TechRadar Verdict
Impressive byte for buck and decent selection of formats make this great for bringing downloaded vids to your living room
Pros
- +
Inexpensive
- +
Reasonably diminutive
- +
Spacious
Cons
- -
A couple more codecs please
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A note to ATMT: it's always a good sign when your reviewer expects your product to cost more than it does.
The first thing we thought when we peeled this out of its protective packaging was "this'll probably be worth about £200." A pleasant surprise, then, when we found that you could nab one of these nifty media-enabled 320GB drives for just under £130.
Obviously if you're just looking for an external drive you'll find them cheaper without the media gubbins, but if you've just expanded to hold a host of legitimately downloaded DivX movies (ahem) then you might find the combination of space and AV wizardry a real boon.
There are a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out of what is an otherwise clean sheet though. While MP4 support is in attendance, there's no tip of the hat for the widely used AVC version of the codec and, bizarrely, you'll have to rename MP4 files to MPG for the system to see them.
WMV playback is also notable by its absence, so despite the component connectors you're not going to be playing either H.264 or Windows Media HD video on this device. The whine of the fans can also be a touch annoying during the quieter moments in your favourite movies, too.
Still, the ability to run ripped DVD VOB files with all their subtitle, angle and soundtrack options intact, and the fully featured remote control to complement it, shows that genuine thought has been put into making the Scart Drive suitable for living room use. It's just a shame the UI isn't as slick as the hardware itself.
Overall the Scart Drive is a neat bit of kit and as far as we're concerned the price is about right. A slightly broader range of codecs would have made this an essential purchase (and this could be solved by a mere software update from ATMT).
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As it stands, if you're a mediavore looking for extra hard drive space then this is certainly a contender...
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