Seagate launches FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player, we go hands-on
By Darren Murph 
posted Sep 15th 2009 9:39AM
posted Sep 15th 2009 9:39AM
We've yet to really put this player through its paces, but we can say for sure that it's not made for abuse. The mostly-plastic box is staggeringly light, and one drop from atop your AV rack could lead to utter disaster. Furthermore, this is really only useful for those wound tightly around Seagate's finger; the bulk of its functionality relies on having a FreeAgent USB drive at your disposal, and if you've selected any other portable HDD, you'll have to deal with connecting it the old fashion way and ditching the "clean look." At $149.99 sans an HDD, it's one of the cheaper options on the market, but it still can't beat Popcorn Hour's heralded lineup when it comes to value and format support. Those looking for an all-in-one deal can opt for the $289.99 bundle, which throws in a 500GB FreeAgent Go drive. Have a look at retro exemplified in the gallery below.
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I have never understood how Roku can put both ethernet and wifi in a $99 box, but all of these new players in the media box game can't (won't?) also put wifi in their own. $69.99 for a wifi dongle? Samsung tries the same thing with their $89.99 wifi dongle for their bluray players. Come on folks, get with it and stop gouging.
Because Roku still makes money from you even after you have the box. Every time you rent a movie, they get a commission, which probably adds up to quite a bit. They don't need to make a profit on the product itself.
I can finally play Atari in HD. Super!
How is this gonna let you play Atari in HD? Its a simple media playback device that uses an HDD as the source, what drugs are you on, and can I have some?
Exactly. Just what I needed to completely fugly up my entertainment center.
Hey Seagate... the 80's called, and they said to tell you they think this thing is totally rad.
Seagate fail (again). Definitely not the company they used to be.
Yep, definite fail.
It has ethernet, so can't you stream to it? This post seems to show a photo of an actual device, and you claim to be "hands on" with it, but you have nothing useful to show us. Where are the screenshots of the UI? Why haven't you tried streaming high-def content to it? Come on, you've got one, try it out and give us more details and photos!
That's how you turn one, rather boring product into two articles, young grasshopper.
According to this it appears the device shows HD content that you had loaded onto a hard drive and then attached to the device using USB. That seems useless to me when there are already things like media center to make the journey to a tv quicker and without the work. Copying content to a drive and then connecting the drive to a box that then connects to the tv sounds like more steps than needed. Also, why is there Ethernet if it doesn't stream?
a VCR rewinder?
That's exactly what I thought when I saw this. Kudos!
Not really hands on. You just posted a press release. I still have no clue what this does. Where are the UI screenshots?
At $289 this is fail.
PS3/XBOX sell at the price and do a lot more.
The first one can only do everything.
;)
A better comparison would be WD's HDTV player which is $150
kanye: but i think cinema tube deserves this hands on for being the best media player of all time
they need some faux wood on this and maybe i would buy it.
That is some kinda retro and NOT in a good way.
Actually thats not bad $150 for what it does (its probably another Realtek) , but compared to all those other crappy/cheap Realtek players (Asus Oplay, Xtreamer, Cinematube, EVA2000 etc) with horrible user interfaces Seagate has an edge. It may not look as pretty as some other units but the UI matters more.
Theres a shot of the user interface in picture 7 on the box.
I'm not sold on this, but I actually like the design.
The proof is in the UI and codec support, though, and that's where I'm expecting this to fall apart.
If somebody were to hack it and put XBMC on it, though, I'd be pretty damn sold.
according to their site it only supports up to 1080i, not p. and with no support for mkv, I have to agree that this definitely falls way below any model popcorn hour sellls.
That was their old model, this one has an HDMI port (you can see it in the pictures) and supports MKV.
Hey, Engadget! What does this thing look like from across the network? Can I transfer files to it via Ethernet?
Engadget, will you PLEASE learn to control the aperture on your camera and stop taking these blurry depth of field pictures!
They suck! I'd prefer the whole gadget be in focus, rather than just 1 connector.
Please do it or I'll switch over to reading another gadget blog.
looks like a sweet player, good with more competition , but dont forget the the the new WD TV HD also .
Engadget really dropped the ball on this one. This thing looks as good as the new WDTV 2 that isn't even out yet. Codec support is awesome: ASF, AVI, DAT, DiVX, FLV, IFO, ISO, M2TS, MKV, MOV, MP4, MPEG, MPG, MTS, RM, RMVB, SAMI, SMI, SRT, SUB, TP, TRP, TS, VOB, WMV, XVID. Full 1080p, and supports NTFS.
If this thing makes the connected hard drives available over your local network I'm all over it considering it's $65 less than the cheaper popcorn hour.
THIS is your hands-on?? Looks like you spent about 10 seconds looking at the exterior and came up with a few cursory thoughts on aesthetics. If I want a piece of art, I'll go to Pottery Barn. Please at least turn the thing on.
When are we going to get an actual review worth reading?