Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Tech & Science

The Epson P-4000: A Dream Device for Digital Photographers


Digital Journal — For digital photographers on the go, the most essential non-photographic accessory is a repository for images. Any photographer that shoots a lot will need to clear out the camera’s memory card to continue shooting, and a place to store images becomes very important. Out of a well-deserved distrust of the magnetic media, photographers often look for new ways to back up images at the end of every shooting day.

Until recently, the answer to these needs was a notebook computer that one had to lug around in order to back-up images while out shooting. This was far from a perfect solution, as notebooks are bulky, heavy and expense, with even the lightest models weighing about 3 pounds and costing upwards of $1,000.

With the release of the Epson P-4000 Multimedia Storage Viewer, digital photographers may have found the best portable storage device currently available. About the same size as a Walkman (5.8″ x 3.3″ x 1.2″), the P-4000 weighs just one pound including the lithium-ion battery. With a price tag of $899 (CDN), the sleek-looking P-4000 offers 80GB of hard disk storage and a generous 3.8-inch LCD screen. The rechargeable battery supplies enough juice for two hours of copying or about three hours of viewing.

Transferring Photos From Digital Cameras to the P-4000:

In order to transfer JPEG photos to the P-4000, simply remove the Compact Flash or SD/MMC card from your camera and insert it into the appropriate slot on the top of the unit. The device also accommodates other types of memory cards such as Memory Stick, Smartmedia, and XD, through the use of an optional third-party adapter.

Using a very simple menu system to copy files from the media card to the P-4000, photos transfer quite quickly. In our tests, the contents of a 128MB CF card were copied in less than one minute.

Once images are copied to the P-4000, you can also optionally erase the files from the memory card, and the images on the Epson can be organized into separate folders or albums.

Photos, Movies and Music:

Viewing images on the P-4000 is sheer delight, as the 640 x 480 (VGA) Epson Photo Fine screen displays three colours per pixel and 212 pixels per inch. Quite simply, this display screen will put your camera’s to shame, as most digital camera LCDs offer a measly one colour per pixel and about 80-100 pixels per inch.

What’s more, the P-4000 allows you to zoom in on your photos, with the depth of the zoom depending on the resolution of the original image. With pictures from a 5-megapixel camera, for instance, you can zoom in up to 800 per cent. The bottom line: The P-4000 can make a bad photo look incredibly good.

With its large screen, the P-4000 can be used to show off photos as well. With the ability to produce simple slideshow presentations complete with some transition effects and a user-defined soundtrack, the P-4000 produces relatively decent presentations. The sound plays acceptably well through a speaker at the rear of the device, and there’s also an AV-out port that allows you to output to a TV.

In addtition to viewing photos, the Epson P-4000 also plays video (AVI, MOV, MP4, and ASF) and audio (MP3, M4A, and AAC) files. While there are definitely more compact ways to carry music with you, you might be tempted to copy movies onto the P-4000, as the sharp and vibrant screen makes this device one of the best portable televisions on the market.

In addition to viewing photos, movies and playing music, the P-4000 can also output directly to certain printers — namely Epson Stylus and PictureMate printers — so you don’t have to use a computer to print images. If you don’t have an Epson printer, you will need to download images to your computer to print (you can interface the P-4000 with your Mac or PC through the supplied USB 2.0 cable).

Transferring Files to Your Computer

The great thing about this unit is that you don’t need to install any software to hook up the P-4000 to your computer. In fact, the supplied CD seems extraneous, as it only contains the operating manual. As soon as you connect the P-4000 to your computer using the USB cable, the unit is automatically recognized as a drive.

The downside, however, is the arcane way in which files are stored on the P-4000. A major selling feature of all portable media devices is the simplicity of transferring images from your computer to the portable media device to take on the go. Unlike the familiar drag and drop of many other portable media devices, the P-4000 has strange rules for proper usage, as you must place files in the Epson folder marked “PC_Data,” otherwise the P-4000 won’t see them.

Also, the P-4000’s operating system seems to be a throwback to the days of MS DOS, as file names are limited to the archaic “8.3” format (a file or folder name of up to eight characters, with a three-character file extension). This means that a picture meaningfully named FANTASTICSUNRISE.JPEG will wind up as an enigmatic FANTAS~1.JPEG when viewed on the Epson.

Such eccentricities aside, the P-4000 offers many benefits that propel this unit far ahead of the competition. With such a large screen that displays saturated and vibrant images, the P-4000 has the best viewing screen on the market.

And with the growing need to back-up photography on portable devices, the P-4000 might just be the dream storage device digital photographers have been waiting for.

www.epson.com

You may also like:

Business

South Korean ministries and police said Thursday they were blocking DeepSeek's access to work computers.

Business

Asian markets rose tracking gains on Wall Street and following the US Postal Service's U-turn on a ban on parcels from China and Hong...

World

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he would skip Group of 20 talks this month in South Africa, accusing the host government of...

World

M23 called its first public meeting after capturing the eastern city of Goma - Copyright AFP TED ALJIBERwandan-backed M23 called its first public meeting...