Seagate FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player (Not so HD w/o HDMI)

Our long-time hard drive making friend, Seagate, is rolling out its entrant into the media player appliance market with the FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player this March. This slender little fella paired with dock-able FreeAgent Go external hard drives outputs up to 1080i high definition video from MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats, and DivX files and audio from the usual suspects MP3, WMA, WAV and OGG. Seagate's hoping you'll start serving up your home movies, and digital photos in the living room without having to endure the tedium of authoring and burning DVDs.

Catering to the lazy in order to shamelessly promote their hard drives into this media appliance market could actually be a winner even if they are being a little stingy with their dock. While any USB hard drive should work, but not all of them will fit in the cozy dock that is made just for Seagate's own offspring. Expect it to come bearing component outputs and possibly fiber optic audio along with the standard composite and s-video offerings; no HDMI is available, unlike the WD TV HD Player. The FreeAgent Theater HD will retail for $129.99 as standalone, $229.99 with 250GB Go USB HDD, and $299.99 with 500GB. Video after the jump.