I must admit that I’m not an owner of the LaCie LaCinema Black Max but I’m a proud owner of the popcorn hour A110. The popcorn hour A110 is a small media box which plays almost every video and audio format on the market. The media box includes portal services for youtube, google video, shoutcast and many more platforms. Although I’m very pleased with this box I want to present to you the latest news about LaCie LaCinema Black Max.
The LaCinema Black Max is shipped with the video codecs for MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DIVX, XVID, H.264, MKV and WMV9 HD and is able to play video material up to 1.920 x 1.080p. VOB- or IFO structures without protection can be played directly on the media box without converting. The LaCinema Black Max is also able to upscale videos with less resolution up to 1080i.
The most exciting feature of the LaCinema is the integrated DVB-T module. The DVB-T module contains an integrated program guide which allows to use the black max as a video recorder with time shifting.
LaCinema supports the following audio codecs: MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, AC3, MP4 and WAV. Pictures in the format JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP and TIF can be directly viewed on the screen via the integrated photo viewer.
Unfortunately the integrated DVB-T module makes the LaCinema quite an expensive product. The current list prices for the LaCinema with 500 GB hard disk are about 650 swiss francs. This makes the LaCinema about 200 swiss francs more expensive than the popcorn hour A110 with integrated samsung F1 hard disk with 1 TB disk space.
But for those who want an all-in-one player and recorder which supports the latest and greatest high definition codecs the LaCinema Black Max is a “must buy”!
Here are some pictures (copyright by Lacie):
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Nice box. have you ever heard aboud the Dreambox? I got one and it’s fantastic. I wonder.. are you able to mount shares like from a NAS to the LaCie LaCinema Black Max?
best regards
@Nicola Lardieri
Hello Nici,
Yes I heard about the dreambox. I checked out the dreambox when I was evaluating for the popcorn hour A110 and got the feeling that the dreambox is more suitable if you are the “constructor type”. What I like with popcorn or event the lacie media box is the plugin and run concept.
The popcorn hour can mount shares from NAS via SMB or NFS. For the LaCie LaCinema Black Max I must admit I don’t know…
Daniel