Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player

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There are a couple of items of note that most consumers will look for when it comes to making their decision to purchase a home multimedia player, high-definition playback and format compatibility. Both of these were issues when it came to a robust product offering from Seagate in their original HD media player, the FreeAgent Theater HD, as it lacked both HDMI output and a less-than-stellar set of compatible media file formats. Not one to have their customers wanting for more, it would appear that their latest product offering, the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+, manages to hit the mark on both fronts. Now complete with HDMI-out and a huge set of compatible media formats, Seagate’s latest home media player is definitely one to watch…literally.

Seagate announced today that they would release an upgraded version of their media player, the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD. The FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player makes use of a proprietary docking system that is meant to seamlessly integrate the Seagate FreeAgent Go portable drives and accessories, giving consumers a faster and easier way to swap hard drives in and out of the unit. The basic idea of the unit is to acta as the go-between for your multimedia files and your home entertainment center. Since most people have all of their digital movies, music, and photos trapped away on their computer’s HDD, a system like this might seem to make sense.

The new Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ player offers full 1080p HD video, DTS 2.0 + Digital Out, or Dolby Digital technology and sports a user-friendly DVD-type interface and wireless remote control that should have you pointing and clicking your way through your media in no time. And when it comes to file format compatibility, it’s pretty obvious that Seagate has chosen to err on the side of excess with a list that includes video support for MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (VOB/ISO), MPEG-4 (DivX(R)/Xvid formats), DivX HD, Xvid HD, AVI, MOV, MKV, RMVB, AVC HD, H.264, WMV9, VC-1, M2TS, TS/TP/M2T, image support for JPEG files up to 20MP, BMP, GIF, PNG and TIFF and audio formats like 5.1 channel surround sound, AAC, MP3, Dolby Digital, DTS, ASF, FLAC, WMA, LPCM, ADPCM, WAV and OGG. The FreeAgent Theater+ player also offers support for SAMI (smi), SRT and SUB subtitles.

The Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player has two additional USB ports and an Ethernet port for so you can hardwire the unit into your home network. Unfortunately, the FreeAgent Theater+ HD doesn’t come with built-in wireless, so you’ll have to wait until sometime in October when Seagate plans to launch an 802.11n USB wireless adapter.

The Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player is available for sale now at www.Seagate.com and other online retailers. You can get it as a standalone unit to use with your existing USB storage devices for $149.99 or bundled with a 500GB FreeAgent Go drive for $289.99. The FreeAgent Theater+ Wireless Adapter will be available as a separate accessory through Seagate.com for $69.99.