I recently got a call from a colleague who purchased an Iomega Screenplay HD. This unit is a media player that hooks up to your TV and can play various media file formats. The unit houses a 500 GB hard drive for media storage and playback. My friend was having issues with media file formats and the way in which the Screenplay HD works. So, I spent some time getting acquainted with this unit and tried to work the kinks out.
Initial product impressions
The Screenplay HD is finished in a matte black textured paint (feels like fine sandpaper, although they probably were going for suede). The finish just doesn’t feel right; it doesn’t have the polish of previous Iomega products. From an aesthetic and fit & finish point-of-view, I don’t think this product compares favorably with other consumer electronics products. However, this product functions as advertised. The unit works well as an external USB hard drive and plays back various media including video, digital stills and audio.
The remote control is very slim, about the size of three credit cards and it uses an inconvenient (and more expensive) coin cell battery. The remote control is designed to snap into the base of the Screenplay HD (I suppose for traveling or storage).
Shortcomings of the Screenplay HD
I was surprised to see just how many short comings this product has. Even though this product is made in China, I was expecting that it would be competently designed as many American-designed products are. What follows is a list of things that I didn’t like. I know a few things may sound nit-picky, but I have listed all my impressions so you can make a more informed decision of what is important to you.
Almost adequate product documentation — The Screenplay HD comes with a small printed user manual that is less than one page in your own language. This manual is quite useless, and there is a better HTML user’s guide on the accompanying CD. And if you don’t like reading manuals, you won’t appreciate that the Screenplay HD doesn’t come with a full-color illustrated “quick start” diagram that you see with well-designed products.
Slight vibration — The product exhibits a slight noise from vibration when set on a table top or TV stand. Most people probably won’t notice this with the sound on. However, when you mute the sound, the noise from the vibration is noticeable. This problem is easily corrected by placing the Screenplay HD on top of another surface such as an anti-slip mat or a mouse pad.
Inferior remote control — The remote has a thickness of about three credit cards which makes it uncomfortable to hold. Since the remote control is the way you would interface with this device the most often, it is important to have a well designed and ergonomic remote. Other problems with the remote is that is uses a coin cell battery and doesn’t have real buttons. The buttons on the remote are surface mount contact switches. <ugh> 
The “buttons” are of all the same size and shape, so it is very difficult to use this remote without looking at it all the time. In addition the fast forward and reverse “buttons” are not next to the play button as is the norm with other consumer electronic products. This makes watching videos very inconvenient as you always have to focus a lot on the remote to make sure you are pressing the right buttons.
The other enjoyment-busting flaw in this remote is that you have to make sure that you aim the thing directly at the Screenplay HD in order for this thing to work. If your aim is off about 20 degrees or so, it won’t work. Full size remotes I’ve tested from Sony and Panasonic which have a better range and allow you to be off aim in some cases 45 degrees or more and the still work.
Poor navigation — With an onboard 500GB HD, it is important that the Screenplay HD be effective in navigating around with it’s on-screen-display. When loaded with video files, it is very difficult to quickly scroll down your list of videos. Holding the “down” button doesn’t work. In order to scroll down, you have to repetitively hit the “down” button. This is all the more made more difficult with the pathetic remote control with surface mount contact switches. A better remote would have been ideal. In addition, a page down button on the remote or a feature on the on-screen-display would have helped.
No product localization — It would have been great if this product was more localized for the North American market. This thing is outfitted with a SCART connector which is totally useless outside of Europe. Ideally, I would have liked to have seen a North American version of this product with actual RCA connectors for composite video and audio (L/R) as well as component video connections. In this way, I would have been able to use standard cables.
For component video and standard composite video with audio, the Screenplay HD uses a custom 1/8″ 3-conductor connector cable that splits into 3-RCA jacks. So if you are using one of these connections, you have to use the supplied cable or make your own.
Poor on-screen-display — Another problem I found in my testing is that the on-screen-display (OSD) has some flicker. One big oversight in this device is that there is no way to delete video files through the OSD via the remote! This means that in order to delete files, your only option is to connect the Screenplay HD to your computer via the USB cable and do deletes from there. In case you are wondering, you can ‘t do any file operations through the OSD whatsoever. This would include renaming or moving files to another folder.
Glitchy video performance — For MPEG files, I find that the onboard decoder of the Screenplay HD renders a blurry and glitchy video. The same video files look better on other devices, including PC playback. I also find that there is a 1.5 -2.0 second audio / video sync problem on the Screenplay HD that is not apparent on other devices or on PC playback of the same file.
When viewing video files on the Screenplay HD, the audio would randomly drop out on me. I found that I could correct this by fast-forwarding and reversing back to where I left off and hitting the “play” button again. This is a very annoying glitch!
Poor fast-forward and reverse ratios — Another problem is with the Screenplay HD’s fast-forward and reverse speeds. The screenplay can forward in 2x, 4x, 8x speeds. However, at 2x, I think the video goes by too fast and makes it hard to scan over the boring parts of the video. The fast forward and reverse features would have been more usable if they shadowed the ratios that you find in quality consumer electronics products (from Sony and Panasonic).
No bookmarking or resume-play — If you are viewing a video with the Screenplay HD and stop the playback, you will be annoyed to find that there is no resume function! So in order to resume, you would have to restart playback and manually fast to where you left off! There is not bookmarking feature with the screenplay. This is a major flaw in the product as this type of feature is commonplace in PVR’s, DVD players, portable media players and Windows MCE.
What would have made this product better
In addition to correcting the above noted product short comings, there are a few things that I suggest would make this product better.
Support for WMV files — I would have liked to see support for Microsoft WMV files. Wouldn’t it be great if this thing could support the native DVR-MS files from Windows Media Center Edition? Oh well…
Security PIN — Also a security function that would protect children from mature content would have been a plus. In my view, it is a big oversight that this wasn’t added as this is commonplace on DVD players and PVR’s.
A screensaver — This type of feature is very common on quality DVD players and PVR’s, however, is absent from the Screenplay HD. It is a good feature to have in order to prevent burn-in of your pricey television screen.
In summary
I guess that you can view this device as a convenience product because it is very portable and plays different types of media and allows you to store your digital files. However, there are so many problems that make this device usable. In my view, don’t make a product unless it is absolutely the best product you can make. All the short comings in this product take all the joy out of using it. In fact, the video quality, the audio drop outs and fussing with the remotes are enough to make you want to throw this thing out the window! 
My recommendation to my colleague would be to use this more as an external hard drive than a video player. I suggested that I could build him a really quiet, feature-laden, high performance PC-based PVR in a small form factor at many 
times the price of his Screenplay HD. <Just fishing…> 
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Thanks to all the people who gave feedback on this article. From the feedback, a lot of users echoed many of the sentiments that I posted in my article, including the inability to delete files through the on-screen display and no support for Windows media files (wmv, dvr-ms). Other people commented on the video flicker and the sometimes buggy video performance.
Poor video performance can be attributed to video files that are not encoded to established standards. I’ve noticed that the Screenplay HD does play properly-encoded DVD material quite well, although that is not a feature that I hear a lot of excitement about.
However, a lot of people seem to want to be able to use this thing as a playback device for files off of their computer (including camcorder video and Windows MCE recordings). In my testing, I have found that MPG1 and MPG2 files, when encoded to established standards provide adequate performance with the Screenplay HD. But the Screenplay HD doesn’t seem to have the tolerance that other devices have when it comes to MPG encoding. I’ve also had poor results when encoding video using DiVX.
I’ve tried pretty much all of the popular entry-level video conversion programs with suggested settings and countless tweaks of my own, to optimize the video for the Screenplay HD. Although I am able to get adequate performance for MPG1 and MPG2 files, it is not flawless-quality video.
If anyone has any suggestions, comments, tips, tricks or tweaks for encoding video for use with the Screenplay HD, please feel free to leave a comment on this article.