. What is the point of having a remote if it only pauses the playback? There is a support page for this unit online, but while it mentions support for optical SPDIF out there is no instructions on how to use it.

Summary: Wait until this product can handle all FAT volumes, can handle more file types, and gets more codecs for video file support, like its big brother does

On compatible hard drives, this product is very nice. It will allow you to play the contents of the HD on your TV. It comes with a remote control, which makes it very convenient.

However, it is NOT compatible with any external drive that does not have its own power source (I learned this from their customer support). It would have been nice if they had stated this in their product description.

I had to return as it was not compatible with several of my drives. It did work well with the two Iomega drives that I have, although it did take a few attempts to get it to recognize them each try.

I would say that there are better options out there.

Does not accept .mp4 files. Ugly interface. Buy Western Digital's WDTV. It accepts almost everything and is much more pleasant.

Started up within a few minutes and is running fine. Dint need help of a video converter for any of the formats I needed, examples AVI and Divx. This is a portable and versatile tv link player which I am experimenting with almost every day, no complaints.

My initial intro to this product left me truly disappointed with Iomega. I purchased this in Dec.2009, solely on the fact that it would play the media files I had on my NTFS external drive. Imagine my aggravation when only a handful of my movies played and I have since found out why.
Although Iomega advertises this to play the digital media files stored on your USB hard drive (NTFS or FAT32), it clearly did not! If you're like most of the population, your drive is formatted to NTFS as my external drive was. I REFORMATTED that drive to FAT32 (as tech team advised me), then ALL files played. I believe Iomega should clearly display that this product is limited if formatted as NTFS platform and therefore recommend using a FAT32 platform. (Tech also advised me that product also has limits when used with drives over 500GB)
Once I formatted my drive, the ScreenPlay TV Link worked perfect! Very portable and easy to use.