Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link DX
MRP: Rs 9000
Street price: Rs 8000 (Letsbuy.com)

The most common way of watching movies or playing songs these days is by simply downloading digital media or by ripping the optical media you own. It is a fact that optical discs are not really as popular a preferred medium for the above. Therefore, movies, songs and photos are almost universally stored in digital format on hard drives. It therefore makes sense to be able to play them directly from hard drives, albeit the portable ones or flash drives. While this is possible using a computer, a media player is a more sensible way of going about, because it is very portable, usually works better with the possibility of connecting to different display types, and is very easy to use. The Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link DX is not only a media player, but it is an entertainment hub, thanks to its Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity options that make use of DLNA. Capable of playing just about any audio and video format and outputting to a HDTV or an analogue TV, it even has internet features.

 

Bundle
* Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link DX
* Remote control
* AV cable
* Power adapter with three different plug types
* HDMI cable
* Wi-Fi USB dongle
* Quick Start Guide
* CD with manual

The bundle is adequate with nothing left for you to buy extra.

Design and Features
The Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link DX media player looks like a rectangular black box with rounded sides made of polymer. The top is glossy, thus attracting dust and fingerprints. Its dimensions are 17.5 cm wide, 11 cm breadth and 3 cm thick, making it a little larger than the usual media player. The build quality seems to be good. It has ventilation perforations on either side near the back to let out hot air from within, while the four flat rubber legs at the bottom help it hold its ground. The player has two USB ports at the front and a blue power LED to indicator.

The ScreenPlay TV Link DX is capable of reading from USB flash drives and hard drives with multiple file systems (even with multiple partitions), although it is mentioned that USB optical drives are not supported. Memory cards are also not supported due to the lack of a reader. It is ironic that a player which supports photo viewing, does not feature a memory card reader, which would have made it so much convenient for the user to just pop in the memory card into the media player and view the photos. NTFS file system is supported, so media file size limitation is not an issue. You can connect it to a standard analogue television using the AV cable, or hook it up to your HDTV using the HDMI cable. An SPDIF output can be used to connect to compatible audio systems. The third USB port at the back can also be used to connect a USB storage device. An Ethernet port has been provided for wired network connectivity.

 

The three USB ports on the device can be used independently to connect three USB storage devices simultaneously, which can be chosen from the interface. When using wireless network, you can plug in the Wi-Fi dongle in any one of these USB ports, and the other two free ports may be used as required. We must note here that there is no control button present on the device itself; a remote control is a must to be able to use this device. We will talk about the remote control in details later in this review.

Performance
On connecting the player to a power source, the power LED at the front right glows red, and when you switch it ON using the provided remote control, it glows blue. It takes around 38 seconds to initialise and get the player into the ready state. This is a considerably long duration for a media player to initialise, especially when it is not even connected to a network. The player initialises into 720p at the start as it tries to detect the connected display, and then switches to 1080p when it detects a capable display. The interface is very smooth and easy to use and looks polished. It appears somewhat similar to that of the PS3.

 

Going about the user interface is very easy, thanks to the horizontal media segregation into Movies, Music, Photos, and Online media. Each of these sections has vertically placed components. Being a networked media player, each media section has an online component which includes Media Server using the DLNA functionality, and Shared Folders. The former lets any device on the network play media files using this player, while the latter allows the Iomega player to access media files stored on different devices on the network.

Each media section also has a File Manager using which, you can browse the contents of the USB storage devices connected to the player. Folders and files show up as you would see them in Windows Explorer and on highlighting a file, a thumbnail preview is shown on the left. You can connect up to three USB devices to this player and access all of them simultaneously. They appear as USB1 and USB2 for the front USB ports, and USB3 for the rear. The Online media section consists of an internet browser, Mediafly, Flickr, and YouTube. Inclusion of Skype would have added a lot of value and we hope that a future firmware update will fix that.

 

The Settings section lets you adjust different settings for the player. The Audio/Video settings allows you to choose the type of video output, which includes HDMI and Composite, and also lets you choose the type of HDMI output you prefer, including 1080p 24Hz. You can choose between an aspect ratio of 16:9 wide or 4:3 for older displays. Those with 16:10 displays have been left in the lurch. Audio output defaults to Stereo, but you can choose to have Digital or Digital without HDMI audio.

The Playback settings consist of option to toggle subtitles and font sizes as well as text encoding. Photo scaling and transition as well as slideshow interval (default 3 seconds) can also be adjusted. You can also customise the file browser display to not display thumbnails to make browsing faster. File management settings let you copy, move, or delete files and folders on connected USB storage devices.

The System settings include language selection for the interface. The Media library function can also be turned on or off. There is also an option to toggle the Quick start mode on or off, although it comes with a warning that switching it on will increase the power consumption. We found out that the startup time remains exactly the same even when this mode is switched on. The Network setup lets you automatically or manually configure wired and wireless network. Keep in mind that you cannot use wired or wireless network simultaneously. There is also an option to upgrade the firmware of the device over the internet.

Since there is not a single button on the unit itself, all the functions have to be controlled via the remote control unit. The remote control has an unconventional square shape and has unusual buttons too. It has D-pad type buttons on the front left and right, of which the left buttons are for playback controls, while the right are for navigational. You will probably feel right at home if you are used to using the PS3 as a media player, but the controls have not been even been mapped in a way similar to that of the console. We almost always ended up trying to use the Return button just above the right D-pad to get out of a video as is the general tendency, but this doesn't work because you can only get out by pressing the Stop button of the left D-pad.

 

The presence of a full QWERTY keypad is not necessary in the remote control of a media player, but controls to select the aspect ratio, subtitles, and the ability to go to a specific time segment of a file should not have been missed. Granted that a few of these controls are available after you press the Setup button, but dedicated buttons for the same will simplify the process. That being said, the QWERTY keypad is definitely useful for internet activity, when you need to quickly type in alpha-numeric messages.

Several options such as the ability to select PAL or NTSC video standards, noise reduction option, etc, are missing. Most media formats are supported, but it did not play a few FLV files downloaded from YouTube. While the user interface completely occupies the screen, it was found that a margin of around an inch was left on all sides during any video playback. This applied to our standard 16:9 video, which occupied the entire screen area when played back using the Amkette FlashTV HD media player.

The playback of media files was smooth without any hiccups regardless of the resolution of the media file. There wasn t a single file format we tried, that the player could not handle. The player can even handle ISO files for DVDs and Blu-rays. The output image quality is excellent. Adjustments for contrast, brightness, etc, are not available in the player, so you have to depend on your TVs settings to adjust them. SD videos are scaled up well to Full HD displays. HD videos appear better than satellite television on old CRT TVs.

The player supports 7.1-channel Dolby Digital and DTS Audio, so the audio quality is good too. However, there are no audio adjustments such as bass and treble. You can choose the audio track from a video file when it contains more than one.

We were interested in finding out the power consumed by this device, so we connected it to a Kill-A-Watt meter. With the soft power switched off (red LED glowing), the power consumption showed as 0 W, which means that it is less than 0.5 W. While playing any video, or even when not playing anything, the power consumption was found to be constant at around 7 W, which is quite low, especially when playing Full HD 1080p content. This is an astoundingly low figure, and more so when you compare it with the power consumption figures achieved while playing the same files using a PC. For comparison's sake, a PC can consume an average of 100 W while playing 1080p HD videos and around 85 W for DVD quality videos. The PC we used, contained an AMD Phenom II X2 550 with Galaxy GeForce 460GTX GC Edition and a single hard drive spinning at 7,200 RPM.

Verdict
The Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link DX media player proved to be a mixed bag when it comes to delivering the final verdict. While it does bring a lot to the table according to the features on paper, it does have its share of woes. As a media player, it works without a problem in most cases, and with most file formats. Upscaling is handled well and there are options to connect to your HDTV or even old display devices using the composite output. The network and DLNA functionality will appeal to those who own devices that can take advantage of this feature. It can literally turn your ordinary TV into its Smart version. Inclusion of Skype would have made it more appealing, though. That will sum up the good things about this player. You can plug in up to three USB storage devices with almost any file system and this player will read all of them without a problem.

The problems with this player are evident right at the start as it takes around 38 seconds to start up. A media player should be up in an instant, but this one takes more time than it takes for a PC to boot. The remote control is not at all user-friendly and most will have problems getting used to its unconventional design. It seems like ergonomics had taken a backseat when this remote control was designed. The interface made to resemble that of a PS3 was found to be sluggish at times, especially during movie playback. If it can display photos, isn't it logical to include a memory card reader, considering that this device is large enough to accommodate it?

Priced at an M.R.P. of Rs 9000 and covered by 3-year warranty, the Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link DX media player is priced too expensive when compared to competitors such as the WD TV Live Hub, which costs a thousand rupees more and does not feature Wi-Fi connectivity, but comes with a 1 TB hard drive inside.

Features: 4.5/5
Performance: 3/5
Value For Money: 3/5
MoJo: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3.5

TAGS: Media Players, Iomega, Jayesh