Left to Their Own Devices
Seagate FreeAgent Theater+
It’s true that Seagate’s media playback and streaming solution isn’t really in the same league with the other products we’re covering here. Maybe we just have a soft spot for the innovative FreeAgent line. The FreeAgent Theater and the FreeAgent Theater+ are connected docks for the company’s compact FreeAgent Go storage devices. The idea is that you connect the FreeAgent Go drive to your computer and load it with your movies, music, and photos. Then, you can dock the drive in a FreeAgent Theater device that’s connected to your TV. An included remote lets you browse content from the couch.
Seagate released the updated FreeAgent Theater+ in September, letting customers connect to their router’s Ethernet port and stream online content, as well. That online content is pretty limited right now—it includes YouTube, Picasa, and Flickr—so the company had better continue building it in 2010. Good news, Seagate: Netflix seems happy to make deals. FreeAgent Theater+ owners who want to stream their content wirelessly need to purchase a $59.99 Wi-Fi adapter. If there’s a new version of the Theater+ coming out in 2010. Seagate, you might want to build Wi-Fi into it.
NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live
While Roku is leading the market for people who simply want easy access to streaming movies, NETGEAR made a play for those who were most interested in accessing the files they already owned. In September it expanded its Digital Entertainer line of connected-to-TV devices with the Digital Entertainer Live. While it offers internet access to video content, that doesn’t feel like the chief feature here. The Digital Entertainer Live can pull movies, songs, and photos from networked computers or storage devices. It can stream content from YouTube without a computer required, but after that, streaming becomes a little more challenging.
In order to play movies from Hulu, Netflix, and more, users need a program called PlayOn running on their computer. The Digital Entertainer Live comes with a free 14-day trial to PlayOn; after the trial period, there’s a one-time free of $39.99. When you consider that the Digital Entertainer Live requires a $40 USB adapter for Wi-Fi connectivity, it starts to look like NETGEAR has saddled buyers with a host of extra fees. If NETGEAR had made access to online video the big feature here—and made it included in the price—this box would have a real chance to steal Roku thunder. As it is, it doesn’t feel like a contender.
ZillionTV
Can a product make headlines all year long without actually existing? Sure it can, if it’s got the right backers. The launch of this Roku competitor is nowhere in sight. But we can’t help thinking it’s going to be worth it, since the scores of content partners include major names such as Warner Bros., Sony, NBC Universal, and Twentieth Century Fox.
ZillionTV first got our attention in March, when it announced its innovative delivery plans. The service would sell its own set-top boxes and also be embedded in connected televisions. It would sell ad-supported access to its library of content for $100. Viewers also have the option of paying more for ad-free content. By September, however, the company announced that the launch date was pushed back to the second half of 2010, and the following month, it laid off one-third of its staff. It felt like the wheels were coming off, and yet the company continued to add big name partners like Lionsgate and Paramount. Will we see a ZillionTV launch in 2010? It’s easy to imagine it getting pushed back again. We hope the release is soon, though, because it sounds like a product that could be extremely competitive.
Looking to 2010, it’s easy to see that newly affordable connected Blu-ray DVD players will give many people their first taste of downloaded content in the living room and that Roku will continue to invade the public consciousness. But the area is too new for just smooth sailing. We’d love to see Apple, DivX, or some other player sweep in and completely change the market. Here’s to a prosperous and interesting 2010.
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