LaCie introduces telly-friendly external hard drive kit
Inspired by 2001?
LaCie has brought a pair of new releases to its LaCinema range, extending its line of TV-friendly hard drives with a minimalist black model and a separate unit that links external hard drives you already own to your telly.
The LaCinema Black Record is an HD-capable HDD - it'll play 1080p content and upscale standard-definition material to 1080i - that'll also take a feed from a set-top box and use it to operate as a DVR.
LaCie's LaCinema Black Record: minimalist DVR (minus the tuner)
Already got a DVR? The LaCinema Black Play has the same slab-on-its-side design as the Record but minus the recording function. Both units have 500GB or 1TB of on-board storage and an HDMI port for the TV connection - and there are composite- and component-video ports if you prefer those.
Codec support stretches to MPEG 1-4, DivX, XviD, H.264 and WMV9. All the standard container formats are supported too, as are subtitle files. There's fixed Ethernet and 802.11n Wi-Fi for feeding the box with NAS-stored content, and a USB 2.0 port for adding extra, local storage.
The LaCinema Classic Bridge: connect an extisting HDD to your HD TV
The LaCinema Classic Bridge does all this playback stuff, but you have to add your own external hard drive. It has HDMI and composite-video outputs. There's no network support.
The Bridge will retail for £80, the Black Play for £320 (500GB) or £360 (1TB), and the Black Record for £370 (500GB) or £425 (1TB). They're due to go on sale any day now. ®
COMMENTS
Excellent...but add a couple of tuners to it
This looks like an excellent product, but for the UK/AUS/EUROPE etc. adding a couple of digital tuners added to it as well it would turn it into an astonishingly excellent product.
These separate DVRs are great, but more 'one box' solutions are need. Integrate a couple of Freesat and or freeview+ tuners into one of these beasts and you'll pretty much corner the DVR and PVR market.
This is a much more exciting product than LG's lacklustre blue ray freeview HDD recorder.
