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Arriving from France are two additions to LaCie’s range of Neil Poulton’s hardware designs, this time in the form of a HD digital media player, and recorder named the LaCinema Black Play and LaCinema Black Record.
Access to PC or Mac is achieved via a uPnP (powered by TwonkyMedia Server) connection to allow streaming of music and video on the device with the ability to decode at 1080p. 1080i upscaling of standard definition content is also featured.
The LaCinema Black Record adds DVR capabilities allowing the recording, pausing and playback of Live TV, with the support of a set-top box.
A wide range ofideo formats are supported including MPEG-1, MPEG-2 / HD, MPEG-4, DIVX, XVID, H.264 HD, WMV9 HD, AVI, MPG, MP4, MKV, WMV, MOV, ISO, VOB, IFO, ASF, TS, TP, TRP, M2TS. Audio includes MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, AC3, MP4, WAV/LPCM and images JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIF.
The LaCinema Black PLAY and RECORD are available starting at 500GB, at a pretty hefty price of $429.99 – for that you get a great looking piece of kit, let’s hope the user experience is as sharp.
4. June 2009 at 8:28 am
Max 1080i out on HDMI,only records to MPEG2-TS at 720x576p. Oh well
5. June 2009 at 8:57 am
@Skinner not sure but by definition isn’t 720x576p what MPEG2-TS should reach?
What happened to the new comment system?
6. June 2009 at 8:53 am
New comment system was paused whilst we did a bit of site admin work in the week. It's now back. It slows down the loading time of the site as it pulls in the comments from another server – let me know if you think loading times are an issue (invitiation to all!)
Terry
9. June 2009 at 4:02 am
Is it just me, or does this share some similarities with the hp MediaSmart Connector x280n?
28. April 2010 at 5:13 am
No ON – OFF switch. Unit is always powers on with hard drive spinning and using electricity. The so called power on/off switch on the remote only turns off video output while the rest of the unit is at full power.
Unit crashes when you resume from standby mode. Only way out is to reset to factory defaults. Result when system boots you MUST go through the wizzard to set up the device again. Each and every time that you want to use it.
Impossible to delete a directory once you create one.
Impossible to copy data from the Lacie to PC or network storage. Can only copy ONTO the Lacie.
Item advertised as NAS (network Attached Storage) however this unit's hard drive can NOT be accessed over the network, indeed the only way to have any access to the lacie hard drive is when the lacie is connected to a computer via USB and only then when you use Windows Media PLayer to "Copy To CD Or Device". Even when connected by USB you can not access the hard drive, but only access to 3 folders for the purpose to copy data into these folders. There is no means to copy data FROM the Lacie to a computer or network storage.
You can create folders or directories on the lacie hard drive, but once created it is impossible to remove those folders. The Lacie doesn't even have an option to reformat the hard drive to allow you to start from new condition. Once a mistake is made it's there for life.
Documentation says that Lacie can play media from network computers but there is no way to play media TO network computers.
documentation says A built-in UPnP client player ensures that you can connect it to a networked computer, and you¿ll be able to load, watch, and enjoy all of your photos, music, and movies¿regardless of where they¿re located.
This is very misleading as you can not view any media located on the Lacie from a networked computer.
The manual is completly useless. The manual does not list any options in the Lacie menus or what those options might control. Reading the manual only gives a listing of capabilities, and it's up to you to figure out how to make use of those capabilities and where they are located in the menu structure. Most of the wording is very misleading. Leads you to believe it has capabilities that are clearly left out of the design with intent. Sure you can connect the Lacie LaCinema Record Black to a network, but data flow is only in one direction, into the Lacie, never out.
16. July 2010 at 1:19 pm
How do you reset a LaCinema classic to factory defaults?