Introduction
I have a confession to make: I don’t like multifunction devices. When shopping, I buy the best of the individual devices. For example, I own a separate printer and scanner, not a multifunction printer/scanner/copier. Therefore, it was with some trepidation that I approached Ritek’s latest creation, known as the QuattroDrive.
With an older television, I am limited in that I have one set of RCA inputs in the rear (those are the round yellow, red, and white connections). I have a stand-alone DVD player hooked up. It works well at playing my CD’s and DVD’s. My old DVD player does not display photos, but with only one set of RCA connections, I didn’t have the room for a dedicated TV flash card viewer. I thought the answer was a new TV, but I’ve been holding off with LCD prices tumbling, and the unknowns of the new HDTV signal.
Then along comes this little box, known as the QuattroDrive. It promises to interface not only with my computer, but also with my television. What can it do? These are the four functions accrdong to the manufacturer:
– flash memory to CD burner
– digital media player
– multicard reader/writer
– external CDR/W writer
I first dismissed this device as only being for professional photographers who needed to back up their memory cards on the road to a more secure optical disc. The more I started looking into this device, the more I realized that it had a lot more to offer for many different users.
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