Comments on: LaCie 301461KUA LaCinema Rugged 500 GB USB 2.0 Multimedia Hard Disk

By: M. A. Westphal

M. A. Westphal — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:41:57 +0000

The LaCinema Rugged does not display any HD content. It only upscales movies that are 720×480 or smaller – and not very well. I had a very difficult time finding this out. LaCie’s once stellar support took days to come up with this answer. The documentation says which formats it can read but does not list anything about which resolutions in those formats work. The error messages displayed on the TV only say, “this format is not supported”, or in some cases, the file name is not shown in the list at all…

As for updating the firmware, it isn’t difficult, but not documented very well.

I love LaCie disk drives – the D2 Quadra is a fantastic drive. But the LaCinema Rugged needs some work on the TV side – and much better documentation.

By: Charles Valenzuela

Charles Valenzuela — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:56:40 +0000

Works great. I use with my Mac and my Win XP computers. Compact and portable. You will need to go immediately to the LaCie website to download and install the latest firmware update. Will not work with the accessory rubber bumpers in assorted colors as this device has a light / IR sensor on the end for the remote-control. Regular LaCie rugged drives do not have that, so there is no slot in the rubber bumper to accommodate it. You’ll have to live with the supplied black rubber bumper. All LaCie stuff works really great. I love their stuff!

By: S. Lam

S. Lam — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:49:25 +0000

LaCie 301461KUA LaCinema Rugged 500 GB USB 2.0 Multimedia Hard Disk

For a Lacie product, I thought the interface would be much more refined. Has 4 options, video, music, photos, and all folders. The first three starts directly at the respective folders and you only see the respective file types (you can move around to different folders, it just STARTS at a specific predefined folder). The last option you can see all types of media files in a directory tree starting at the root.

You can rip DVDs into ISO format and it will play just like a you had the dvd in there. Seems to play most divx/xvid files I threw at it. Annoying it takes about 10s just to start a 700mb XVID file. There is option to skip direction to a time on a movie. Kinda of a pain to get back to where you left off even at 32x (max) fast forward.

Construction seems very solid.

For some reason, even the lastest v.5.15E firmware doesn't remember settings or where you left off on a movie. Connected to HDMI, i have to hit a button EVERYTIME I turn on to display in HDMI and then go into the settings to change it to 1080i (max res) every single time! Totally Inexcusable and incredibly annoying.

By: Thuy T. Pham

Thuy T. Pham — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:07:58 +0000

I got it hooked up to the TV and it only showed black and white movies. Some of the AVI couldn’t recognized by the LaCie itself. So I thought, it might be me, who didn’t know how to operate. I gave it to a friend to try and he couldn’t even get anything out of it.

Very disappointing!!!!!!!! Not recommended to anyone.