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Iomega 31308 FotoShow Digital Image Center

Iomega 31308 FotoShow Digital Image Center

List Price: $129.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Three years experience
Review: A friend asked about mine and wanted to buy one. On checking the Iomega site to send him a link I discovered they no longer make this. It is a grat product. I don't know of any other way to view digital pictures on a TV other than directly from the camera if it has a video out jack. The Iomega software works pretty good except that you have to put the pictures in viewing order from the Fotoshow. If you put them in order from your computer in Windows Explorer for example the pictures will revert to the order that Fotoshow had them. Other than that it's a great product.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good hardware, so-so firmware
Review: As someone who shoots a lot of digital images and edits and organizes them in various software programs (Photoshop, Image Expert, etc.) I bought the Fotoshow primarily as a means to display pre-edited slideshows on tv screens to friends and associates. Technically, the machine works great: Great quality images, smooth transitions, easy to use. My quibbles: The unit's firmware has a default setting to display photos according to the file date. This means slideshows you have meticulously edited and arranged on a PC program will come out extremely scrambled on the ZIP slideshow. The ONLY way to change the order is to go through and click and drag them around on the TV screen with the remote control -- unbearably cumbersome compared to click and drag on a screen. The only other workaround for this is to resave all your image files on the computer, so they share the same file date, at which point they're displayed in order of file name. If you work with lots of images, this can take a long time, and it's a major hassle. Also: When you place images on a ZIP disk and load them up for the first time, the Fotoshow must imprint each with its video encoding. This takes about 5 seconds per photo -- which can leave you staring at a "please wait" screen for an hour or more if you have a slideshow with several hundred fotos. Only happens the first time you view each pic, but a major hassle. Overall: A firmware/software update giving users some flexibility -- and especially the ability to organize images through the PC, before plugging into the tv -- would make this an absolutely ideal device.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: RIP OFF
Review: Don't buy it unless you either already have "POWER POINT" software on you system or are willing to pay [PRICE]to purchase this software. Without "Power Point" you will not be able to use a computer to organize, create, or manage your shows. The editing features that run on the TV are poor ar best. When you copy from a Compact flash card to the zip drive it deletes the originals therefore you must copy these files to your computer before you copy to the zip drive All in All I sorry I got the thing!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: 3 features add up to a decent product.
Review: Feature 1. USB zip drive.
Feature 2. Compact Flash/Smart Media to zip drive transfers.
Feature 3. Television Display of Images.

The biggest reason I got this was the ability to dump my compact flash card to disk. A 20 gig hard drive digital wallet would be
nice but, its about 3 times the cost.

I plan on going to Australia from the US, and did not want to lug by laptop with me. I bought it for this reason alone, although since it was a ZIP drive as well that gave me extra incentive.

I tested it this weekend on both smart media and CF flash and it worked perfect.

Copy of 38 images off smart media took less than a minute. It seemed the same for compact flash.

Retrieving the images from the Zip drive to a computer was efficient. The photos are under a folder called originals.

Hooking it up to your TV and having it display is simple, it just takes a bit of time to process NEW images.

The TV display is so so. SOme of the editing capabilities are nice, but a bit cumbersome.

It was a big plus to display the images on the TV for my wife and parents.

AS a sample of the usefulenss. A friend had about 150 pictures on A CD of my daughter playing baskeball. I copied the images from the CD to the zip drive, (when it was hooked up to my computer of course). I brought the unit to "grandma's" house. Hooked it up to the TV turned it on, and it took about 15 minutes to "process" the picutres. After that we had a nice slide show....

I think grandma is going to buy one......

The only minor issue I had is

The AC power adapter is only 110 60 cycle. Most digital products these days the AC power adapter is 110/220 60/50 cycle. I have a UNIVERSAL power adapter so I should be OK.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Does what I want it to do
Review: First off, I've only used a fotoshow once... I borrowed it for a day from a friend. ;)

However, it worked perfectly for what I needed.

I used it to display a continuous slide-show on a television set in a display. It was very easy to use, and worked flawlessly. (I made a powerpoint presentation as jpg files on a zip disk and ran the slideshow from that)

At any rate, I think it is a great product for giving presentations without lugging along a laptop. It also works as a zip250 drive, which is nice.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Does what they advertised, but...
Review: I bought FotoShow to take with me on an international trip, figuring that zip disks would be cheaper than buying a few 128MB compact flash cards for my digital camera. When I got it, it turned out to be VERY big for traveling. It's a large unit with a heavy power supply, which is not what I had in mind.

The alternative was something like a digital wallet; smaller footprint (I assume) and one disk to hold lots of 128MB downloads. However, a digital wallet won't let you view the pictures unless you have a PC with you.

Having said that, it does seem to work well when viewing pictures on a TV. It has good resolution and useful features. The remote control is lousy, though. Cryptic buttons and cumbersome menus that I never seem to be able to remember without help from the manual.

Note: I have not yet been overseas with FotoShow. I am assuming it will work where I'm going, but an earlier review said that it's incompatible with foreign TVs. I'll find out soon, I guess...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It does what I need it to do.
Review: I got the Fotoshow mainly to serve as a zip drive and as extra storage for my digital camera when I go on vacations. As a zip drive, it works as expected. It's nice to have the option to take it with me as additional storage for my digital camera. I thought of going with a digital wallet, but the thought of carrying (and dropping) a harddrive with all my pictures in it worries me.

There are a few things that I think would make the Fotoshow better.

1. The card slots are useless when the Fotoshow is connected to the computer via USB cable. It would be nice to be able to use the Fotoshow as a card reader.

2. The power transformer is big and heavy. It should be smaller and lighter for travel.

3. Option for battery/portable power.

4. Faster operation when using the TV.

Overall, I like the Fotoshow. I would like it better if Iomega would fix the items above.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It does what I need it to do.
Review: I got the Fotoshow mainly to serve as a zip drive and as extra storage for my digital camera when I go on vacations. As a zip drive, it works as expected. It's nice to have the option to take it with me as additional storage for my digital camera. I thought of going with a digital wallet, but the thought of carrying (and dropping) a harddrive with all my pictures in it worries me.

There are a few things that I think would make the Fotoshow better.

1. The card slots are useless when the Fotoshow is connected to the computer via USB cable. It would be nice to be able to use the Fotoshow as a card reader.

2. The power transformer is big and heavy. It should be smaller and lighter for travel.

3. Option for battery/portable power.

4. Faster operation when using the TV.

Overall, I like the Fotoshow. I would like it better if Iomega would fix the items above.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Just what I needed
Review: I needed a zip drive for school projects. (Computer graphics using Photoshop, Flash and Director, so they're way to large for regular disks.) I also have a digital camera.

For a couple of bucks more than a 250 meg zip drive it also gives me the ability to use my flash memory without having to find a computer to download the pictures that I take pictures of my friend's band for a website. On long weekends it really comes in handy, especially when we're traveling. And it's way cheaper than any digital wallet I've seen.

But I also did a lot of research before I bought it so I knew what I was getting.

I agree that the power adapter is really heavy, but I find I use the car adapter more than the power adapter on the road.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Versatile equipment!
Review: I purchased the Iomega Fotoshow when I purchased a new PC. I knew I wanted to get a digital camera eventually, but I wanted a ZIP drive immediately. At first, I used this exclusively as a ZIP drive attached to my PC and it worked like a charm. No better or worse than other ZIP drives I have owned, so it is certainly not worth the price if that is all you intend to use it for.

When I purchased my digial camera, the Fotoshow's extra features proved to be very useful. I just pop my compactflash card and a ZIP disk into the Fotoshow and press one button to copy my photos onto the ZIP disk. Piece of cake! I can see this being a really handy tool if you go on vacation and want to dump your photos onto a disk and don't have access to a PC. The fotoshow is not that tiny, but smaller than a laptop or desktop computer would be to carry with you when you travel. And, at 100 or 250 MB disks, you don't need many disks to tore your images.

Another great feature of the Fotoshow is the ability to connect the it to a television (through a coaxial or RCA connection, cables included). Using this feature, you can selectively copy the contents of your memory card onto a Zip disk, perform some basic touch-ups on the photos (like removing red-eye and cropping), or you can give a slide show presentation through your television! All this through a small remote control! What is also nice is that you can give a slide show presentation of images on your ZIP disk as well. So, your presentation can be from images generated anywhere, no just your digital camera. Very, very cool!

I do have some complaints about the Fotoshow that prevent me from giving it a 5 star rating. 1) If it is plugged into a PC and you are using it as a ZIP drive, you cannot read or copy from your memory card. Only if your computer is off or the Fotoshow is disconnected can you copy images to a ZIP disk. No big deal, really. 2) Also, a feature I would REALLY like would be to have the ability to give a slide presentation on a COMPUTER screen directly from a memory card, but alas you can only view a slide show through a television.


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