LaCie LaCinema Mini HD

The LaCinema Mini HD is effectively a mini version of LaCie's Classic HD media centre. As well as its compact design, the Mini HD has Wi-Fi N connectivity and exactly the same decoder chip as the 'full size' version. Will it be the next must-have?

Hardware: the same but different

At first glance, the similarity with the Classic HD is obvious, as it has the same shiny brick-style casing designed by Neil Poulton. It is, however, much smaller, and features a 500 GB 2.5-inch hard drive. Be careful which model you pick though, as LaCie has a very similar media centre with no hard drive and no Wi-Fi (LaCinema Mini HD Connect).

A small fan helps remove hot air from inside the system. However, just like the Classic HD, the decoder chip is placed towards the bottom of the device and has no heatsink. Worse still, it doesn't benefit from the cooling effect of the fan.

The chip can therefore reach temperatures of 65°C after 20 minutes of continuous playback in a 21°C room. We dread to think how hot it would get at the height of summer, in a small room and with the media centre in a TV cabinet! In fact, most other manufacturers using this chip (in one of its various versions) seem to integrate an aluminium heatsink, sometimes with a fan mounted on top (PCH A-200).

The internal interface is identical to that found in the Classic HD. We like the fact that it's simple and well designed, but it's a shame it lacks some more advanced functions. You can view photos as thumbnails and view track information and album covers, but you can't create a video jukebox, for example.

 

It's true that not everyone is looking for the same kind of functions, but we would have expected to see a few more high-end features in a device at this price. In other words, the interface is a long way off perfect!

Compatibility: poor DVD and Blu-ray ripping

The LaCie Classic HD has the same decoder chip as the Western Digital WD TV rev /Live. Although its basic performances are excellent (HD x264/MKV video playback up to 90 Mbps, compatibility with all the latest video file formats etc.), several key functions are still missing.

There's no DTS decoding, for example, so if you don't have an audio amplifier that can handle this audio format then you'll basically have no sound. MKV videos with chapters aren't played at all. However, unlike the Classic HD, subtitles in the UTF8 format are well handled.


There are 24p and 23.976 modes that can play high-street films smoothly and seamlessly. Switching between modes isn't automatic, and you'll have to select them manually depending on what you're watching.

Ripped Blu-rays and DVDs aren't handled very well. The Classic HD can play ripped DVDs in the ISO and RIP formats, and although you can still access the various soundtracks and subtitles, the menus are lost. Only RIP-format copied Blu-ray files are supported, and even then you'll have to manage without subtitles or menus.

It's also a shame to see that moving from one photo to another takes almost 5 seconds, compared with the average 3 seconds for certain competitors' models. However, in the audio section, album covers and tags are read with no problems at all, even with M4A files from iTunes.

Connections: network, Wi-Fi and USB front panel

Connections at the rear of the device are a little limited, but the one HDMI and one optical connection will be sufficient for anyone with an HD television or an audio amplifier. There are two USB Host ports with one on the front and one at the rear of the device. Unfortunately, it's not possible to copy files from a USB peripheral to the media centre's hard drive.

There's a 100 Mbps Ethernet port and Wi-Fi N connectivity for networking. Although the transfer speeds aren't the best we've ever seen, they're higher than average at 7.3 MBps for the wired connection or 4.8 MBps for wireless. It's just a shame that streaming is so bad. We weren't able to play HD videos over the network even though the transfer speeds were over 24 Mbps (wired) and 28 Mbps (Wi-Fi). Streaming does work slightly better over the wireless network than the wired connection, but still, many 1080p films will be jerky and full of glitches if you try watching them streamed over the network.