14 DAY TRIAL // Seagate may be best known for its “pure” storage products, but its product line includes much more than that, like the GoFlex Cinema multimedia drive.
The GoFlex Cinema from Seagate is what one might call a hard disk drive with media player capabilities.
Some might make the leap to multimedia player, but the fact is that the newcomer doesn't have optical disk support and mostly relies on its built-in storage, or whatever it can access over the network.
Basically, the Seagate GoFlex Cinema home entertainment drive is a foil to the Blu-ray players that Pioneer just brought out.
That said, the Cinema drive has an internal capacity of 1 TB, 2 TB or 3 TB, plus the ability to directly link to a HDTV or projector.
The connection is established through either a composite video output or the available HDMI port.
Speaking of video connections, the GoFlex Cinema entertainment storage center can play a wide range of files.
Xvid HD, AVI, MPEG-2 (VOB/ISO), WMV9, MPEG-4 (Xvid), WMA, WMA Pro, Dolby Digital, AAC, FLAC, MOV and H.264 are just some of the compatible formats.
The fact that 20-megapixel images and subtitles can also be rendered did not go unnoticed either.
Other specifications of the GoFlex Cinema include a stereo audio output, an S/PDIF digital optical audio connector and USB 2.0.
The presence of the Universal Serial Bus allows a PC to handle it as it would an external HDD and to easily transfer films and such to it.
Finally, the drive can be directly hooked up to digital cameras and camcorders, letting it copy the contents without a PC acting as an intermediary.
North American prices (and selling dates) have not been provided, but the 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB newcomers did get launched in Europe, for 99 Euro ($134, based on exchange rates), 129 Euro ($175) and 179 Euro ($244), respectively.