Seagate’s FreeAgent Theater+

What do you do with your countless movies, music and photos on your computer? Do you ever use your home theater system since most of the digital media needs either ripping or transferring it to disc for you to play on it. What if, its possible to bring the functionality of both together in one system. Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player does this and more. It lets you watch, share and store your music, movies and photos on your TV. It can deliver stunning 1080p HD image quality with rich Dolby Digital and DTS audio.

Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ comes with an option of attaching a removable 500GB external hard drive (upgradable to any seagate passport drive). Since the drive is removable, you can also expand with extra drives along the way with any FreeAgent Go, BlackArmor PS 110 or other external hard drive. The setup can be done in seconds via a single digital HDMI cable. In terms of file support, this multimedia player can handle video formats ranging from MPEG–1, MPEG–2 (VOB/ISO), MPEG–4 (Xvid), DivX, DivX HD, Xvid HD, AVI, MOV, MKV, RMVB Real Media, AVC HD, H.264, WMV9, VC–1, M2TS & TS/TP/M2T and audio formats AAC, MP3, Dolby Digital, DTS, ASF, FLAC, WMA, LPCM, ADPCM, WAV & OGG. For pictures, it’ll display up to 20-megapixel JPEGs, BMP, GIF, PNG & TIFF. This content can either be loaded on the provided hard drive or you can use the front-mounted USB port for further expansion. It can connect to any PC or Mac computer, network and the Internet via Ethernet or wirelessly with the optional Wi–Fi Adapter. It can also play streaming media directly from the Internet and also from any computer or USB devices. FreeAgent Theater+ can deliver all the content that’s included with the DVDs, including menus, commentator tracks & subtitles and can make navigating or managing the digital media content easy with the included remote control and intuitive on–screen menus. It can also use the pictures in your disc to create exciting slideshows with custom music tracks from your library. As for the video outputs it has HDMI, Composite & Component ports which can directly be used to attach to the TV.

When the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ is turned on, just five basic icons is shown in a simple horizontal row on the TV. These gives you access to movies, pictures, music, Internet, and devices. The configuration settings are “hidden” away in a top-mounted menu that can be accessed by hitting the menu button on the remote. The main user interface inside the “Music” mode will only show the titles of the individual songs with no obvious way to organize or sort the tracks. However, the drop-down menu reveals the ability to show albums, artists, and other ID3 tag-based information. While watching videos, you can access a similar menu for switching the subtitles or audio tracks on or off, as well as for other functions. The organization of the video files while in the “Movies” mode is much the same, giving the option to sort through the videos in the form of thumbnails or as a list of names. Many of the video files that would not play on any other digital media are perfectly playable on the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ Media Player. This includes MKV files as well as certain AVI files that the Xbox 360 Media Player can never play.

Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ Media Player comes with the supporting documentation, a set of component cables, an RJ45 Ethernet cable, composite A/V cable, a wall adapter, remote control, and AAA batteries for the remote. It comes with a reasonable price tag of approx. $220. Though it is a step forward to collaborate all the scattered media with your dream home theatre, it is still a bit far from its original goal of having a seamless device which can do all. But it seems Seagate is on right track and I am sure many of the digital media enthusiasts will appreciate the functionality of this device.