While Apple figures out what to do with its languishing Apple TV – it quietly dropped its 40Gb model on Monday leaving only the 160Gb version – there are plenty of other contenders scrapping to bring networked content to the big living-room screen.
Among them – FreeAgent Theater+, announced by Seagate today as an improved version of the unit it launched only six months ago.
(This review was first published on September 15 2009)
As in the original, this model allows owners of Seagate’s slim FreeAgent external drive to copy digital media from their PCs and then slot the drive into the TV-connected unit. This lets them play movies, music and photo slideshows in great quality on a big screen.
However, the Theater+ has significant upgrades – HDMI connectivity is added to the composite and component connections on the back and a Dolby digital out.
Other external drives or thumb drives could be plugged into a USB slot on the front of the original and a second USB port has been added to the rear.
Weaknesses in the former device have been addressed in the shape of a new remote and a number of missing video and audio formats are now supported, including H.264, MKV and AAC.
In my original review, I commented that the Theater offered a more reliable option for watching content than streaming content to the TV, with that method’s network stutters and freezing. However, the + version makes streaming an option as well by adding an ethernet port.
Internet content seems an unimplemented feature at present. Only Picasa and Flickr photo services are available over the net and I could find no way to sign in to my accounts.
However, Seagate says services will be added and it’s not hard to imagine the unit catering for Netflix-like movie-streaming. A USB dongle will also be on sale shortly to Wi-Fi-enable the unit.
The first unit, without a FreeAgent drive, sold for a recommended $130 and the much improved version is going on sale at only $20 more.
Its capabilities are now closer to Sling Media’s Slingcatcher and it is competitive with a number of other of these “digital media adapters”.
Its hard-disk rival Western Digital is expected to launch officially WD TV Live, a similar upgrade to its competing product, any day now, while Netgear launched its $150 Digital Entertainer Live earlier this month, with a fuller range of internet content.
All of these options make the proprietary Apple TV, with its dependence on iTunes, seem the worst of deals – perhaps one of the reasons Apple cut the price of the 160Gb version by $100 to $229 on Monday.
