Brando HDD adapter doubles as HDMI mediaplayer

Brando have unveiled a useful hard-drive adapter, which turns any 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drive into both an external USB drive and a mediaplayer.  Connecting to a TV or other display via HDMI, the SATA HDD Multi-Media Player Adapter can funnel up to 1080i resolution content through its own on-screen mediaplayer app.

Other ports include a USB 2.0 socket, for playing back media from USB memory sticks or transferring files between them and the hard-drive, plus an SD/SDHC card slot for doing the same thing with a memory card.  Supported formats include MPEG, AVI, MP4, VOB,and DivX.

You probably wouldn't want to use this as a permanent mediaplayer setup – I'd be a little worried about leaving so much of the hard-drive exposed – but for casually playing a file it looks like a winner.  The Brando SATA HDD Multi-Media Player Adapter is available now, priced at $69 and complete with a remote control, USB cable and universal AC adapter.