With the increase in popularity of ripping movies and digital copies that are now showing up with many new BluRay purchases the idea of having a digital media player to compliment your BluRay and or DVD player is growing. This has even created a booming market for small HD capable media players. These players as becoming as common as SSDs, and just like the SSD, everyone has their own way of “doing it”. Today we are going to take a look at one from Seagate; named the FreeAgent Theater+ it offers quite a few options for getting your digital content to your display of choice. Let’s see if the FreeAgent Theater+ is worth the effort or if it will have to sit on the benches.
Packaging The box the FreeAgent Theater+ ships in is interesting. It is a mix of styles; on the one hand it is flashy with nice glossy images of the Theater+ and diagrams while on the other it is plain brown cardboard. This is an interesting contrast that actually adds to the look of the packaging.
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The fully recyclable logo will make anyone interested in the environment happy. Although I have to wonder about all the plastic used to cover some of the accessories, but I suppose it still does live up to the statement.
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Inside Seagate has sent you almost everything you need to get going. The only two glaring omissions are an HDMI cable and a Toslink cable. Still even with those missing items you can get up and running without needing to buy anything else, as they do provide an AV cable (Video+ Right/Left audio) and a component cable. The goodies are rounded out with a remote, CAT-5 cable, power pack/cable and utilities CD. There is also a special offer [this may or may not be in your packaging] for a music service.
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FreeAgent Theater+The FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player is a nice looking little device. It has angular lines that will remind you of the rest of the FreeAgent line. The front is unadorned except for a single Seagate Logo that lights up to indicate power status, an IR Sensor window, and a USB 2.0 Port.
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There is the outline of a hatch or panel on the front also. This area actually slides out to allow you to insert a FreeAgent | GO Drive or even a BlackArmor PS-110. As you can see in the pictures below you can remove just the front portion for the smaller drives or the entire panel to allow you to use the massive [relatively] 1TB FreeAgent | GO.
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The back is where all of your outputs are located. Seagate has provided quite a few options for connectivity. For Video you have HDMI, Component and Composite, for Audio you have HDMI, Composite and Toslink Optical. Back here we also find the LAN port and out Second USB 2.0 port.
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