Seagate media player streams HD video to goggle boxes

Seagate's FreeAgent Theater home media player can now deliver streamed video to your TV from YouTube, Netflix and other internet sources.

The FreeAgent Home Theater is a combination of an HD media player and a FreeAgent Go portable drive. Once it's connected to your PC, bundled software copies all of your media files to the Go drive. Dock that in the media player box and you can now play the media files on your TV. Content can also be played from other external devices plugged into the media player's USB port.

The media player has a built-in Ethernet port and can use that or an optional Wi-Fi connection to connect to your router. Seagate has now issued a media player firmware upgrade to enable streaming video support. This comes to existing users via an automated process, and can also be downloaded from Seagate.com.

Supported streaming video sources include YouTube, Netflix and the vTuner audio feed - meaning 8,000+ radio stations, Mediafly with its aggregated content, and others. The HD media player is now DLNA and UPnP-compatible and has had a number of other updates including improved MP3 cover art and tagging, and a redesigned thumbnail view for better browsing of movies, pictures and music.

It also has motion JPEG support, as commonly used by Digital Cameras, and multi-compression PNG file support.

Seagate recently announced the provision of 21 movies on selected FreeAgent Go drives in an arrangement with Paramount studios. ®