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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]
Previously it was 
First there was the strangely Nintendo cartridge-like 
Asus's 
Seagate is taking their first crack at external DVR storage with the Showcase line of HDDs. The Showcase drives range in size from 250GB to 1TB, work with both eSATA and USB connections, and can record a whopping 12 HD streams simultaneously. For now, Motorola cable boxes are the only ones compatible with the Showcase, so TiVo owners and others should hold off until we hear more. They'll be on sale this fall, full release after the jump. [
Fujitsu is set to launch an external graphics card solution dubbed the "AMILO GraphicBooster" sometime in the "next few weeks." Unfortunately, this information was leaked from a presentation, so there isn't a whole lot in the way of details—but we do know that the GraphicBooster is based on ATI XGP technology, it will allow users to connect up to three external displays to their notebook, DVI-D and HDMI connections are included, and it can reportedly deliver a 4.7X performance improvement over the graphics of a small form factor AMILO notebook.
This Hardbox enclosure from Korean company Sarotech looks even more book-like than the Western Digital MyBook drives that have been around for a few years. There are two status indicator lights on the front, behind which sits 3.5-inch SATA drives that connect to your PC via USB. It's great for hiding the fact that you don't have any books but have loads of external hard drives. That is, until someone looks closer and realises you've read a book called Hardbox. Maybe Hardbox means something different in Korean. [
Iomega's new Screenplay HD Multimedia drive promises that you can "leave the PC behind" since it stores your movies, pics and tunes and connects directly to your HDTV. You simply save them via the USB2.0 connection, and it's standalone from there on. It can upscale to to 720p and 1080i, plays a wide bunch of formats and connects via HDMI, SCART, composite audio and video or coaxial S/PDIF. With 500GB inside it should be able to store about 750 hours of MPEG2 at 780 x 480 pixels: that's around 500 movies. It's available now for US$218.45. [
This external hard drive concept entitled "IVY" adds an interesting new aesthetic to a plain old drive via an OLED screen that visualises the content of the hard disk. Inspired by Sequoiaview visualisation software, IVY starts out life as a rather plain looking disk. As you fill it up, the design changes in sync with the content. In essence, you can automatically decorate your drive with a cushion treemap design that continually evolves. Again, it is only a concept —but it is a particularly interesting looking one if I do say so myself. [
The guys at Wired and BoingBoing stirred up a hornet's nest this morning by alleging that Western Digital's 1TB MyBook World Edition external hard drives "won't share media files over network connections". That got us worried, since we just acquired one of the 1TB three-way (eSATA, FireWire and USB) Home Edition drives to plug into our eSATA ports, looking forward to sharing some DivX, XviD and various audio files over our home network. But never fear. We plugged our drive into one of the PCs here via USB and found out what's up, first-hand.
