June 8th, 2009
LaCinema Classic Bridge turns your hard drive into a media player
After rolling out some new devices to extend its Cinema lineup, LaCie is now going help you out with media files that you already have on your existing storage drives, whether internal or external. The new LaCinema Classic Bridge serves as a conduit between your hard drive and an HDTV via HDMI; LaCie even includes an HDMI cable, which is a nice touch given the number of home theater devices that don’t ship with one.
If you have an external drive, you can just connect it to the USB connection (a USB cable is also included) on the LaCinema Classic Bridge. The bridge can then play back your videos (including MPEG-4 and DivX), audio files (MP3, WMA), and digital photos (JPEG and HD-JPEG). It will also upscale your video to 1080p quality. Other connections include composite video and a digital coaxial audio port.
The LaCinema Classic Bridge has the same monolithic design as other LaCie devices designed by Neil Poulton, but there’s a reason that it’s larger than its purpose might suggest. That’s because you can pop an internal hard drive into the unit itself if you happen to have a spare around (or you want to maximize your gigabytes per dollar). Given the included cables, the LaCinema Classic Bridge is fairly priced at $99.99 if you’re looking for a media player that doesn’t rely on a home network to obtain files to display on your TV.
Sean Portnoy spent several years as an editor at Computer Shopper magazine, most recently serving as online executive editor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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