It’s taken me MANY years to think about purchases before I make them – such is the change from only child to only man. You still want the thing urgently, but ghosts of broken toys past add necessary caution to the American Express Platinum wind.

This last week was a prime example. My friend, Jonty Fisher (“The Marketer“) of Traffic Integrated Marketing fame is a very practical, sensible fellow and he was urging me to buy myself a “Media Drive.” Something to keep all my movies and TV Shows on, he explained.

“It’s exactly like a portable hard drive – except you can PLAY the stuff on it DIRECTLY onto a screen or TV or plasma – without requiring a computer!”

“I don’t know, Jonts,” I lamented, “I’ve got an Apple TV at home and I can buy whatever I need on that.”

“Fair enough,” he gave, “but is it portable? Can you copy videos and digital media from me and immediately show it on a TV anywhere, anytime? And, more importantly, can it play EVERY file format?”

I liked the angle he was coming from. It had merit. I think I needed this thing. I recalled that, although I had a number of new TV series and movies on my MacBook, The Muse was loathe to watch them “on a computer” and this would certainly solve that problem!

So I cruised down to DigiCape and this is what I got – The LACIE LaCinema R U G G E D :

Yes, you’re absolutely right – that is a remote that comes with it (with batteries, nogal). So all you do is you drag and drop all your media onto it (via USB cable incl.) and then you plug it into the TV. It comes with the various leads you might need – including both HDMI and the yellow/red/white AV/stereo leads you might usually associate with a DVD player.

Classic stuff..

That’s the one.

Then, all you do is you turn it on and switch your TV on, changing the A/V mode until the little hard drive’s menu comes up. Any TV, anytime.. Then you use the remote to scroll through the media and press play to start each item!

Quite simple.

In terms of exact media formats that it supports, the LACIE website tells us:

The LaCinema Rugged HD comes with HDMI built-in, allowing you to watch movies and television programs on your HDTV, or even enjoy your photos in full HD resolution. Choose from among MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (AVI, VOB, IFO, ISO), MPEG-4 (AVI, XviD), MKV, H.264, WMV9, and VC-1 video codecs to ensure easy playback.

[read more here]

Come on – that’s pretty cool, hey?!

I’m fine with that. That’s all I need it for.

I’m happy.

The Muse is happy.

Let’s all get some rest, ok?