If it was the year 2006, we'd say that Seagate had a winner on its hands - but unfortunately for Seagate and for us (after all, 2006 was a boom year to remember), this is a product that's arrived three years too late. The concept is neat: share your movies and photos from the PC to the TV. But it's not exactly new.
Just about every high-end model TV developed in the last 12 - 18 months already has such a capability that allows home users to share their PC files. Be it an SD slot or a USB drive positioned on the side or back of your LCD or Plasma telly, the idea of sharing your films/photos on the TV is not new. Most DVD players also do this, so Seagate may have their work cut out for them trying to convince us otherwise.
The system works as a docking station of sorts and allows you to play your media files on your television through your FreeAgent Go or any other drive that you decide to connect to the front. Fortunately, the system works with any hard drive - a big plus, but only the FreeAgent Go drives are dockable.
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| The FreeAgent Theater works like a docking station for your TV |
The docking unit costs $199, but generic media stations will do the same thing with any branded hard drive for under $150. Better still, they're also networkable. And because the FreeAgent Theater is not networkable, the drive has to be continually refreshed/updated unlike a network connection. Horses for courses.
In addition to that downside, the unit won't play Apple iPhone or iPod music files without conversion to a FAT32 type file that the hard drive can read. And for Apple fans - that's likely to be a major deal breaker.
On the plus side, the FreeAgent Theater does a very good job of upscaling lower res files, can perform 1080 HD playback and features pretty good Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.
We saw it in action yeserday and thought the navigation was easy to use (you can zoom pics, rotate etc), although the Seagate spokesperson seemed a little confused what market it would best serve (we're guessing the old TV market). Not that there's anything wrong with that - older TV's are still a very valuable market in Australia and this is a viable option for those who don't want a TV upgrade anytime soon.
Indeed, it's a nice fit for somebody with an older TV and limited knowledge of more advanced media docks. Just insert a FreeAgent Go drive and your ready to roll. Yes, it's that easy. The simplicity is seductive, but the actual product spec might not swing so well with our enthusiast readers.