RE: [ukha_d] Maplin USB cage with tv out - £40

["Paul Gordon" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I picked one of these up over the weekend as well, and pretty much
concur w=
ith the points below. I had a couple of hours fighting the thing tooth and
=
nail to get to a point where I could use it. - Not the device's fault
reall=
y, - Microsoft are mainly to blame for their instance on not allowing XP
to=
format drives over 32GB with FAT32. - I have no machines in the house runn=
ing older NT4 or W98 that I could use to format it (well, I have a couple
o=
f Fuji panels, but they have no USB port). Therefore I had to troll around
=
the web looking for a tool I could use to format it - I could have used a
W=
in98 bootdisk, but most of my machines don't have floppy drives any more
ei=
ther!

A couple of other gripes:

Alone among all my external USB drive cages, this one DOES care very much
t=
hat the drive must be set to Master. If the drive isn't set to master, the
=
device won't see/use it.

It has separate output jacks for AV (composite & stereo), and
component. It=
does not appear to detect which jack you are using and switch itself accor=
dingly. Out of the box, mine appeared to be set for component output, so
wh=
en I connected it to the front AV ports on my TV, I got a big fat nothing
-=
obviously in true UKHA style I hadn't read the manual at this point, so I =
initially thought it was bust... - The trick is there is a button on the
re=
mote which cycles through the video output modes, you have to press this
un=
til the image appears on screen. Fortunately, it appears as though once
set=
, it does remember the preference, as I haven't had to repeat this
operatio=
n on subsequent uses.

On the subject of the manual - it a cracking example of Japanenglish!! - I
=
nearly wet myself laughing at some of the text.

I dropped a couple of ripped DVD's on it, - ripped as VOB files in a
VIDEO_=
TS folder. Under the "Video" section of the media interface, it
appears to =
scan the drive, and list every found file as an entry in the videos list.
-=
Hence 2 dvd's showed up as 18 entries under the list of available movies. =
- Each entry appears as a screenshot of the first frame of video in the
fil=
e, - so most of them are just plain black boxes - not very helpful, and
alm=
ost impossible to know which one to select.

Using the "File" section of the media interface, one can browse
the filesys=
tem and so more easily select a single movie, since I have each ripped DVD
=
in a folder named as per the movie title. Navigating to a VIDEO_TS file
one=
can then select and play a VOB file. If you manage to find the correct fir=
st one, and get the DVD menu, I haven't (yet) figured out how to navigate
t=
he DVD menu using the supplied remote, since there aren't DVD specific
comm=
and buttons on it. - This may just need a bit more playing on my part.

When I actually got a ripped DVD to play, it was actually quite good (on
my=
tests just using a wee portable). Video quality actually seemed quite acce=
ptable.

I would imagine this device would be quite a bit more useable if the
movies=
were "prepared" for it first:

Firstly, encode DVD's so that they are in a single file. Thus each movie
wi=
ll only have one entry under the "video" menu. - Clearly the
FAT32 requirem=
ent will mean the files have to be under 2GB, so at least some
recompressio=
n will be necessary to achieve that.

Ensure that the DVDs are encoded with the main feature only. - strip out
th=
e menu and all extras etc. - this will obviously help keep the size down
as=
well as make the launching of each movie more user-friendly.

Ensure that all "black space" is stripped from the beginning of
the file, s=
o that the first frame of video shows something useful, - like the movie
ti=
tle for example.

If all this is done, I can imagine this being a fairly useful and
user-frie=
ndly bit of kit, for just beer-money. - I imagine a lot of people probably
=
already do all the above preparation anyway - for things like XBMC, PSP,
an=
d the like.

One other point, the memory card slots in the front are *only* for playing
=
media from, - they are *NOT* available to the PC when the drive is
connecte=
d via USB, so this can't double up as a PC card reader.

Paul G.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> Chris Miles
> Sent: 20 August 2006 21:17
> To: UKHA_D Group
> Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Maplin USB cage with tv out - =A340
>=20
> haha... in all seriousness though.... the sunday thing is still
confusing
> me :/
>=20
> Ok first gripes about the device.
>=20
> It is forcing me to use FAT32 so its secondary use as a "storage
device"
> already has a pretty
> serious drawback as I have been backing all my DVDs up as ISO files
for
> use in my forthcoming
> home theatre system. So I am going to need to partition the drive down
th=
e
> middle: half to be
> used for the media centre device's use, and half for storage of files
> larger than 4GB (even if its
> just the temporary use while I unpack my ISOs into folder structured
DVDs=
.
>=20
> Second gripe is that the media centre and hard drive mode are not
operabl=
e
> at the same time,
> and to activate hard drive mode I actually need to walk to my server
> cupboard and manually plug
> in the USB cable, and vice versa when wanting to goto media centre
mode.
> It would be so much
> easier to sit on my couch, switch to hd mode, copy some new videos
onto
> the drive and then
> start watching them. Possible I can figure a way on the server to
disable
> the USB port on the
> machine manually possibly causing the device to fire into media centre
> mode. I will investigate
> this in the next few days as well.
>=20
> Chris
>=20