LaCie LaCinema Premier

Author's product rating:   

Sound Level	Good
Instructions	Quite Helpful / Understandable
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	reliable, silent, practical, it's getting cheaper, very good remote, 2yrs guarantee
Disadvantages:	doesn't support MP4 or MKV

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

LaCie LaCinema Premier my review

I already owned a 500GB version of this LaCie LaCinema but when I was in Asda and saw the 750GB for more or less the same price I paid for the other one (£129 I think) I couldn't resist the tempation. I gifted it to my in-law and she's super happy! So what's this LaCie LaCinema Premier? It's a multimedia hard disk that you can plug to the TV and it allows you to watch your media files (video, music, pictures) on your TV, it plays the most commonly used codecs such as DivX, MPEG, JPG, MP3 etc (see them listed later on). I will never praise this product enough, it's simple to use, it's durable and has a very good remote control. What does it change from the 500GB version that I already reviewed? Nothing really, only the size, it allows you to store many more media files, that's all.

For who hasn't read my previous review on the 500GB version, this LaCie LaCinema comes in a white little square sturdy box. Taking out the contents you will find the device itself (black in colour), CD with manuals (no drivers needed), USB 2.0 cable, A/V cable, remote with batteries (2AA), power adapter and a (very) Quick Install Guide. The hard disk looks professional and its weight is not too heavy nor too light (1Kg to be exact). Colour is opaque black with blue led lights on the front when turned on. It has some controls on the front (stop, play, four direction arrows and power button) which might come handy at times but trust me you will always use the remote. On the back it presents a USB 2.0 port, 3 A/V plugs (Video+Audio Left & Right), S-Video and others similar to the composite plugs but dedicated to the HD video so you can plug it to the most advanced TVs too.

Dimensions are: 68x170x125mm (2.68x6.69x4.92in.)

Knowing that they released updates of its firmware I first plugged it into my computer and followed the instructions to apply the upgrades, it's a very simple process as long as you stick to the instructions, now I don't remember what the updates consisted of but it's good to know that LaCie keeps its products updated! When you plug it to the TV you will see a nice blue menu from which you can select between MOVIES, MUSIC, PICTURES and BROWSE. You can easily create your subfolders from your computer to make some order if you have plenty of multimedia files to archive. Easy enough, once you transfer all your multimedia files from your computer to this hard disk you can plug it to the television and enjoy your films, music, pictures or whatever you put on it. As I said before the remote is also fantastic. Not filmsy at all, it looks just like a normal remote, very reactive and with lots of functions, not too hard to learn either. With the remote you can navigate through your files and select to watch them (or listen to them, in case of music) on your tv.
Files supported are:

Video: MPEG1/2/4 (avi and xvid), DVD-Video (ISO, IFO, VOB)
Audio: MP3, WMA, AC3, Ogg Vorbis
Photo: JPEG (up to 8MB pixels), BMP, GIF and PNG
Subtitle: SMI, SRT, SSA, SUB

Other few notes: the video and sound quality are excellent. The fast-forward and rewind actually works like on a DVD which is FANTASTIC on this sort of product.
Some possible let downs are:
1) It does support NTFS but it's formatted by the manufacturer in FAT32, this means that you can't store files for sizes bigger than 4GB (a bit stupid since it can support DVD-Video files). I wasn't willing to try to reformat it to NTFS because I'm not planning to store anything but avi video files.
2) Doesn't play MP4 or mkv, not that I care but some people might.
3) They might have included a A/V-to-SCART plug for people who still have only SCART plugs on their tv (you can buy them for cheap anyway).

CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, this LaCie multimedia hard disk is the best one I've tried (and I've tried a few), it beats all other brands for the easyness of use (thanks to the responsive remote), silent operations, neat look and reliability. It's definitely a great purchase if you have plenty of multimedia files and you're tired of watching them on your computer. I have bought three of these in all (one for me, one for my girlfriend and one for her mother) and none of them has let me down or malfunctioned, the best thing is that they are also getting cheaper. I'm very satisfied by them and... OH I nearly forgot, they come with 2 years guarantee!

AVAILABILITY

As I said in the review, I found ths product in Asda but there weren’t many on the shelf (must have been 4 in total) so I’m not sure if it’s something that Asda will keep selling. Otherwise they are quite hard to come by in the UK although this sort of products are getting more and more popular (finally).
For more info about the product I leave you with the manufacturer’s website where you can find additional information about it (although at the moment they don't have them in their online shop):
http://www.lacie.com/uk/support/support_manifest.htm?id=10263