Iomega 160GB Media XPorter Easton PA

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The PlayStation 3 (PS3) and Xbox 360 games consoles can be used to play videos as well as games. Videos can quickly fill a console's meagre built-in hard disk, but luckily both can store videos on a FAT32-formatted USB disk such as the XPorter.

What distinguishes the XPorter from other USB disks is its bundled software, Prism Video Converter. This converts videos that would otherwise be unplayable on your console to compatible MPEG4 files. Converted DivX and Matroska videos played back fine on our Xbox 360, but our PS3 wouldn't recognise the converted Matroska files.

The program has predefined conversion settings for the PS3 and the Xbox 360, but the low default bit rate means converted videos look washed out and pixellated. You can improve quality by fiddling with the settings, but this can be daunting if you know little about video encoding. Even worse, the software is only a demo and the full version costs an extra £15, or £20 if you want to convert MPEG2 videos.

You may not even need the conversion software, as the latest firmware updates for both consoles add playback support for several video formats, including DivX.

The XPorter draws power from your console's USB port and generally performed well in our file-transfer tests, but it costs a high 40p per gigabyte. A better choice is Maxtor's 160GB OneTouch 4 Mini and free software such as Any Video Converter Free from www.any-video-converter.com.

System Specifications

160GB capacity, 5,400rpm spindle speed, USB Hi-Speed interface, 13x75x130mm, two-year warrany

Author: Alan Lu

Computer Shopper Online