UPDATED - with Roku Netflix announcement.
Netflix has made its official movie debut on a media player device with the launch of Seagate’s GoFlex TV HD media player on Tuesday.
The player is part of a complete refresh of Seagate’s FreeAgent Go line of products, which Paul Taylor will look at in depth in his Friday personal technology column.
The Netflix movie-streaming service is featured on Blu-ray players, TVs, the three major games consoles and set-top boxes such as the Roku streaming-media player.
But Seagate says this is the first time Netflix has allowed its service on a media player such as the GoFlex TV – giving it a feature lacking in rival products from Western Digital, Netgear and Iomega.
The GoFlex TV is a new version of the Free Agent Theater +, which itself received a firmware upgrade to enable Netflix in recent weeks.
The GoFlex is a slimmer, more portable package with the same functionality – it allows users to slot in an external hard drive and move digital media content for display on a connected TV or stream content from their PCs or from the internet, with YouTube videos, Flickr photos, podcasts and radio stations available as well as Netflix.
Consumers may also find the GoFlex TV an ideal option for watching movies through Seagate’s recent deal with Paramount.
A 500Gb version of one of its external drives comes with a free copy of the Star Trek movie and 20 others that can be unlocked for ownership and playing, at prices from $10-$15.
It’s these kind of content deals that are key in lifting and differentiating media players, as the choice of internet-connected boxes under the TV set grows.
UPDATE – On Wednesday, Roku announced new functionality for its Netflix service. Up to now, Netflix users on non-PC devices have only been able to choose from movies on the instant-play lists created through a PC’s web browser. With the free Roku upgrade in June, they will be able to search the entire Netflix library of instant-play content from the set-top box and stream whatever movies or TV shows are in that library.
