Versatile 2.5″ HD Enclosure – Mark LeaMaster
Media – it’s on the move. Everywhere you go today people have one kind of device or another to keep them entertained, informed and connected. iPod’s, flip phones, carputers, WiFi – the list just keeps getting longer.
The good guys at KingWin sent us a sample of Kingwin’s KH-300 Sound Xtreme multimedia player. Kingwin, who has been providing storage and cooling solutions since 1992, continues to evolve and the Sound Xxtreme is another nice addition.
Designed around an all-aluminum 2.5″ enclosure, Kingwin has added a built-in multi-media player capable of playing many types of media files, from MPEG to MP3 to JPG. It’s not as light or compact as many portable players but the intent here is a little different: with an emphasis on storage space, Kingwin’s Sound Xtreme can be as large as is currently available in a 2.5″ hard drive.
The Sound Xtreme includes all the necessary audio, video, and USB cables for media playback, including an AC Power Supply and a compact remote control. However, you must provide the hard drive.
Key Features:
- 2.5″ HDD aluminum alloy digital multimedia enclosure
- Displays photos and movies on TV, Monitor or projector without the use of PC’s, digital cameras or digital video devices
- USB 2.0
- Supports DVD / MPEG 1-4/ DivX / SVCD / VCD / MP3 / JPEG
- Windows XP / 2000/ 98SE / Mac / Linux compatible
- Music/Photo slideshow
- Features 7 Preset EQ
- DivX subtitles
- PAL or NTSC
Here you can see the front of the player with Power & HDD activity indicators as well as well as the IR sensor:
And the rear with composite A/V, standard USB 2.0, power connection and ON/OFF switch:
Installing the drive is quick and easy; remove the four thumb screws from the top of the enclosure and then remove the PCB. The drive is held in place with two screws through the back of the PCB. Simple! (Note: Be sure to screw the drive onto the PCB – at first I did not and got audio-feedback from the HDD as a result, so it must be grounded to the PCB)
The Sound Xtreme supports FAT32 or NTFS file formats. I chose NTFS so I could initialize and format the drive quickly using Windows Disk Management.
Once the drive has been formatted, you can use the provided USB 2.0 cable to transfer files to the drive, which is also USB powered – a nice feature for portability. Because you provide the HDD, you can choose a drive with whatever amount of storage space you need. I’m using a 60GB 7200 RPM Hitachi Travelstar.
With the drive formatted and around 10GB of files, I connected the Sound Extreme to a 28″ TV display using the RCA/audio connections and hit the power switch on the enclosure.
The menu popped up quickly and was easy to follow. The Sound Xtreme allows you to customize playback features if desired, (the defaults worked fine for me), or get right down to business playing a few movies and MP3’s. Files are automatically categorized for you and the remote has every function you could need:
One feature I really liked was being able to rotate images even if the image is not vertical – very nice when I get unformatted images and need to look them over.
The included composite audio/video cable which has standard video RCA, S-Video or VGA connections also adds versatility to your playback experience. Anywhere there is a TV or monitor, the Sound Extreme is at home.
The Sound Extreme is a nice little multimedia player. It has a lot of features, is easy to setup and use, and has a handy remote. I highly recommend this player. With its adaptable storage space and versatility, it’s sure to find itself in many different entertainment or learning environments.
Thanks again to KingWin for sending this our way.
Be the first to comment