LaCie on Wednesday announced the release of its LaCinema Rugged HD multimedia drive. An upgrade of the original, it can now play 1080p video through any TV with an HDMI port. The drive's 500GB capacity lets users store a large amount of both HD content as well as music and photos. Content is transferred onto the drive via a USB 2.0 connection from Windows and Mac OS X computers, with supported movie codecs that include H.264, MKV, MPEG-4 and WMV9.

Like LaCie's existing Rugged Hard Disk, both are designed by Neil Poulton and sport a scratch-resistant aluminum shell, internal anti-shock absorbers, and a shock-resistant rubber bumper to protect content. Users can navigate the content via their HDTVs on a graphical user interface from the included remote control.

The LaCinema Rugged HD is now available and priced at $350.