Registered: Jun 2001
Location: UT
Posts: 25

MemPlug CF impressions

Having had 24 hours with my MemPlug CF, I wanted to post my impressions of it.

First of all, I would like to congratulate PI for delivering on their product when they said they would. I received mine on 7/24/01 and had received email with tracking information for the package.

The package arrived in perfect shape. The packaging was attractive and definitely looked professional. It would not look out of place on the rack of your local CompUsa or Staples.

Inside there was very little. The adapter itself (which for some reason seemed smaller than what I was expecting), the CDROM with the gMedia software and a small instruction manual.

First thing I did was to put in my Mr Flash 128 Meg CF card and crossed my fingers. I know that some brands of CF cards are not compatible with Springboard CF adapters. I put it in and ran PiPrefs and selected card info. The program told me that the card was not formatted. Well at least it recognizes there is card in there, I thought to myself. I took the card, and put it in my USB CF/Smartmedia reader and copied the stuff from the card I had put in preparation of the arrival of the MemPlug CF. I then let the MemPlug quick format the card. I took the card out again and recopied the programs back from my Windows machine. Plugged the card in and viola! Everything was there. Ran PiDirect and all 20 programs in my PiDirect directory came up.

After I saw how it worked, I decided to upgrade to the latest version of the Pi software. The update went flawlessly. I really don't see how it could go wrong unless you take out the adapter while it is trying to update. I also have a Prism with the 1.4 update and I didn't want to chance any of the problems others have faced.

Running programs from PiDirect appeared just slightly slower than running them from RAM. I mean it is just very slightly slower, nothing that would really bother me. I stuck to a few games, a few network apps (AceMail and Blazer.) They all ran fine. I used PiBackup and backed up my entire Prism in matter of minutes. It seemed to me like it ran faster than doing a BackupBuddy full backup.

It was time to really push the adapter to its limits. With my USB reader, I copied all the demo movies that came on the gMovie CD. I then played the movies from the CF card. The movies ran fine, although none were full screen. I rectified that situation by converting the NeverWinter E3 trailer (a 16.5 Meg MPEG video file) into gMedia format using gMedia maker. I tried the best settings (160 x 120, color, best frame per second possible.) I played it, and while it ran fine, it seemed to very briefly pause about every second or so. I thought that my Prism wasn't cutting it so using AfterBurner, I overclocked the gMedia player to 39 Mhz. I still saw the same slowdown. I decided to make sure it wasn't the adapter so I copied the file into the Prism's memory. It ran smooth as silk.

I can't be sure if the limitation is the brand of CF I am using (Mr. Flash are cheapest brand I could find) or whether this is a limitation of the MemPlug adapter or the Springboard interface. Just understand that there are limits.

Overall, I am greatly impressed with MemPlug. I would suggest that you invest in a USB reader if you want to use your CF/Smartmedia cards to its fully potential.

Fare thee well,
Swiftshadow

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Maryland
Posts: 29

An excellent review, Swift. My experience with the product has been just as good. I wish the display of jpegs using PiViewer would fill the screen automatically, instead of just reducing the file by 8:1 or 16:1. The question I have before me now is will other picture viewer software work well with the Memplug...

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Des Moines, IA
Posts: 248

Ok, so I've had my MemPlug CF for 48 hours now, and I'm wondering how fast this thing is going to chew up my batteries. My first set lasted about 2 days with the MemPlug CF plugged in all the time, which is my preference. Just put in a fresh set of Energizer E2 Titanium's, so we'll see...what's everyone else's impressions? Does it totally drain the batteries so much so that I'm going to have to unplug it when I don't need it?

That wasn't my plan, but I'm wondering if the batteries didn't last b/c they were just cheapo Panasonic batteries?

Thoughts?

Registered: Mar 2001
Location:
Posts: 159

quote:

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Originally posted by dorelse
Ok, so I've had my MemPlug CF for 48 hours now, and I'm wondering how fast this thing is going to chew up my batteries. My first set lasted about 2 days with the MemPlug CF plugged in all the time, which is my preference. Just put in a fresh set of Energizer E2 Titanium's, so we'll see...what's everyone else's impressions? Does it totally drain the batteries so much so that I'm going to have to unplug it when I don't need it?

That wasn't my plan, but I'm wondering if the batteries didn't last b/c they were just cheapo Panasonic batteries?

Thoughts?

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__________________
product page: http://www.memplug.com
product forum: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/memplug

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Des Moines, IA
Posts: 248

Thanks, I'll check it out. I've got a 128 MB Viking CF card, and a 32 MB PNY CF card...I'll review the discussion and decide from there. Obviously, I'd rather use the 128MB over the 32MB even though I have no idea why I need that much storage.

Thanks for the info.