Advantages: Small, Silent, Mobile, Cheap Disadvantages: Still some bugs
Freecom Mediaplayer 35-Kit
The basic kit comes without a hard drive, this is great as its much cheaper to buy the hard drive you want and install it yourself, this is child's play and the instructions (if you need them) are easy to follow.
I have now had the media player for about three months and originally purchased it for £100 + £84 for a 300GB IDE drive, the price of the player has dropped to less than £85 and I'm sure the hard drives will drop / increase in size in the near future.
In essence this is both a USB hard drive which you can take anywhere with your computer for extended storage (if you have a HDD installed), when connected to a TV it becomes a Media Player capable of playing music, movies or displaying your photos.
Connect it to a network via a standard CAT 5 cable (RJ45) via a hub or into a PC and you can ...
Advantages: ummmmm Disadvantages: Doesn't work very well, slow, intermitently recognises disks, poor back up service, need I go on?
I ordered my Freecom DVD Recorder LS USB 2.0 after my CD/DVD drive packed up on my 15 month old HP Desktop. I wanted it mainly to load CD ROM and burn DVD's from movies already converted to DVD format on my hard drive. Being that my PC had no disk drive I relied upon this external drive to load the bundled DVD burning software (Roxio 9). This took several days and many attempts. Then I tried burning my first DVD. After taking 3 hours to do a task that previously took about 30 minutes, this recorder produced a disc that no dvd player in my home recognised (and I have 4). I found the user interface very unfriendly and it simply didn't work. Needles to say, I'll be getting a refund! ...
Advantages: record to computer, transportable, nicely presented Disadvantages: jumpy, fast programme, space at the usb port
This is a brilliant product. It is very easy to use with just plugging in, putting the disk in and opening the programme. If you have vista, you may have to download the drivers of freecom's website however, it is supported and can be used in Windows Media Center. The tv can be a bit jumpy but use the extension cable and attach it to a window with the included suction pad and you should have no trouble. Lots of channels, all that are included with freeview plus also the radio.
The remote control is not up to much and will only work from around 1 meter away, and when pointes straight at it due to it only having a small lapel spot which freecom should have advanced.
Overall, it is a very good product and a very good price. The software is ok but will be jumpy due to it being "movey" on slower pc's so you maybe want to use win ...
Windows XP/Vista - Pentium III - 900 MHz - RAM 256 MB
MacOS X 10.3 or later - PowerPC G3 - RAM 256 MB
Remote control
Type
Remote control
Connections
Connector Type
1 x USB ( 4 PIN USB Type A ) - rear
1 x USB ( 4 PIN USB Type B ) - rear
1 x SPDIF output ( RCA phono ) - rear
1 x HDMI output ( 19 pin HDMI Type A ) - rear
1 x composite video output ( RCA phono ) - rear
1 x audio line-out ( RCA phono x 2 ) - rear
1 x component video output ( RCA phono x 3 ) - rear
1 x network ( RJ-45 ) - rear
Power
Type
External
Manufacturer warranty
Service & Support
1 year warranty
Service & Support Details
Limited warranty - 1 year
Miscellaneous
Included Accessories
WiFi wireless USB adapter
Cables Included
USB cable
Video / audio cable
Network cable
Manufacturer's product description
Experience a new level of computing and home entertainment with the Freecom Mediaplayer II the player that covers all common AV-file formats. The Freecom MediaPlayer II is a cost-effective, dedicated hard drive based mobile multimedia player that seamlessly delivers digital media (video, audio) from your PC to the television, projector or Hi-Fi set. Enjoy digital media and information in the comfort of your living room. Freecom has now developed a fast hard drive, a JPEG viewer, a video player and a music player, all in one unit! This portable system is built for easy data sharing with friends and family. Enjoy your movies, songs and holiday pictures anywhere you go. Watching movies on a PC monitor and listening to MP3 files on a small PC speaker system are now a thing of the past, as are difficult burning sessions creating CDs and DVDs. Simply drag and drop your audio and video files from your PC to the MediaPlayer II, take the portable MediaPlayer II to your living room, connect it to your TV of Hi-Fi and you're ready to go!
Related tags for Freecom Technologies Digital multimedia receiver / HDD recorder »
