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LaCie silverscreen announced

If your USB thumbdrive is going to be your MP3 player, why not make your USB 2.0 hard drive your media center?  That's the question LaCie is asking with their newly announced silverscreen. 

It's got all the features that you would expect in an external hard drive — storing and retrieving information — but on the back you'll find a big port which we assume connects to a break-out box of some sort. The datasheet (PDF) lists composite, S-Video and component out video; "dual stereo analog audio" (is that redundant or are there two stereo-outs?), coaxial SPDIF and optical SPDIF audio; and an IR receiver for the included remote. You can push the usual suspects through those ports: MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 (yes, that means DivX) video of various flavors; MP3, WMA and AAC audio; and JPEGs up to 8 megapixels to remind you of how inadequate your digital camera is.

While it gets its power from USB, they do list a power adapter on the datasheet so you won't have to drag your computer over to the TV to use it.  Hopefully the next version will use Firewire and allow you to hook it directly up to an HDTV without the need for all those cables.  Pricing is $250 for the 40 GB or $330 for the 80 GB and is expected to ship in mid-February.

by George Hotelling January 14, 2005 in Products

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