For those of us that are forced to hold on to obsolete technology we try to make the best of bad situations. For me, it’s the fact that my law school demands that we hand in our exams via 3.5†Floppy Disk…so I went in search of a drive.
I found out that Sony makes a USB drive, MPF88E, that seemed to fit my needs. The drive connects via USB where it also draws its power from, reads/writes/formats at 2x speed, works with Windows or Mac OS, can be mounted vertically or laid down flat, and includes 2 color covers, Pearl White and Sapphire Blue.
Out of the box the drive seemed rather large and heavy, but its really not. It weighs 325g and is nearly the size of the TR (you can see it well in the pictures). It comes with a driver CD, but I didn’t think I needed it, so I just plugged the drive into the TR. It worked fine as a plug and play device and A: came up within seconds. I stuck the only 3.5 I could find lying around and it read it fine. The speed seemed ok as I transferred a document or two. I don’t plan to use this too often so speed isn’t my main concern.
Likes:
I like how the coloring matches the TR to a T…
I like how you can stand the TR in two different ways vertically (to the left or to the right) as well as flat.
I like the plug and play simplicity
Dislikes:
Attached USB Cable…this doesn’t seem important, but if the USB cabled came loose the drive itself would fit into better places in my bag.
Weight – a bit lighter would have been nice.
Obviously this drive isn’t for everyone…you really need to have a reason to get this drive, otherwise it seems like a waste of money since the TR can at least write CDs or a USB key is about the same price as this drive. Speaking of price, the cost from Staples was $49.99.
[quote author=“Chris687”]I see that you have a tivo remote. Have you moded it at all?
No, no need. I have several Tivo’s, they are networked and provide everything I need out of the box. I can’t seem to fill them up, so…why fix whats not broken.
[quote author=“Chris687”]I like it standing vertical. Looks kinda kewl for outdated technology.
Yeah. Actually, thinking about it, IMO they should have made this a full media reader as well…that would have been nice, I wouldn’t have had to carry 2 devices to read all forms of media.
I would have also paid about $10-20 more for a feature like that.
I have like a 40 hour Tivo for a couple of years Series 1. One dial up
I haven’t tried to upgrade either. I barely watch TV> But I love my TIvo. YOu’re right they should have made it a multi reader and maybe threw in a couple of xtra usb ports…
[quote author=“Chris687”]I have like a 40 hour Tivo for a couple of years Series 1. One dial up
Mine are series 2 which is great…they connect via network, 10/100 or WiFi, and I can share TiVo’d shows/movies between them. They are connected to my network so I can stream Mp3s or JPGs…
Almost perfect…I miss my DirecTV Tivos that could record 2 channels at once…that the only flaw I see in the regular series 2…but its the limits of other things, not the Tivo, so not their fault.
[quote author=“Chris687”]I had Time Warner Cable for a couple of months. And they had the option on a lot of the channel like HBO and had all the episods of every show.
It was so kewl I couldn’t believe some cable company already came up with this technology. After these get around its over for TIvo…. :cry:
Tivo has a ton of things going against them…they are lucky they got in early and have a stronghold on the market. They need to make several key deals IMO and the ones that they have made right now are not working well as they are being sued as we speak for copywrite infringment on what they want to do.
I have always said that we should have direct PPV, like hotels have. The idea of tuning into a PPV seemed dumb to me, I refused to use it. The difference between Tivo and On Demand is that Tivo is smart, sort-of. It knows to move times/dates for shows, even when they aren’t announced. If the day comes when On Demand is up to date (ie its 9pm and the 8pm showing of the Simpsons is ready at any time) then Tivo is in serious trouble…as I see it, this is a long way from happening. The major nail that I see right now comes from DirecTV…if they release their own PVR, which everyone says they will, Tivo will take a beating.
Only time will tell…either way, I am not paying for a life-time contract, too many things like this have gone under…i’ll pay the monthly fee.
i think floppy disk data transfer speed is less than usb 1.1, am i correct? or it can go to 2.0 speed? i think it’s < 1.1, if so, don’t u think it’s a waste of technology to buy usb 2.0 while it can only transfer up to 1.1? the reason i think it’s less than 1.1 is that my old desktop had floppy drive and i knew that whenever i transfer 1 MB file, it takes forever….
btw, what kind of fingerprint ID is that? any review?
Yeah, I pay the monthly also. Just for the channels not covered by this new technology. I forgot what its called, but I don’t think its called in demand?
Its where you can look up a channel like hbo. Then pic like sex in the city. And it will list every episod by number and title.
I am not sure what you are talking about time zones.
There is no time. They just realse the whole season right then and you have it.
Then when you watch it its like playing a dvd. I think the way they must do it is like streaming video over the internet.
[quote author=“gameson”]i think floppy disk data transfer speed is less than usb 1.1, am i correct? or it can go to 2.0 speed? i think it’s < 1.1, if so, don’t u think it’s a waste of technology to buy usb 2.0 while it can only transfer up to 1.1? the reason i think it’s less than 1.1 is that my old desktop had floppy drive and i knew that whenever i transfer 1 MB file, it takes forever….
At this point, I don’t think there’s much of an incremental cost with going with USB 2.0 hardware vs USB 1.1 hardware. IIRC floppies were somewhere around 250 KBps.
I like the pictures :ph34r:
