LaCie introduces telly-friendly external hard drive kit

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. ®