Brando's latest SATA HDD Multimedia Dock does HDMI, the ancestors proud

If you haven't been following this phenomenon in geek culture, you've truly been doing yourself a grave disservice. Not quite an Obama-level disservice, but we digress. Just a few months after refreshing its SATA HDD dock to bring along multicard support, the outfit has done the multimedia crowd one better by offering up an HDMI-equipped version. As expected, the device supports 2.5- and 3.5-inch SATA hard drives and can connect to one's PC via USB 2.0; from there, just hook up your component jacks or HDMI cable and enjoy crystal clear playback of whatever content you've got slammed in there. Too bad all this fun will set you back $79, but we suppose it's still a wee bit cheaper than an unadulterated media streamer.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2009 1:35AM]

NEVER buy any HDD dock unless you enjoy your HDD extra crispy. I've used 7 different manufactures including Brando and every one has fried at least one drive. one of the biggest problems is since there's nothing to cool the drive, it'll just overheat and destroy the drive, so a desk fan for the dock is a must. Any one of these "toaster" style drives is horrible. Don't bother

[OS Posted Jun 15th 2009 10:08AM]

I have heard people say that before. How hot do you think it gets inside a computer case or fanless external enclosure? There is no reason why this would cause your drive to fail any faster than any other means of using a drive. Constantly plugging and unplugging might have something to do with it but not heat.
Laptops generally don't have fans OR vents around the hd's and they don't magically overheat and die.

[teamlouish Posted Jun 13th 2009 2:06AM]

Its really weird it doesnt have an esata port.

[Kelvinyam Posted Jun 13th 2009 2:24AM]

So one still have to copy medias into that dock? Wouldn't it be great if it's equipped with WiFi and can directly pull medias online?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2009 4:18AM]

Why is this any better (or more revolutionary) than this...http://www.tvix.co.kr/eng/products/HDM7000A.aspx

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2009 10:21PM]

Apart from the price difference?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 15th 2009 5:15PM]

Because its much much much cheaper.

[rotty Posted Jun 13th 2009 4:49AM]

I own WDTV and they are unreliable and a bad design in my opinion, they have no buttons on the actual unit which forces you to only use the cheap basic remote control. Great idea but they just haven't nailed it, I'm really hoping for a reliable product. I wonder if this could be it?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 14th 2009 1:20AM]

HDMI nice

[jsdoyle Posted Jun 29th 2009 9:43AM]

Ok, my wife got me one of these for father's day. 1TB drive with about 150 movies plus a bunch of TV shows. Drive is less than 1/3 full. On screen menu is basic but pleasing to the eye. File menu is the easiest to use and find the movies. Remote control works well and playback has been flawless so far.

It is a very easy set up using the hdmi cable. I'm very pleased with the unit. I especially like the idea of not having to burn DVD's anymore!