So here it is, my full ‘hands-on’ review of the Iomega ScreenPlay Director. This device made it’s debut at the Gadget Show live back in 2010, when the range of Iomega home media devices would suit my set up perfectly, however, at the time they seemed a little overpriced.
Since the acquisition of my 2TB Time Capsule, I have been on the hunt for a media to tv linkstreamer which worked wirelessly. However, it also needed to support a wide range of TV’s and connections.
The ScreenPlay has both HDMI and RCA outputs, along with a SPID-IF connection, which seemed to fit the bill perfectly. However, with the price hovering around £90 without wireless it wasn’t 100% perfect.
That was until it came on offer, along with a bundled wireless adapter!
The ScreenPlay is a compact mat black, brushed metal box which fits perfectly next to any LCD TV.
It didn’t take long to unbox, and get it hooked up to the tv. The wireless, however was another story, despite the fact the interface of the screenPlay is simple and intuitive the lack of external keyboard support makes typing long & complex (WPA keys in is a bind) The onscreen keyboard can be sluggish to respond, and requires constantly flipping between screens to get uppercaselowercasenumber entry.
However, as my network is quite a complex setup – featuring Windows XP, Windows 7 and Mac OS X units along with an Apple Time capsule, I knew the network storage would be the biggest challenge. Yeah…the box states it supports Max OS X 10.4+, however, the time capsule’s selling point is the fact it’s shared drive is secure! This poses a problem as on first look at the MovieMusicPicture share’s, it appears the device is unable to browse it…it appears to be a ‘hidden’ feature, pressing the menu button on the ScreenPlay remote gives you the ability to enter a usernamepassword…
An that was it! Perfect, or so it seemed – streaming my media content wirelessly from my Time Capsule.
So…to sum it up:
Looks
It certainly doesn’t look out of place next to any top of the range tech. Personally I am a big fan of the brushed metal look.
I give it:
Features?
Ok, there’s plenty of other devices on the shelves – most of which contain there own storage, so if your just starting to setup a media service then maybe it’s not for you. However, if you have already got your storage, and you just need something to link it to your TV then for the price you can’t go wrong.
I give it:
Usability
Despite the unit supporting ……. codecs the menu system really can be a bind at times, but once youre all setup, using it doesn’t pose any real issues.
I give it:
