LaCie LaCinema USB 2.0 500 GB Rugged HD Multimedia Portable External Hard Drive 301493KUA (Black)

by LaCie

Product Details

• Item Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002G62Z1I
• Item model number: 301493KUA
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,782 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

With the LaCinema Rugged HD, you’ll be able to access and enjoy your files on any HDTV. You can watch television shows and movies, listen to music, and create photo slideshows to share with your friends and family. Created for LaCie by world-famous industrial designer Neil Poulton, the LaCinema Rugged HD goes beyond ordinary multimedia hard disks with its sophisticated all-terrain design. The LaCinema Rugged HD comes with HDMI built-in, allowing you to watch movies and television programs on your HDTV, or even enjoy your photos in full HD resolution. Choose from among MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (AVI, VOB, IFO, ISO), MPEG-4 (AVI, XviD), MKV, H.264, WMV9, and VC-1 video codecs to ensure easy playback. You’re free to take your media with you with the LaCinema Rugged HD; its unique varnished, scratch-protected aluminum shell and shock-resistant rubber sleeve make it especially resistant to harsh elements for extra protection wherever you go. With a smart and simple user interface, as well as a convenient remote control, the LaCinema Rugged is both practical and user-friendly. By connecting it to your computer via USB, you can store your multimedia files, then access them later through any television. Its 500GB capacity is large enough to hold most media libraries.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good harddrive, a decent media server on the go., May 11, 2010

By 

Nathan Devonshyre (Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LaCie LaCinema USB 2.0 500 GB Rugged HD Multimedia Portable External Hard Drive 301493KUA (Black) (Electronics)

As the title says, this is a good harddrive, it only has USB for data transfer, rather than having Firewire like LaCie Rugged All-Terrain 500 GB USB 2.0/FireWire 400/800 Portable External Hard Drive 301371, so it takes a bit of time to put your media library on here, but once it's on, the fun can start. It accepts power via USB (provided your system supplies enought juice), or outboard wall-wart.

The reason this doesn't have Firewire is because it instead offers HDMI, Optical Audio, and Composite Video/Audio via 1/8" mini-jack. This allows you to access your library from almost any display device, and control the drive with the included remote.

The downsides of this are the "user-friendly" software that LaCie is using for the on-board player is clunky, using drill-down menus and no options for shuffling your audio or anything else I-Pod-like. If you have a large library, you need it carefully sorted into folders with not more than a dozen or two items inside, or you'll be scrolling on the remote for a long time. This could easily be resolved with an alphabet jump like many indexes feature today.

All-in-all, I'm sad it's not as useful for audio playback, but it's a great way to carry your collection of video to share or take advantage of your awesome home theatre without fighting with your laptops video-outs.