Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link Director Edition

Full Review

Connecting directly into your TV, media players provide the sort of multimedia file support you can get from HomeTheater PCs. They are proliferating and why not, considering such an appliance is much smaller than a PC and consumes far less power. While not quite a replacement for a DVD player because these devices do not have a DVD player, they are popular simply because much of today’s audio-visual content is present on the hard drives and pen drives of users.

You can play audio/video/photo files off a USB storage device and networked storage or PCs.

The Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link HD Media Player Director Edition (model SPTVLP) is an advancement of Iomega's previous model, and was announced in January. It is clearly smaller than the previous TV Link, is more powerful and looks great beside a HDTV, somewhat similar in size to an external DVD-Writer sold for Netbooks. The body of the media player is streamlined and has no sharp edges, colored a brushed black on top and glossy black for the front facia. The front hosts 2 USB ports; the rear has one more USB port, power input, HDMI port, S/PDIF optical audio output, 10/100Mbps Ethernet jack, and red/white/yellow composite video output.

One of these USB ports can be used to plug-in Iomega’s ScreenPlay WiFi Adapter (can be purchased seaparately), to give not only wired but also wireless access to your home network. The bundled remote is nicer than the previous TV Link model, and more colourful, closer to the one that we saw in the package of the Iomega ScreenPlay Director HD. This new remote is easy to navigate through the on-screen interface of the TV Link Director, which is not very sluggish and quite responsive. In case you are away from home during the times when your family is likely to use the media player, the colors, symbols and button positions make it easier to help family over the phone too.

You can play audio/video/photo files off a USB storage device. Supported file-systems are FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, EXT2 and EXT3; in addition to networked computers and HDDs. Note that you cannot use an external optical drive to play a CD or DVD directly from source disc. It is hard to avoid comparing the Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link Director with the Western Digital WD TV Live. We tested the playback of all the multimedia file formats that this device claimed to play (view the "Specifications" tab of this review for a full list), and it acquitted itself well. Upscaling lower resolution videos, playing 1080p high-bitrate videos without jitters, and photo management are all tasks that lent confidence in this product.

The box package includes a quick start guide, composite video and HDMI cables. Compatibility across the globe is re-inforced by the 4 types of power plugs that can be inter-changed to suit relevant power sockets. A 3-year warranty accompanies the Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link HD Media Player Director Edition.

Bottom Line

The Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link HD Media Player Director Edition is a media player that is very good for its price of Rs. 6,100. Being a second-gen product it offers all the features one would expect – in terms of supported multimedia file formats, extra USB ports, wired and optional wireless networking, internet connectivity, usability of UI and remote, and quality of playback of higher-bitrate 1080p videos.

If you'd like internal storage capability in addition to what this player already offers, consider other media players like the Iomega ScreenPlay Director HD or the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ instead.