Movies and Music

JOBO clearly positions the GVPe as an image storage device and viewer for photographers. Nevertheless they have given it more universal appeal by adding movie and music functionality, the GVPe is able to play MP3 audio files and MPEG2/4 videos. Music playback provided no problem at all – just copy over your MP3s into an appropriate ‘album’ and play them through any of the audio outputs (I recommend a good portable headphones set)

Video can be problematic, first you have to use the right format, and neither QuickTime nor WMV is supported, possibly the most widespread ones. Even if you have the right file format, it has to be in VGA (640x480 px), 10 Mbps for MPEG2 or 4 Mbps for MPEG4, 30 fps, audio at 128 kbps. So far the manual defines, unfortunately it does not tell you anything about the length of the movie; from my experience only a few minutes of material are viable. If you think of getting your feature films onto the GVPe and then play them through the HDMI output on your TV set, forget it. I tried an episode of Chuck, and even that didn’t work out.

Conclusion

Fast, robust, well equipped – this defines JOBO’s GIGA Vu Pro evolution is the top model in mobile file storage. The price is comparable to the competition, although they may have a slight advantage in the multimedia department, particularly playing movies, but that is not what the GVPe is about. This is a colour-managed image viewer not a video wall or hi-fi set. and image handling and viewing are very well done.

Though prices for solid state storage - memory cards and small hard drives are dropping, it is still more expensive to have as many memory cards as the JOBO GIGA Vu Pro evolution/extreme can supplant. The GVPe does need time to download from the memory card, a task it accomplishes very fast. Its biggest advantage over memory cards (and many simpler photo vaults) is probably the calibrated, colour-managed display. It’s bigger, sharper and all in all better than a camera LCD screen, allowing us to accurately judge photos away from expensive desktop set-ups.


Would I buy one?

Simple answer, I already have

Likes

     - big, bright, sharp monitor
     - rubber encasing
     - speed
     - all ports and LCD screen fully protected

Dislikes

     - the rubber top  can be hard to dislodge
     - the button lay-out and function designation could be better
     - expensive
     - all ports (incl. power!) are unavailable when the cover is attached

Price - £420

All text ©Dierk Haasis 2008 - www.DH2Publishing.info