Thoughts on this external hard drive/media centre from Ebay?

wheatln2

Hey, does anyone have any thoughts on this [link ]external hard drive? It's a good price and I won't have to pay VAT either, so i think it may be worth the risk of investing in something from ebay.

I have a slew of avi files that i've acquired either from ripping from DVD collection, or other means. These will be the main thing I'd like to be able to watch on my TV, as currently I'm just using the TV out funtion on my Creative Zen Vision: M but think I'd like something with a bit more storage. Does anyone have any thoughts on this media centre? I would also like the option of recording from the TV and this offers that option too. Many thanks in advance for the responses.

8T8

Thats one of those generic players I know one company makes them but cant recall their name but they are stuck in different shells and sold on as other brands.

Does basic XviD in AVI though if you have done custom XviD encodes (tweaked the settings of the XviD codec) then it may not play them.

wheatln2

8T8 wrote:

Thats one of those generic players I know one company makes them but cant recall their name but they are stuck in different shells and sold on as other brands.

Does basic XviD in AVI though if you have done custom XviD encodes (tweaked the settings of the XviD codec) then it may not play them.

Hey 8T8, many thanks for the reply. Yeah I mean I will primarily will using it as storage and then just to view AVis from time to time, and whatever I'll be watching will just be regular downloads encoded with XviD codec.

Anyway, I think I'm gonna go for this, and so thanks for the reply (anyone else who has anything to add, please do as I wont be ordering till tonight).

edit: and yeah it is a bit weird thinking of buying something when you have no idea what the brand is, and hence can't find any resources or reviews online...

karltimber

folks at work have bought this one in particuler and find it great.

You prob have it ordered now - so yes - good buy alright.

We share all our media files (copyrights obtained ahem ) at work and find it's a great way to store avi's etc if you're not into building a full media pc.

good luck with it.

K

wheatln2

karltimber wrote:

folks at work have bought this one in particuler and find it great.

You prob have it ordered now - so yes - good buy alright.

We share all our media files (copyrights obtained ahem ) at work and find it's a great way to store avi's etc if you're not into building a full media pc.

good luck with it.

K

indeed, thats pretty much what I want it for, so fingers crossed it works out OK! I ordered it on Wednesday and got the vat back, so it worked out at approximately €200 with a nice little carrier case, so not bad at all.

wheatln2

Just in case anyone were to find this thread and want closure, , the drive arrived yesterday and it's a Zengo digital video player and recorder, and i've no idea what model of drive these guys put in. But I would recommend it as things have worked our fine so far.
http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?lang=&product=EXS1099

karltimber

Glad it all worked out.

But no doubt you'll find the gb's disappearing into movie oblivion soon enough and you'll want another 500gb

K

wheatln2

karltimber wrote:

Glad it all worked out.

But no doubt you'll find the gb's disappearing into movie oblivion soon enough and you'll want another 500gb

K

Though I may have spoken too soon, as it seems it was pre-formatted as ntfs but the device functions as fat32... Had a bit of a problem getting it recognised but am re-formatting it now, hopefully things will be a ok.

Arthurdaly

I've been checking out the HDD enclosure media players on Ebay, anybody had any experience of these?
I've got an 500gig external hard drive packed DIVX movies and would be sweet to watch on TV via one of these for 50/60 quid!