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Brando's New Cartridge-Style HDD Dock Goes Full Multimedia Player
Posted by Kit Eaton at 7:31 PM on July 10, 2008
Clearly one to take a good idea and run with it, Brando has just come up with this new cartridge-style HDD dock that also acts as a media player. So via its s-video and composite sockets you can stream audio, pictures, and video (including divx, with subtitles) to TV and it even has a remote. It takes 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SATA HDDs (and SD cards too) and connects via USB 2.0. Hmm: a largish rectangular "cartridge" which you plug in to a socket to play movies on TV, why's that sound familiar? Available now for US$84. [Brando]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
strider_mt2k
Posted 8:30 PM 10/7/08
It's not good looking, but it is extremely cool.
I'd use one, sho nuff.
strider_mt2k
Kamenwati
Posted 8:27 PM 10/7/08
I need this badly!!!
Kamenwati
oo0cyst0oo
Posted 8:49 PM 10/7/08
@strider_mt2k: It looks cool in the unfinished, exposed kinda way.
oo0cyst0oo
markarian
Posted 8:39 PM 10/7/08
Where do I buy the multi-drive one and when does it come out in eSATA?
markarian
strider_mt2k
Posted 9:15 PM 10/7/08
@oo0cyst0oo: Good point.
Let's get the cover off of that dock!
strider_mt2k
thewarm
Posted 9:08 PM 10/7/08
No good, only FAT32!
thewarm
hanswurst0815
Posted 9:07 PM 10/7/08
If the bright blue "SATA" light is flashing during hard drive access, this is not the gadget you would want to use to enjoy watching movies.
hanswurst0815
Gonzie
Posted 10:31 PM 10/7/08
@Gervy: i think it's safe to say with all this sata stuff going on they've actually managed to standardized it
Gonzie
Gervy
Posted 10:21 PM 10/7/08
Anyone know if SATA drives have standard widths between ports? Anyone with a PS2 can tell you that IDE drives didn't (only certain brands of HDDs would fit in the PS2 HDD dock due to the width between the power and cable ports).
Gervy
Gonzie
Posted 10:19 PM 10/7/08
@strider_mt2k: just don't go touching it after it's been on a while, it certainly won't be cool then
Gonzie
Dook_In_The_Urinal
Posted 10:54 PM 10/7/08
Worst Buy has one similar but it doesn't play music and its like 48 million dollars plus tax.
Dook_In_The_Urinal
joerdie
Posted 10:47 PM 10/7/08
Once this gets old, will I have to blow in it and turn on and off the power like a million times?
joerdie
monkeyrotica
Posted 10:46 PM 10/7/08
So this is FAT32 ONLY? Meaning it won't recognize media files larger than 1 Gig, right?
monkeyrotica
Mr Josh Zombie
Posted 10:38 PM 10/7/08
i swear, i keep putting off buying one of these, and they just keep adding more and more crap.
i'll wait until it can do my laundry, then finally make the leap
Mr Josh Zombie
MilktruckHeist
Posted 11:42 PM 10/7/08
@hanswurst0815: Yet another problem solved by the all-mighty Duct Tape!
MilktruckHeist
paqman
Posted 12:04 AM 11/7/08
@hanswurst0815: Two words: electric tape.
paqman
mrAnderson
Posted 1:35 AM 11/7/08
No Atari 2600 emulator?
mrAnderson
Geist420
Posted 3:46 AM 11/7/08
@monkeyrotica:
~4 Gig is the max file size for FAT32
Geist420
khamer
Posted 4:57 AM 11/7/08
Can we get it confirmed that this can't play HD partitions bigger than 4 GB?
Also, before I bought one I'd hope for Media player interface pictures; that could make a big difference.
khamer
khamer
Posted 4:52 AM 11/7/08
Wait, it only recognizes up to 4 GB of disk? Can we get that confirmed?
I also would be skeptical about getting one until I knew what its media player interface looked like.
khamer
Somadis
Posted 5:56 AM 11/7/08
Burning a 700MB AVI movie file would take me at least 2 hours or so. I will definitely get this for I shared movies with friends a lot.
Somadis
Somadis
Posted 6:19 AM 11/7/08
I noticed that there is a shipping price mistakes
On the main page i noticed that the shipping price is
Shipping: US$25.00 because this will be ship from China.
The check out price comes out to be
Shipping Fee
US$ 3
Total:
US$ 87.00
What the hell I'll go ahead and order it anyway
I hope this don't come back and bite me in the butt
Somadis
merebito
Posted 7:05 AM 11/7/08
If it's true that it's FAT 32, there could be issues with large partitions
merebito
davidfbecker
Posted 7:50 AM 11/7/08
Get this thing running XBMC, give it component/HDMI/digital outputs and this thing could get pretty awesome.
davidfbecker
lsim001
Posted 10:06 AM 11/7/08
Agreed. I'll be hanging out for the eSATA + HDMI version of this baby. Wouldn't hurt if it could support more than FAT32 either.
lsim001