LaCie Announces Compact Wi-Fi HD Media Center

Love your media center so much you wish you could bring it over to a friend's house? That's what LaCie had in mind when it debuted the LaCinema Mini HD at CES today, which delivers full 1080p HD video to your HDTV of choice--and fits in the palm of your hand.

The LaCinema Mini HD has a 500GB hard drive which you can fill via 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, 100Mbps Ethernet, or any USB 2.0 storage device. Once you've got it on the drive, just plug it into your display via HDMI (for HD video) or RCA composite cables (for older standard-definition TVs) and you're ready to go. What's more, since the LaCinema Mini HD only weighs about a pound and is roughly the size of four or five CD jewel cases, you'll have no problem bringing your movies, photos, and music with you.

Compatibility is also one of the LaCinema Mini HD's selling points--it supports over a dozen popular video formats (and subtitle formats, for the internationally-minded) and several image and audio formats as well, including AAC files from the iTunes Music Store.

As of this writing, the LaCinema Mini HD is available now in Europe and will be available internationally via LaCie's online store and resellers within this quarter for a $300 suggested retail price.

LaCie also announced new USB flash drives with online storage, the CooKey and the WhizKey, earlier in the show.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, check out PC World's complete coverage of CES 2010.