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Lacie LaCinema Mini HD
Product: Lacie LaCinema Mini HD
Website: www.lacie.com/uk/
Specifications:
Video format support: AVI, MKV, MOV, DIVX, MPEG, TS, MP4, WMV, DVD-Video (ISO, Video_TS), MPEG1/2/4, DIVX/HD, XVID H.264, VC1
Audio format support: MP3, WMA, AAC**, MP4, WAV, OGG, FLAC
Image format support: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF
Connectivity: HDMI 1.3, Audio Video RCA, Digital Optical Audio, Ethernet 100Mbps, 802.11b/g/n wireless
Other: 500GB capacity, 118x118x40mm, 450g
Price: £249.99
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS MAKER Lacie has a range of products in the media jukebox and streamer market, and while it’s fair to say that so far they’ve been a bit of a mixed bag, we’re optimistic about the latest addition to the LaCinema series.
Like the rest of its range the LaCinema Mini HD sports sleek black lines inspired by designer Neil Poulton. It’s also extremely compact, by far the smallest we’ve seen to offer these sorts of features. A USB port at the front offers easy access to connected media and an additional port around the rear combines with HDMI 1.3, audio/video RCA, digital optical audio and 100Mbps Ethernet. It also has wireless 802.11b/g/n built in to avoid having to string cables around the home and a 500GB hard drive for local storage of large collections.
This is impressive enough in itself, considering the small footprint, so we were really hoping the Mini HD would perform equally well in the field.
Setup is quick and easy and collections can either be copied via drag and drop onto the internal drive or streamed across a network using shared folders, the supplied TwonkyMedia UPnP server or an alternative application like Windows Media Player. Once this has been set up files are accessed through the movies/music/photos/network menus in a similar fashion to Western Digital’s WDTV. A range of categories help to filter large collections by date, folder or playlist and in the case of music, all of the usual album, artist and genre views are present.
One issue we encountered early on is that while folder views are available, the device doesn’t retain the system’s original folder structure, instead lumping any and all subdirectories into a single root display. This can make large collections awkward to browse and though keyword searches can help, it’s not an ideal solution.
Format support is excellent though, and each of our varied collection of test files played back straightaway without issue. Even 1080p video streamed admirably over a wireless network, and the Mini HD was very responsive when it came to skipping back and forth, pausing and resuming playback. Quality is also top notch and there’s a decent amount of control including resume, zoom, pan, subtitle and audio track support.
Music and photo playback is similarly impressive. Thumbnails and album art display adds a nice visual element to the clean interface and slideshows can be customised with transition and interval adjustment through the settings menus.
Sadly there’s not a lot here in terms of access to online content - an area that’s starting to separate the men from the boys in an increasingly saturated streamer market, with only Flickr photos browsable direct from the device. The only other real issue we encountered was a faint but incessant whine that emanates from the underneath of the unit when switched on. This isn’t usually a problem when watching or listening to media, but it can become a distraction in quiet environments.
In Short
All in all this is a very good showing from Lacie. The LaCinema Mini is a superbly portable streamer with excellent format support and equally impressive performance. Aside from a few relatively minor issues the main thing to note is that there is a price to pay for the diminutive size – the Mini costs around £50 more than the 1TB Classic HD, which might not make a lot of sense to those who don’t place portability at a premium. µ
The Good
Excellent format support, impressive performance, sleek and compact design.
The Bad
Interface issues when browsing large collections, limited access to online services.
The Ugly
A faint but incessant whine when switched on.
Bartender’s Score
8/10
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Is it me or does the user interface on the Lacie website look a lot like the PSP and PS3 graphical interface.
I know the icons for video and music are very commom, but the over all layout reminds me...
£249.99 That's a LaCie price... double the price of the WDTV Live? LOL.
I'd buy three of these if it had VGA or BNC connections.
You can buy a Dell Zino can do such much more for about the same price depending on what you want and it does not have short comings of what it can do other than play high end games.
Its a box.