TVisto Series 3.5'' Multimedia External Hard Drive Enclosure
by Metal Gear
Our Price: $99.00
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: CE
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Customers in the UK,
buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: Metal GearModel: 3500TVIS
Product features:
- Features 3.5-Inch IDE hard drive up to 500 GB supported
- USB 2.0 High Speed interface, Firewire 400 (IEEE 1394a) interface
- Audio: WAV, MP3, MPEG-4 (AAC), WMA, AC3, OGG
- Playback Media Formats Video: MPEG-1 (AVI, MPG), MPEG-2 (AVI, VOB), ISO, MPEG-4 (AVI, DivX, DivX VOD, XviD)
- Video Outputs: NTSC/PAL Composite Video, S-Video, Analog YPbPr Component Video
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of TVisto Series 3.5'' Multimedia External Hard Drive Enclosure
Customer Review: I have purchased 2, recommended to 5 and gave 2 as gifts
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the only product that does what I want it to do--safely back up my DVDs so my toddlers don't destroy them. Prior to getting this, there are movies I have literally purchase 4 or 5 times. Once only lasted a few days before one of the kids scratched it on the fireplace.
Forget all of the different media types it mentions--the only one you care about is ISO and it is the only one you ever need.
Others mention about it's lack of HD capability--they just haven't brought the right cable. It is a bit misleading that the cable looks like an HDMI but really isn't. Don't try it--it won't work.
You can, however, buy a component cable from anyone who distributes either the tVisto (this one) or mVisto (the mini one that is distributed in the United States by G-Tech as the "G-play" the same cable works--I've tried it as I own both.
Once connected to your TV, you tell the box that it is connected to a 1080p television and it is a pheonominal picture.
Anyone who says that it doesn't look as good as their TV, they just aren't ripping them right. If they use DVD shrink or something that is meant to shrink DVD's to fit on a single sided DVD then of course it is going to lower the quality--you just have to adjust shrink to not compress.
I own both the G-play (mVisto) and tVisto and love both products. You can put any size disk in them (I haven't tried the 750 gig but I have a 500 gig working in it no problem)
If you own a mac, you can format it as HFS though the backup software doesn't work as well on the mac so for me, though I have a mac, I just format it NTFS via a PC (so files can be larger than 4Gig) and it works fine.
Those of you who edit your home movies on a mac, you can create IMG files out of your DVDs (from iDVD) and all you have to do is rename the extension to ISO (it is really an ISO file under the covers) and it works just fine.
My Dad is a video nut and is constantly sending us DVDs of things of family events he has shot (he's 75). He used to travel with a stack of DVDs to play everyone his little movies. Last year, for Christmas, I ripped all of his movies and put them on a G-play and gave it to him for Christmas. Now, that is all he needs to take and he adds to it as he makes new movies.
If you poke around and find that the company behind these great products (MacPower) has created a network version which seems perfect--look closely--it doesn't support ISO. I was waiting for this product for the entire year they were working on it and only at the last minute did they drop ISO support so of course I didn't buy it.
The nice thing about ISO support is when you run it you get the fully working DVD (menus, chapters, languages, etc) If you choose to move just the main title, drop additional languages you still get chaptering and subtitles. There really isn't a better format to rip into.
5 friends have purchased them at my suggestion and all use it the same way I do--to back up their kids DVDs before they destroy them. All use it at least once a week, and several use it every day (kids watching movies on rotation). The DVDs stay safely, scratch free, on the shelf and the movies play over and over.
Though we don't really use it this way, I guess you can also get it to "time-shift" your rentals. Rent, Rip, return. Wait until you are ready to watch then Watch, Delete. I guess you can get a lot more access to titles on Mondays while still watching on Fridays. We don't use it that way, though. Aside from iMovies we create ourselves, we only use it to back up our purchased movies--a bad habit I developed in the days of forgetting to return rentals.
The photo playback is high res but clunky and not really worth messing with, the music playback is the same. Sure it would be great if it had thumbnails or Frontrow animations but it does something that no one else does--play ISOs and so I can put up with the file name listing and the lack of flash. In the end, once the movie is playing you just forget about it and enjoy.
If you decide you want to change movies? you just hit "Stop" and it brings you back to your list of movies. Point to another one and hit "Play" and you are right away starting the other movie: Wide screen, scaled to High Def.
FrontRow and the others are very slick, but until they play ISO's I really have no interest.
Description of TVisto Series 3.5'' Multimedia External Hard Drive Enclosure
The TVisto Multimedia Center is not just any old external hard drive enclosure - it's so much more! Imagine putting all your videos and music on one convenient device, and then plugging that device into your television for playback - that's the TVisto Multimedia Center! It even offers a remote control for ease of use - you just add a hard drive and go!!! The TVisto Multimedia Center offers extra capacity for large files, allowing you to store plenty of data, music, photos and even complete movie collections. The TVisto 3500TVIS is compatible with any standard IDE Hard Drive up to 500 GB, thats a lot of movies! The TVisto 3500TVIS Multimedia Center produces high quality video and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio for your pleasure. With lightning-fast USB 2.0 or Firewire 400, the TVisto offers hot plug and play, super-speedy data transfer and remarkable versatility. Instant backup! Instant storage! Instant Fun!Digital Cameras and Photo Categories