Wolverine ESP Digital Photo Album and Multimedia Player
I have been a fan of Wolverine products for almost four years now and my trusty Wolverine FlashPac was in need of an upgrade. Not that the FlashPac didn’t do it’s job, its just that it was pretty slow and didn’t have a display that could be used to view the images. Without hesitation I turned back to Wolverine to see what they had available and I found the new ESP Digital Photo Album and Multimedia Player. While the full name may be a bit long, it does convey a lot more of the ESP’s features as well as being a card reader, external hard drive, and FM radio.
Overview
The ESP is an incredible multimedia device that can handle most all of your portable multimedia needs from listening to MP3′s, watching videos, playing a photo slideshow, or listening to FM radio. While many people will love all of those features, from a photographers point of view the most important things to me are the ability to do backups of my compact flash cards in the field, review the pictures on the device, and to have a portable device to show potential clients a slideshow of my work. The ESP does all of these tasks quite well and at a price that won’t make you wonder why you didn’t just buy a nice laptop instead.
Top view of the ESP
Features
As already mentioned the ESP has a multi-function card reader that can either make backups to the internal hard drive of the ESP or when connected to your computer’s USB port your cards will appear of drives that you can access directly.
- Store and View Thousands of Photos
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- Download images directly from any digital camera without a computer
- Use it to backup and carry all your digital images
- Display JPEG, Bitmap, Tiff, Text and RAW images (most popular SLR Cameras)
- Print directly to printers
- Store and Play Thousands of Songs
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- Supports five music Formats: MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, AAC (MP4-audio) & CDA
- Easy, drag and drop music files from your computer and play them instantly
- Store and Play Hundreds of Hours of Video
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- Supports: MPEG-1, MPEG-4, WMV9 and Xvid
- Built-in FM Radio
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- Listen and RECORD your favorite talk shows or music from any FM Radio Station
- Scan and preset up to 18 different Radio Stations
- Plugs to TV and Stereo System
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- With the included Video/Audio cable connect the ESP directly to any TV or Projector
- View a slide show of your favorite photos or watch recorded videos on the big screen
- Connect to a stereo system to enjoy and share your music collection
| Specifications |
| Display 3.6″ wide view angle TFT LCD with adjustable Back Light – 320×240 pixels
Built-in Memory Card Slots Storage Video Interface Audio Interface Built-in Speaker Computer Interface Operating Systems Dimensions Weight Power Requirements |
Setup
The setup of the ESP is quite simple, it comes with both an AC adapter and a USB cable, be sure and plug it in until fully charged before using it the first time, after that the simple to navigate menu system walks you through everything you need to know.
“The ESP was a lifesaver for us at a fashion shoot when the assistant left the CF cards back in the car. With the ESP we would fill up a card, tell everyone to take a five minute break, dump the cards to the ESP and get right back to shooting.” – David , Esquire Photography
ESP Controls
Usage
The ESP’s operating system is very simple to use and works the way I would expect it to, when I insert a card it pops up and asks me what I want to do with it, I select backup and it just starts working. The main controls consist of the “joystick”, a menu button, and the ESC button.
Using just these three simple controls you can manage everything on the system. The “-” and “+” buttons control volume. The only other control is the power button on the right side as well as a lock control to keep the power from coming on accidentally.
At the bottom you can see a small mic port for doing audio notes and near the top are the LED indicator lights.
The has an optional docking station that can also be used for capturing video and audio from remote devices. Since I don’t have a use for that right now I didn’t get one yet to see how that works.
ESP Menu System
The menu system is an icon driven system with easy-to-read captions to help you navigate. Pushing left/right or up/down on the directional pad will move you from application to application and then pushing in will select the item. The Menu key will give you a list of available options from wherever you are while the ESC key will back you out one step at a time.
The main thing to keep in mind is that images that are backed up from a memory card are found in the Backup application instead of the Pictures application. You have to specifically copy images into the Pictures folder for them to be viewed there. This is a great way of having a photo slideshow of images without getting confused as to what images are from your current photo shoot.
What I actually like to do is to backup my images to the ESP and then if I have time, review them for focus issues or just for being a bad image, I can delete them right from the ESP and save time later when importing the images into my computer.
ESP playing video
For client meetings, I also created a couple of really nice slideshows using Proshow Gold and output them formatted properly for the ESP. Let me tell you, the image shown here does not do the ESP justice, the screen may only be 320×240 but the slideshows and pictures look fantastic on it. So far, everyone that has seen the slideshow videos on the ESP have been very impressed.
The ESP has a bunch of other features that I could spend a few more pages writing about but they really don’t have much appeal to me, these include the mp3 player, the FM radio, the audio recorder, and the Tetris-like game that is included. While those are nice add-ons, they really aren’t the main reason a photographer is going to want the ESP.
Tested Transfer Speeds (1gb of data)
Reader to Computer   3:31 minutes
Reader to ESPÂ Â Â 3:43 minutes
ESP to Computer   1:44 minutes
Why the ESP?
Why would I choose the Wolverine ESP over the Epson P-5000? The simple answer is a cost/benefit analysis blows the Epson out of the running. For almost twice the price of the Wolverine ESP, the Epson P-5000 offers basically a nicer screen. When the folks at Wolverine decided to make a new device, they interviewed tons of photographers and asked them what they would like to see that would compete against the Epson units and the top answer was that they wanted a much more affordable device even if it meant having a lower resolution LCD display. If I am going to spend $800 for a portable media device, its going to be a new laptop, not a small box I throw into my camera bag and use mostly as an external drive and card reader. Coming in at $329, the ESP is much more affordable and does it’s job exceptionally well. It’s a nice upgrade from my old FlashPac in terms of functions and download speeds which is a nice bonus as well.
What’s in the box
In the box you will find the ESP unit itself along with the nice quality carrying case along with the user documentation and CD, AC charger, USB cable, Audio/Video cable (to connect to TV), and Earphone.
Summary
The Wolverine ESP competes nicely against other units offering similar features and at a price that doesn’t give you sticker shock. The base features do exactly what they are supposed to do while there are enough extras to add even more value to the package. I don’t leave for a shoot without my ESP in my bag and often will be making my backups of my cards on the drive home. With my old Flashpac I would have to be quite far away to actually finish a large backup on the drive home but now it takes a fraction of the time.
Final results:
| Features: | 4 |
| Setup: | 5 |
| Usage: | 5 |
| Results: | 5 |
| Price: | 4 |
| Overall: | 4.6 |
Website: Wolverine Data
Author: Kerry Garrison
| Equipment Used | |
| Camera | Canon 30D |
| Lights | Photo Basics Strobelite |
| Capture Software | DSLR Remote Pro |
| Processing Software | Adobe Photoshop Lightroom |
Popularity: 1%
I use this Wolverine equipment since 3 years now, and I must say I don't totally agree with your point of vue, here.
Ok, as far as backing your pictures up, from a camera, when you're traveling, it's quite good, no problem. It's fast, it's reliable, it reads -indeed- many types of file, no problem.
But for the other uses (video, audio, managing the files, quality of screen) you mentioned, I would not be so sure.
Video playback needs a fast machine, the Wolverine can't keep with this, so very often, movies are chopy (but it's still viewable, only, it's chopy at time).
Quality of the screen is not as good as you say, especially by today's standards. Pictures are "allright", they're not "beautiful" on the screen, if you see what I mean.
Operation is not as easy as it could be. For instance, erasing some pictures (and not all) can be a real pain, thanks to the very small buttons, and the operating interface that's a bit clumsy (there is no way to make multi selections in the same time, so you have to select each file, one by one, and erase each file, one by one).
And as a music player, well, I like VERY MUCH MORE my iPod, for sure.
I don't want to be hard on this Wolverine thing, because as a photographer myself, I find it very valuable for what it is: a multicard reader and a light, and fast, back-up for many file types indeed.
Also, it's strongly built (metal?) compared to those "plastic" things they sell you those days.
But for all the other uses, well, it's not really that, for my taste anyway.
I did not say that the quality of the images on the screen was beautiful, at 320×240 they will not look as good as the Epson at 640×480 or my laptop. The point I was making is that the screen is "good enough" for the job. I specifically mentioned that the sacrifice was the screen quality to get the price down.
As for video, my videos look great on it, not choppy at all. I would suggest making sure you have the current firmware and then calling their tech support for tips on getting video to work great. I did mention that I output my videos optimized for the screen size, I did this so that the ESP wouldnt have to do scaling on the fly. Little things like that can make a huge difference.
I use this Wolverine equipment since 3 years now, and I must say I don't totally agree with your point of vue, here.
Ok, as far as backing your pictures up, from a camera, when you're traveling, it's quite good, no problem. It's fast, it's reliable, it reads -indeed- many types of file, no problem.
But for the other uses (video, audio, managing the files, quality of screen) you mentioned, I would not be so sure.
Video playback needs a fast machine, the Wolverine can't keep with this, so very often, movies are chopy (but it's still viewable, only, it's chopy at time).
Quality of the screen is not as good as you say, especially by today's standards. Pictures are “allright”, they're not “beautiful” on the screen, if you see what I mean.
Operation is not as easy as it could be. For instance, erasing some pictures (and not all) can be a real pain, thanks to the very small buttons, and the operating interface that's a bit clumsy (there is no way to make multi selections in the same time, so you have to select each file, one by one, and erase each file, one by one).
And as a music player, well, I like VERY MUCH MORE my iPod, for sure.
I don't want to be hard on this Wolverine thing, because as a photographer myself, I find it very valuable for what it is: a multicard reader and a light, and fast, back-up for many file types indeed.
Also, it's strongly built (metal?) compared to those “plastic” things they sell you those days.
But for all the other uses, well, it's not really that, for my taste anyway.
I did not say that the quality of the images on the screen was beautiful, at 320×240 they will not look as good as the Epson at 640×480 or my laptop. The point I was making is that the screen is “good enough” for the job. I specifically mentioned that the sacrifice was the screen quality to get the price down.
As for video, my videos look great on it, not choppy at all. I would suggest making sure you have the current firmware and then calling their tech support for tips on getting video to work great. I did mention that I output my videos optimized for the screen size, I did this so that the ESP wouldnt have to do scaling on the fly. Little things like that can make a huge difference.
[...] Wolverine ESP Digital Photo Album and Multimedia Player Review cameradojo.com/2008/09/02/wolverine-esp-digital-photo-album-and-multimedia-player/ [...]
Well, the problem is that if you have to "optimize" each media you want to take into the Wolverine, you'll end up with no time left to shoot pictures, for instance!
I mean… how is it possible to know in advance on which TV size you'll project your film(s), or images?
I have current firmware installed, the chopiness doesn't come from that, I'm pretty sure it's the slow proc built inside which is not fast enough to decode films at a sustained rate.
Anyway, it's difficult to debate precisely about these, I just wanted to "moderate" a little, based on *my* experience, what you said I found a bit optimistic about it.
But as I said, I'm happy for its main usage: multicard reader and back-up for photos when traveling.
Thanks for your cool articles, Kerry.
You do make a good point but in "MY" case, I did some video presentations that I knew were ONLY going to be played on the ESP to show potential clients. Because this was specifically a marketing effort I took the time to make it look as good as possible for that specific device and the result is great. I am sure if I tried to play a standard definition movie on it, it would probably bog down trying to scale it on the fly. Thanks for the comments, much appreciated.
Well, the problem is that if you have to “optimize” each media you want to take into the Wolverine, you'll end up with no time left to shoot pictures, for instance!
I mean… how is it possible to know in advance on which TV size you'll project your film(s), or images?
I have current firmware installed, the chopiness doesn't come from that, I'm pretty sure it's the slow proc built inside which is not fast enough to decode films at a sustained rate.
Anyway, it's difficult to debate precisely about these, I just wanted to “moderate” a little, based on *my* experience, what you said I found a bit optimistic about it.
But as I said, I'm happy for its main usage: multicard reader and back-up for photos when traveling.
Thanks for your cool articles, Kerry.
You do make a good point but in “MY” case, I did some video presentations that I knew were ONLY going to be played on the ESP to show potential clients. Because this was specifically a marketing effort I took the time to make it look as good as possible for that specific device and the result is great. I am sure if I tried to play a standard definition movie on it, it would probably bog down trying to scale it on the fly. Thanks for the comments, much appreciated.
[...] Wolverine ESP Digital Photo Album and Multimedia Player Review http://cameradojo.com/2008/09/02/wolverine-esp-digital-photo-album-and-multimedia-player/ [...]
Why no prices?
Why no prices?
I'm curious why the transfer rates are so slow. I am very interested in a product like this but if the unit will only transfer one 16GB CF card before needing to be recharged, its usefulness becomes much more limited. I think the same is true for products by other manufacturers too.
I'm curious why the transfer rates are so slow. I am very interested in a product like this but if the unit will only transfer one 16GB CF card before needing to be recharged, its usefulness becomes much more limited. I think the same is true for products by other manufacturers too.
I'm curious why the transfer rates are so slow. I am very interested in a product like this but if the unit will only transfer one 16GB CF card before needing to be recharged, its usefulness becomes much more limited. I think the same is true for products by other manufacturers too.
As a photographer i wanted the 120 Gb ESP to move a selection of pictures from my CF cards to the MicroSD one and put this one in my smartphone, to send the pics with PocketPhojo, but the problem is that i have to copy the pictures from CF to Msd one by one. I think it would be good to save time to have the option to select and copy several pictures at once.
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