Review: A few hours with Seagate's FreeAgent Theater

Seagate's FreeAgent Theater looks like a streaming box, but it isn't: it's a dock for thumbdrives and the included 2.5" hard drive, and you plug it into your TV set to view media saved on them. There's no ethernet or wireless capability at all, but it does do 720p/1080i HD playback and is only $100 if you get it without a drive.

It plays AVI, MOV, VOB, ISO, DIVx and Xvid movies; MP3, AC3, WAV, WMA and OGG audio; and JPEG images. It has composite, component and S-Video output, but lacks HDMI, DVI or DisplayPort. Coaxial SPDIF is available for Dolby Digital surround.

What good about it is its simplicity and budget price (it's $160 with a 250GB external drive, and $230 with a 500GB one). If you have a Windows PC and prefer to have stuff stashed on USB drives instead of a home network, happy days. Bad is the lack of 1080p and digital output. Also, the syncing software isn't Mac compatible, and expects NTFS-formatted drives. Reformatting the supplied drive and dragging-and-dropping files worked fine.

Product Page [Seagate]
Buy at Amazon.