January 16, 2008 Lacie has announced a new multimedia hard drive with up to 1TB of storage capacity that plugs directly into a television for playback of a wide range of video, audio and photo formats.
Designed to provide simple access personal digital media collections, the LaCinema Premier is available in 500GB, 700GB, or 1TB capacities - the latter being enough to store 1000 movies (900MB per MPEG-4 movie), 320,000 songs (3MB per MP3 song) or 1,000,000 photos (1MB per JPEG photo file).
Direct TV playback is complemented by silent operation and surround sound via the unit's optical output capability. The LaCinema Premier can also adapt video content up to a 1080i resolution via a component cable to give optimal viewing on most current LCD and Plasma TV screens.
Also doubling as an external hard drive for data storage, the LaCinema Premier connects to a PC or Mac via USB 2.0 and LaCie's "1-Click’ Backup Software" is included in the package.
Expected to ship in February 2008, Lacie is now taking pre-orders for the LaCinema Premier Multimedia Hard Drive which costs USD$249.99, $329.99 and $469.00 for the 500GB, 750GB and 1TB versions respectively.
LaCinema Premier compatibility:
- Audio:MP3, WMA, AC3, OGG Vorbis
- Video: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DVD-Video (ISO, IFO, VOB)
- Photo: JPEG