I did notice that when playing a movie through the VGA port onto an LCD panel there seemed to be thin dark vertical lines spaced evenly across the screen. There is a selection to change from Wide Screen to Pan-and-Scan to Letterbox views, but the lines appeared no matter which display type I chose. Playing the same movie through the AV port to my TV or directly from the drive in Windows Media Player on the same LCD greatly reduced the effect of these dark bars. You can see the difference in the left and right scenes below.



Conclusion

I think the idea of a standalone multimedia playback device integrated with the capabilities of a portable, large capacity external USB drive is a winning combination. Since receiving the Movie World Enclosure from Geeks.com I have discovered that there are many different manufacturers of similar products out there. In fact, as mentioned earlier, Shawn reviewed an almost identical unit back in April called the TVisto. If there were a shortage of competing products available for this type of device, I think the Movie World Enclosure would be a smash hit.

There are a few drawbacks to this particular device however, first and foremost being the FAT32 format limitation. Since the majority of Windows users will likely have XP, it would be a good idea for the manufacturer to include a format utility on the included CD. The User Manual only states that the FAT32 format must be used, but does not warn about the 2000/XP limitation. Instead the user is left to figure out for themselves why Windows can't format their large capacity drive in anything other than NTFS, and what solutions are available to them for using FAT32. The manual does suggest using Partition Magic, but as I mentioned this is not a free program and the user would have to purchase a copy. The ability to use either IDE or SATA drives with the enclosure would be nice too.

Playing JPG and MP3 files on the Movie World Enclosure is a snap, the only decision the user has to face is how to organize the files. And with two different modes to list files for playback, there is some flexibility as to selection, and even a Repeat feature for music files/folders. Let's face it though, most people will choose a personal MP3 player for music portability. And when it comes to viewing movies from the device there's little instruction on how to go about getting your favorite DVD to play right. Home movie production/editing buffs already familiar with various movie file types and how DVD encoding works will most likely be able to figure it out quickly, but for the average user who just wants to copy over their DVD's, (and doesn't know how) some sort of included ripping software and/or tutorial would be helpful. I had to try several different programs and methods before I found a combination that worked the way I wanted.

One thing the Movie World Enclosure does have going for it is price. At just under $70 it is nearly half the cost of the TVisto and other similar products. What you sacrifice in frills and ease of use keeps extra money in your pocket, money you can spend on a higher capacity drive or maybe some more media content to store on it. But less savvy users may end up spending their savings on formatting and/or ripping software that's hopefully a little more user-friendly.


Thanks to Geeks.com for supplying us with this review sample. Geeks carries several external hard drive cases, allowing you to find one that is just right for you.