Geeks.com sent us for a review an external hard drive enclosure case, the “TVisto Series 3.5” Multimedia HDD Enclosure” (2.5″ series also available). But this is not just another hard drive enclosure, but also a multimedia jukebox. And it’s running uCLinux, an embedded version of Linux.The Hardware Aspect
The enclosure is made from aluminum on the sides and plastic on the front and back. On the front you will find buttons that control the software side of the device. On the back you will find two FW400 ports, one mini-USB 2.0 one, one A/V out proprietary jack, an on/off power switch and an SPDIF digital audio jack. On the box you will also find a plastic stand for the device, a remote control, FW and USB cables, a power supply, a digital audio cable and an A/V & S-Video cable. Available from MacPower are also HDTV, SCART and VGA cables to be optionally purchased.
Geeks.com also sent us an 250 GB IDE ATA-133 hard drive to test the TVisto with (up to 500 GB drives are supported). To place the drive inside, you must open one of the the aluminum sides by removing 3 screws and force the door open after you do that. Connecting the drive to the internal power and IDE connectors was easy, although we had to place the drive to “cable select” to make it work as it wouldn’t as “Master” (even if the TVisto manual specifically says that the drive must be “Master”).
We tested the drive with both its USB and Firewire connections and it worked very fast and reliably with both. It only took a few seconds copying a 400 MB DivX movie to it. We tested with Linux, Mac OS X and Windows; all three correctly recognized the drive. At the end, we decided to format it as NTFS instead of FAT32 or HFS+ (all 3 file systems are supported in read/write mode) because FAT32 doesn’t support file sizes of more than 4 GBs each and that would pose a problem if we were to test with backuped DVD disks.
The Software Aspect
To start using the device with your TV you must manually create 4 folders on the root of the newly formatted drive, named Firmware, Movies, Pictures and Music. Then, you just drag-n-drop in it your multimedia files, or simply other files you want stored on the hard drive. The device came with the latest version of the firmware (from September 15th 2005) so no upgrading was needed (although it’s easy to upgrade).
The device supports mpeg1/2/4 (avi, vob, iso dvd, divx, xvid/vod, mpg) with subtitle support for video, jpeg for pictures (up to 8 megapixel resolution) and wave, mp3, aac, wma, ac3 and ogg for audio with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround support.
We connected the A/V cable to our 55″ Sharp HDTV for testing. The device loads its main screen on TV in less than 5 seconds from power up. There are 4 icons to select for using the nicely layed-out remote control; one for each media kind and one for Settings. On the Settings screen you can switch between composite sources, select PAL or NTSC, language, upgrade the firmware, etc.
I have reviewed over 5 multimedia devices this year and I must say this for the record: The TVisto is the most file-format compatible device of them all. It played all kinds of DivX and mpeg video files I threw at it (almost all encoded differently). All the other devices I have reviewed would either not support B-Frames, or they wouldn’t support a particular encoding, or it wouldn’t support the audio encoding that would accompany the video. The TVisto played them all without a hitch (except an HD 1080i divx clip which was documented in the first place as not supported). TVisto doesn’t know how to down-sample videos so make sure your videos are encoded at 720×480 or below.
Music playback worked very well too, we tried various differently encoded WMA, mp3 and ogg files. However, you will have to create folders and subfolders of your music and place your files in the right ones. I did the “mistake” of drag-n-dropping all my 240 music files to the “Music” folder and so I then experienced a very slow response. When clicking on the Music icon it would take up to 8 seconds just to load the folder with its 240 files and this is very annoying. My iPod doesn’t seem to have this problem and we should not forget that the iPod uses a much slower drive. Other than that, file compatibility was great, and after 5 minutes a screen saver (with a customized message) would popup to the screen to make sure that the TV screen won’t “burn”.
Picture viewing was very pleasant, as rotating, zooming and panning were supported. The TVisto was able to even read two “weird” jpeg files I have among my collection, image files that some devices fail to read. Yet again, the TVisto proved its great compatibility.
Conclusion
If you are in search for a mobile storage solution that is presentable and pretty light in weight, this is a good buy. And the fact that you can store and playback video on any TV is a great plus. If there are two problems with the device then it’s the lack of an ethernet jack with an SMB server (for easy copying of files over LAN) and the slow reaction of the UI on folders with long file lists (it’s pretty fast otherwise).
Many readers would compare the TVisto with a PC-based similar solution running an XP or a Linux-based solution like MythTV, Freevo, gbPVR and MediaPortal. The difference is that TVisto is a mobile storage solution first and foremost and a multimedia device secondly. It can’t record or work as a Tivo, but it can playback content with the help of a simple interface and an easy put-together storage solution. On the other hand, the PC-based solutions are more expensive as they require special supported video and TV cards and fast-ish x86 CPUs to manage recording. And the worst part is that putting together a (Linux-based) software PVR requires expertise to properly install and configure Freevo or MythTV. TVisto comes pre-configured and requires very little time to put together. At the very end, it all depends how much your time is worth or what kind of features you truly need.
Rating: 8/10
What were they thinking? If it had a network jack I would consider getting one, but I’d hate to have to this thing to my desktop just to load up the files.
matt
Well, don’t forget that this IS a mobile solution. So getting it to your PC is not a big deal. But yes, there is some inconvenience there.
In my case, it is very easy to actually move the enclosure, but it’s really a pain to have to also move the power supply to my office and re-attach it there. I have LOTS of cables on the back of my desks and doing so is really, really a pain.
So, yeah, while moving the enclosure itself is easy, having to deal with the power supply is not. This is why an ethernet jack with a samba server in it would be ideal.
Well, I am pretty lazy, and my computer is in a different building from my house, plus, did I mention I’, lazy?
Hopefully that rumored Intel Based Apple mac mini thingy will come out. Otherwise one of these days I’m going to have to put together a myth tv box.
matt
The Mvisto looks even better; it appears to be the same hardware/firmware as the TVisto but in a much smaller case. Unfortunately the Mvisto appears to be available in every country except the USA!?
The MVisto is for 2.5″ laptop hard drives, which are more expensive and slower than the 3.5″ ones.
Alternatively, you can always get the TVisto for 2.5″ if you really need something really small. It’s linked from the article above.
Also if you look at the specs, seems like TVisto supports more formats… especially in Audio and subtitles.
On the TVisto’s site, systems requirements I noticed it only shows it is for Windows and MAC.
How come no mention of Linux.
It is running Linux, and you would think even if the bigger market is for Windows users, at least a mention of Linux should be appropriate.
This makes no sense.
For a commercial company, it does make sense of sense actually. Points:
1. MacPower, the manufacturer, doesn’t necessarily develops the firmware too. In this case, they don’t have developers on board to “force” their marketing/sales dept to support Linux as a desktop platform for it.
2. Most Linux distributions don’t mount automatically and give the right RW permissions to normal users. This is a major support headache for all similar companies. They simply don’t want to deal with it (and I personally would do the same, support people cost too much).
3. Formatting the disk (which is required the first time you put a new drive in it) under Linux is also not a “right-click affair”. Again, support costs.
4. The recommended file system to format the drive with is NTFS. Many Linux distros don’t come with NTFS pre-installed because of patent issues, so users would have to use either FAT32 (which is problematic with filesizes over 4GB) or HFS+ (which Windows doesn’t support — no other file systems are supported by the firmware).
From the pictures of the back, it looks like they use some sort of proprietary video/audio connectors. They provide one A/V cable with the package. For VGA/HDTV video and digital audio, it looks like you have to purchase some additional accessories.
There seems to be some good potential for car installs. I really like that it supports ISOs and Ogg Vorbis.
3.5″:
# Playback Media Formats Video:
# MPEG-1 (AVI, MPG)
# MPEG-2 (AVI, VOB), ISO
# MPEG-4 (AVI, DivX, DivX VOD, XviD)
# DivX Subtitle:
# SUB (MicroDVD format)
# SRT (SubRIP format)
# SMI (SAMI format)
# Embedded Multiple Subtitle support
# Audio:
# WAV
# MP3
# MPEG-4 (AAC)
# WMA
# AC3
# OGG Vorbis
# Photo:
# JPG baseline and progressive up to 8 mega pixel
# Supported File Systems:
# NTFS
# FAT32
# HFS+
2.5″:
# Playback Media Formats Video:
# MPEG-1 (AVI, MPG)
# MPEG-2 (AVI, VOB)
# MPEG-4 (AVI, DivX, DivX VOD, XviD)
# Audio:
# MP3
# Photo:
# JPG baseline and progressive up to 8 mega pixel
# Supported File Systems:
# FAT32 (single or up to 4 multiple partitions)
Isn’t the difference a little bit too drastic? Why is format and FS support in the 2.5″ version so poor? After all, 2.5″ drives, while smaller, obviously have enough capacity to install all necessary software 😉 They could make a much cooler product with 2.5″ (the same versatility plus a more compact package), but apparently didn’t want that… What’s the reason?
My guess is that because the 2.5″ is physically much smaller, they had to use less memory and maybe even less video-related electronics. For example, if the firmware of the 3.5″ runs on 4 MBs with two chips of 2 MBs each, they had to run on a single chip of 2 MBs on the 2.5″ version. And that would mean only one thing: removal of drivers and code in order to fit on the 2 MBs ROM.
Eugenia,
From a layman’s point of view what was the video and audio playback quality like compared to PC, any unecpected artifacts, colours, pops etc?
Quality was really good. Only one DivX video from the 15-20 videos I tried was ignoring some frames (it was not dropping frames per se, it was just ignoring some of them, it seemed like an incompatibility with the switches used on the encoder that created that video — which seemed to be Cyberlink’s encoder).
Other than that, quality of sound, pictures and all videos was perfect.
Eugenia, can you try playing an .M4A file? The specs are a little unclear about whether this format is supported.
Send me a (small) such file (or a download url) so I can try it. I have no .m4a files here.
ok, I encoded an .m4a file with the latest iTunes (non-DRM’ed) and placed it on the device. So, it doesn’t play them. I even copy/renamed that .m4a file to .aac or .mp4 (just in case), and it would still not play them. So, I guess it doesn’t support that particular file format.
This is clearly stated on the bottom of their page btw:
http://www.galaxymetalgear.com/Tvisto.htm
*** AAC stands for “Adaptive Audio Coding” and does not support AAC files created by iTunes!
If you want me to try a non-iTunes .m4a file, send me one and I will try it for you.
Edited 2005-11-29 23:14
Thanks for trying this. I have to wonder what kind of “MPEG-4 AAC” files exsit that don’t use the MP4 container. Maybe raw bitstreams.
I guess this is the new world of multimedia, where devices support tons of bastardized, nonstandard formats instead of the standard formats.
This thing looks pretty awesome, I wonder what the hackability of it is?
I’m thinking about getting one and hacking around with it to get a USB wireless adapter and Samba installed. (Once the wireless adapter is installed, one could mount a directory from one’s mythtv and use this as a second head for it).
I was looking at building a wireless mythtv “client” (ie, just the player, no tuners(server in other room)) with similar hardware specs to this and kept coming up around $450, this’ll save me some bucks.
Ah, here we go, looking for a solution to make this work wirelessly, found these items; Theoretically, one can just plug it in as a USB drive and go:
http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=12&l2=44&l3=0&model=460&model…
Looks nice and small, does only what you need and nothing more, $88
http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=12&l2=43&l3=0&model=359&model…
Does a little more, can use as a replacement for my router, $99
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=390
About the same as above, but I seem to find quite a few people with problems with it… $99
ive seen similar ones, and they all look more like hacks then proffesional products that will maintain support. One big question for me is: It says it supports VOBs, can it use DVD menus with VOB files?
Specs arent always everything, has anyone confirmed with the company that the 2.5″ has that many more features lacking? Also any confirmation on FLAC support?
My basic desires are: FLAC and VOB w/ Menus
Price is a plus (thats why Im lookuing at the 2.5″)
> It says it supports VOBs, can it use DVD menus with VOB files?
I don’t know about .vob files with menus (plain vob do playback), but it DOES support menus when the DVD is extracted as an .ISO instead. It is a much more prefered method to play DVDs via this device.
>Also any confirmation on FLAC support?
Not supported.
…NTFS instead of FAT32 or HFS+ (all 3 file systems are supported in read/write mode)…
What’s this? NTFS in read/write? Is that (safely) possible? Are they using OSS drivers, if so which ones?
The device has –obviously– two modes: one as a simple drive enclosure and one as an embedded multimedia device.
It is READ-only when Linux loaded when connected on the TV. It is Read-write when you connect the device to a Windows PC. You can’t rename/edit/delete files when connected to TV (in linux mode).
Actually, I think i read mention that ntfs read/write support is stable enough in kernel 2.6.14.
I was wondering if you could test the following two files for me, they represent a sample DVB (satellite mpeg-2 format). This is the format DISH network uses, at 544×480 resolution NTSC.
http://rapidshare.de/files/8356896/DVB_Tvisto_Test.rar.html
The .vdr file is from my PVR, the mpg file is the same .vdr file converted into a program stream MPG-2. If you could please try this:
1. Try to play the .vdr file (if it doesn’t recognize the extention..then..see #2)
2. Rename the .vdr file to .mpg/mpeg and try it.
3. Try to the converted .mpg file included (it’s different than just renaming like above)
I’d like to know if Tvisto can play raw DVB recordings, either with the .vdr suffix or just renaming it to .mpg. If it won’t, I’d like to know if it will play PS MPEG files that are nonstandard NTSC resolutions (544×480).
SOunds like a lot, but would only take you five minutes max! Thanks!
1. DVB_544x480_Raw.vdr
Doesn’t “see” it at all in the file list.
2. DVB_544x480_Raw-vdr.mpg (the above renamed)
Doesn’t play it at all.
3. DVB_544x480_Raw.mpg (converted)
Plays it for about 3 seconds correctly and then exits abruptly. It seems to be either too high-res to decode or something else in that specific format that doesn’t like.
Please note that normal .mpg video files play just fine (e.g. SVCD quality).
Thank you very much, that format is nonstadard in almost every way, it was long shot.
Found it for a little less over here…
TvistoU2F $155.00
http://www.dealsurprise.com/raatxmidtoca.html
That is really nice, but unfortunately they dont ship it outside of US.
hi Eugenia,
Does this wonderful stuff support 110V electricity? I am in Japan, and the only electricity voltage available is 110V, not 220V as in other countries.
I suppose that it is OK, as it is kind of mobility device (?), same as laptop, which supports all kinds of power voltage (?)
Thanks.
Yes it is. You will need an adapter for the different kind of plug, but the voltage is supported: from 100 to 240V.
Eugenia,
# Video Outputs:
# NTSC/PAL Composite Video
# S-Video
# Analog YPbPr Video
# SCART RGB
# VGA (1024×768)
# HDTV (480p, 720p, 1080i)
I have a very old TVset (produced in 199x), but I am not sure that this device supports my TV. How can I confirm that?
I guess the “NTSC/PAL Composite Video” stands for normal/old TV?
Thanks
Yes, your TV most probably has either S-Video and/or the normal 3 AV jacks (the red, white and yellow inputs). So yes, I am sure it works.
Edited 2005-11-30 07:58
I just tried to order this stuff from Geeks.com to Japan, and the lowest shipping price is “FedEx International Economy $86.00”. That is a crazy price!!!
Anybody can recommend me a better online shop with cheaper shipping fee?
Thanks.
Please email me in person, I might be able to help out with this.
It’s a bloody shame that they don’t support ext2 / ext3. My external harddisk now uses ext3, and I mostly use it with windows. ext2 support for windows is much better than ntfs support for linux.
Is there an ext2/ext3 driver for Windows XP? If so, where could I download it?
I’m currently using an extra FAT32 partition to move data back and forth between Linux and Windows, but having r/w access to my Linux home folder from Windows would be so much better!
There are 2 drivers with RW support, so you CAN use ext2 in Windows. Beware: no journalling (ext3). You can read/write to ext3 without journalling, so no problem there.
I recommend Stephan:
http://www.fs-driver.org/
But more mature is Matt:
http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/
Matt rules with ext2fsd, which is a reasonably mature file system driver, around for much longer than Stephan Schreiber’s Ext2 IFS. But using it with USB devices is sometimes a hassle.
Stephan Schreiber’s Ext2 IFS may do for USB Harddisks and memory sticks, and is also easier to install and configure.
Stephan Schreiber: Neither different code pages nor UTF-8 encoded file names are supported. The driver always uses the current code page of Windows. The next version will support UTF-8.
Matt: codepage utf8 supported (but not working?)
Thanks! I installed Stephan’s but still couldn’t see my drives. Apparently, my ext2 partitions are in a Linux LVM partition which Windows doesn’t know how to handle, so I’m back to square one. Do you any idea how to resolve this? My search on a LVM driver for Windows turned up nothing.
I’m sorry, but I think there is no software to handle Linux LVM partitions for Windows. Bad luck. You could consider to move your linux home directory to the partition where FAT32 now resides (first, format it to ext2 and make backups). Be careful.
Yeah, I’ve “misplaced” my user data enough times in both Windows and Linux to steer clear of any quick fixes. The safest way is probably to wait until FC5 is released, move my /home partition out of LVM, and use the FC5 installer to select the right location for the new /home mount point.
The MediaGate MG-35N is basically the same device but also allows you to access it via ethernet.
http://www.mediagate.co.kr/english/prod_mg35n.htm
I currently own the 2.5″ version, and it plays back almost anything I throw at it.
http://www.mediagate.co.kr/english/prod_mg25.htm
Here’s a review of the MG-25:
http://www.urbangiraffe.com/2005/03/03/mg25/
Coolerguys.com has the 2.5″ version for US$99.95
http://www.coolerguys.com/840556020455.html
Does it have a fan?
No, it does not have a fan. But it has holes in the alumninium base for the hard drive to “breath”. So, regarding noise, it all depends if your hard drive you place in it is noisy or not.
I recently purchased a Tvisto unit from one of Macpower’s OEM customers.
I only bought it after reading the Cnet review. I guess seeing Iomega was carrying it also helped.
In the US http://www.g-technology.com/index.cfm is reselling the Mvisto version.
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/dvdpvr/0,39030417,39188428,00.htm
http://www.iomega-europe.com/eu/en/products/screenplay/screenplay_f…
Lots of good products out there.
Im wondering, you said “I did the “mistake” of drag-n-dropping all my 240 music files to the “Music” folder and so I then experienced a very slow response”
does this mean 240 individual songs or 240 folders with songs in them? Would it access faster if albums were in their own folders?
Also, is there anyway to sort the music collection when using the remote and tv?
Thank-you