The Box That Docks
Is the dichotomy in home entertainment technical quality destined to spread further, or converge? There's the living room with its big TV and full-range speakers and comfy sofa, and then there's the wealth of digital media zipping around the web and cramming our computer hard drives. Are the convenience and abundance of "internet video" destined to trump the elegance of home theater, or will the high-definition experience win the slow and steady race?
Hard disk drive manufacturer Seagate proffers a compromise that fits neatly into that yawning chasm in between. Their FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player Solution (Model ST905004CEA2E1-RK) is actually their second-generation home theater product, designed to provide new options for enjoying all manner of digital media beyond the confines of the home office.
Two features make the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player Solution pretty special. First, it combines the ability to stream content over a home network--either from a connected media server or from the internet, through a collection of built-in portals--or play back content from local storage, either a simple USB plug-in or one of Seagate's FreeAgent Go hard disk drives. A 500-gigabyte capacity HDD is included in this easy and affordable "Solution" bundle. (It's also available as a Player only, without the HDD.)
Second, and this is what really makes FreeAgent Theater+ HD relevant to the Big Picture Big Sound crowd, it supports resolutions of up to 1080p, over HDMI, in addition to multi-channel Dolby Digital and DTS audio. Don't be concerned by the unit's "DTS 2.0+digital out" spec - this doesn't mean the unit only supports 2-channel DTS soundtracks. It means it can mix down any DTS soundtrack to 2 channel analog outputs, but it can also pass the full multi-channel DTS bitstream to a compatible receiver for full fledged multi-channel surround. Not too shabby for a sleek little gadget that can rest comfortably in just about anyone's hand.
Plug In (Or Not)
The FreeAgent Theater+ HD connects to a wired home network quite simply via the Ethernet port and included cable, which affords access to both an available media server and the worldwide web beyond. It works with all of the Windows operating systems we would expect, just so long as folder sharing has been enabled.
Wireless setup is also an option thanks to a tiny 802.11/b/g/n plug-in adapter module, sold separately. From the menu, we navigate from Settings to Network Setup, switch to Wi-Fi, where the dongle has already been identified, and select (and optionally name) this new connection, entering the password if necessary. Either way, appropriate files--video, music and still photos--are automatically located and displayed within the various menus. If you have trouble finding the Seagate Wi-Fi adapter, other (non-Seagate) USB Wi-Fi adapters can also be used with the FreeAgent Theater+ though they may need to be pre-configured on your PC to work with your specific router.
This device is worth its price strictly as a streaming device, as the options and ease of use are quite strong. Although not all file formats are supported, and no DRM-protected content whatsoever will play, our vast collection of MP3s and still photos are now at our fingertips, just a (silent) click away via the diminutive remote control. The layout of grey/red/green/blue buttons is unique and takes a little getting used to, but handy Menu, Home and Back buttons soon make their value known. My only issue with the remote is its range, which was limited. Even with no obstructions, I found myself needing to lean forward in my modest-sized home theater in order for my commands to register.
The sound quality of music is really dictated only by the limitations of the files, and I think I need to go back in and adjust the 128 kilobits-per-second default setting on my ripping software, as The Good Speakers tend to reveal the flaws of compressed audio. Photos can look remarkably good on the big HD screen, and to my pleasant surprise, we can play music while we are displaying photos, for even more enjoyable multimedia slide shows. Zoom buttons on the remote offer up to 16X magnification, with a thumbnail overlaid to indicate where we are within the original image and the ability to pan/tilt somewhat within the frame.
Play Those Funky Downloads, Black Box
A bit of reality sank in when I went to view my assortment of stored videos. I clicked on clips from different sources in a variety of formats, and those destined not to cooperate would hold up the player for a few seconds, until it would ultimately revert from a black screen to the previous menu. The culprits were in the WMV and MOV format, as indicated by the extensions at the end of each file name. Upon further investigation, MOVs utilizing the video codec "AVC1" did play just fine, whereas those utilizing the SQV and H263 codecs did not. Along the same lines, WMVs with the underlying WMV3 codec played, those with WMV1 and WMV2 would not. The codec information is less obvious, but it does matter here apparently.
There are generic video, music and photo icons when a representative thumbnail image is not available, and so the Seagate Thumbnail Creator software is a welcome inclusion. It grabs an actual frame from each video file within a selected drive on the computer which is then used as an icon when the file is displayed in the menus of the player. File types not supported receive a weird, albeit unique color pattern. This is the kind of thing we'd almost expect Windows to do for us, but I'll take it however I can get it.
My little video odds-and-ends are fun to watch in the living room especially those curiosities I haven't seen in ages, if at all. The picture doesn't always hold up on the big screen though, and at some point we need to wonder where the compatible 1080p content to max out the capabilities of the FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player is coming from. We've heard of some consumers successfully ripping Blu-rays, but Seagate doesn't condone this and neither does Big Picture Big Sound. That leaves two avenues that we're aware of.
The first was suggested by the folks at Seagate, and corroborated by me. With home movies continuing to evolve toward high-definition, 1080p camcorders are now consumer-available, and viddies of the kiddies in such a high quality are certainly a good match for this player. Even readily affordable, eminently user-friendly devices like a Creative Vado HD Pocket Video Camera or a Flip UltraHD deliver point-and-shoot widescreen HD videos at 720p, for a blatant improvement in image quality over what we're likely used to.
The other came as a bit of a surprise: iTunes, specifically 1080p movie trailer downloads. Since trailers by their very nature exist to help spread the word of upcoming theatrical releases, I can only assume that some are not copy-protected and therefore the QuickTime (.mov) file is playable. Not only that, but familiar clips like the multiple 300 previews look pretty damned gorgeous on my 50-inch full-HD Samsung display, and the six-channel AAC at 48kHz really rocked the house, too. And so Seagate keeps their word, delivering 1080p video and multi-channel sound in grand style.
'Net Too, Brute
The internet-based features are damned-near flawless, starting with the integration of the increasingly ubiquitous YouTube. It's the limited CE-type interface, but it can link to an existing user account created on the computer. I know I say this about pretty much every YouTube-enabled home theater device I come across, so I'm certainly not singling out Seagate, but it's just not as much fun to use without a real keyboard, and even the virtual keys are laid out A-to-Z, not QWERTY. Fortunately abbreviations like "SYTYCD" (fans know what this is short for) yield excellent search results. It's mostly user-supported, so quality will vary drastically. Also built-in are the Picasa and Flickr online photo sharing services, as well as video and text RSS feeds, and weather and finance updates
Connectivity to the internet and my home network was a bit spotty at times, however. Sometimes both my networked PC/media server and my wife's would appear in the menus, sometimes mine alone. Sometimes user names and passwords were unexpectedly requested. At least once I needed to re-establish the Wi-Fi linkup, but a quick re-entry of my SSID did the trick. Of course, access to my own media can be greatly simplified by attaching storage directly to the FreeAgent Theater HD+, and that's exactly what I did. First was a simple thumb drive, loaded with an assortment of photos, tunes and small clips, immediately recognized as a USB device and ready to rock. While I was at it, I attached my Sony DV camcorder via a standard USB cable and all of the still photos on my Memory Stick were viewable.
But what's this sleek metal slab? Why, it's the FreeAgent Go, really one of the sweetest hard disk drives I've ever seen, with a nifty textured finish and a light-up design that can be switched off via the Theater+ remote. It's very quiet, very thin, but holds a very useful 500 gigabytes, with capacities up to one terabyte available aftermarket. It slides into a concealed, perfectly-sized pocket, connecting via its standard mini-USB port, after we've loaded it up at the computer either via the typical drag-and-drop or by utilizing Seagate's Media Sync software, which automates the process somewhat but isn't really necessary. The FreeAgent Go--interchangeable, upgradeable to higher capacities--holds hours of HD video, thousands of songs and photos, and this local storage can provide a practical supplement (or alternative) to streaming.
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Final Thoughts
The Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player Solution makes good on its promise to deliver 1080p digital audio/video content to the living room by way of an affordable, versatile, and upgradeable device. And the ability to copy and store our entire library to its swappable FreeAgent Go hard disk drive makes this player a true multimedia powerhouse.
Also available separately:
Features/Specifications of the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ Player/HDD Bundle:
Connectivity:
What's in the Box?
Company Information:
Seagate Technology
920 Disc Drive
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
Phone: 800-SEAGATE
On the Web: www.seagate.com
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