The Price

$150 without drive; $290 with 500GB drive included.

The Praise

As I mentioned, the video decoding on this is better than anything I've ever seen in a $150 box. The Theater+ is very comfortable with HD video, not only because of its HDMI output but because when I dumped some QuickTime 1080p movie trailers on a drive and docked it, the trailers played back without a single hiccup. Ditto for high-def MKVs I downloaded from the DivX 7 showcase. If you encoded a video with subtitles or variable audio tracks, the choice appears up when you hit the menu button during playback. And disc images of DVDs? It's like there's a real live DVD in there, only there isn't!

Some more coolness: It remembers where you are in a movie, so you don't have to worry about stopping then coming back and having to find your place, even when you're viewing a DVD image. And since it's connected, it can hop on your NAS drives to pick up movies and other files. Again, no problems playing back. (Note: I didn't try the wireless option, which will sell separately for $70 later on—I used Ethernet through a Linksys powerline adapter).

The chart of accepted video codecs is long, but unlike most players of this price range, there are very few fine-print exceptions. What can't you play? Very very low-rez (viral) WMVs got the ix-nay—higher rez WMVs play just fine. What else? DVD disc images in the .img format don't show up, but switching a .img to the supported .iso is surprisingly easy. That's it. It didn't brick any other assorted video in my library, out of hundreds of files.

The Scorn

I won't lie, the interface on this baby is pretty heinous. It's media manager circa 2002, which means that I would expressly stay away from photos and music, despite its ability to read any of those files too. Movies are good because you don't need a lot of browsing—I just switched it from the ridiculously blocky "thumbnail" view to a standard list view, and skimmed my movies in alphabetical order. The good news is, you can change filenames to make it look a little prettier: dont_tempt_me.m4v becomes Don't Tempt Me.m4v.

I also wouldn't bother with Seagate's media manager software for "syncing" content to the hard drive. Maybe run it once for it to set up a folder structure on your drive, then copy video files over to it to your heart's content. You don't even have to use a FreeAgent Go drive, though it looks nice, nestled in there. You can plug just about any drive (NTFS, HFS+ or FAT are all fine, format wise) into a USB port, and navigate to it through the "devices" list.

As I mentioned, this is a networked device, but the internet options are as of now pretty lame: A non-personalized Flickr feed, a Picasa widget, a stock ticker and a weather program, all of which are bargain basement plug-ins. Call me when Netflix and Pandora arrive.

The Verdict

What do I personally want? A basic video player that can read the 150 to 200 DVDs I ripped in H.264 to save space, plus all of the crap that Apple TV and the lesser media adapters seem to have a problem with. Video should be either local or on a NAS, and I shouldn't have to worry about codecs or resolutions or any of the crap others seem to freak out about. I don't need help with music or photos—it's strictly about movies and longer-form TV. Because of that, I am a fan of this little box. Once it starts shipping, I encourage you to check it out. Just heed the following rules:

• Don't buy the 500GB drive bundle for $290—Amazon sells the 500GB FreeAgent Go right now for $106, so there's no way the bundle makes sense (as currently priced).
• And don't accidentally go buying the old FreeAgent Theater. It's my understanding that the first go 'round wasn't so pretty. From the looks of this massive overhaul, Seagate probably should have done more than just add a plus sign. [Product page; Amazon sales page]

In Brief

Decoded every video I selected, with two extremely negotiable exceptions

Compatible with Mac and PC formatted drives, and has no issues with folder hierarchies

HD, HD and more HD—720p and 1080p look good and play back smoothly

No problem locating NAS drives on the network, and no hiccups in playing back DVD disc images over the network

Internet widgets at present are dumb, but a future firmware update could bring something nice

The user interface is pretty ugly—your best bet is to clump your videos together into easy folders (Movies, TV, etc.) and to avoid using this to manage photos and music

FreeAgent Theater Media Manager is an insult to anyone who actually knows what this product can do for them

The control unit is as stunning as the early, blurry pics had implied. With a sharp 1024x768 screen, a brushed aluminum control knob and an attractive, minimalist interface it would be a treat to use as a home media controller. Unfortunately, if predictably, it is only compatible with one product, which is, you guessed it, a Bang & Olufsen server. Called the 500GB BeoMaster 5, the box is a largely unchanged followup to the company's $2700 BeoMedia media center PC.

In other words, the BeoSound controller is just that — a gutless remote. Without the BeoMaster, which it connects to via DVI, it's just a screen with a pretty dial. B&O haven't given any clues as to the price of the unit yet, but the BeoSound and BeoMaster will be, shall we say, luxury items. They're set for sale in May, you can find more detailed info at the B&O forums, or glance the presser below. [Bang & Olufsen via Acquire]

The BeoSound 5 are two components which make up the new audio master media player which was launched on 11th November 2008 The Beomaster 5 is intended as the a replacement for the Beomedia 1 and subsequent to the launch the Beomedia 1 will be discontinued.

The Beosound 5 has the following Key Features and Spec:-

* Graphical User Interface which provides the user the ability to navigate their entire music collection
* The users music files now resided on the 500GB hard drive located in the Beomaster 5 unit which has a physical size and appearance of the Beomedia 1
* When the music comes to an end, BeoSound 5 will continue to play ‘More Of The Same’ (MOTS) – that is, it will find other music on your system that complements what you’ve already been listening too.
* There’s an aluminum wheel that enables you to scroll smoothly and quickly through tracks and a 10.4” LCD with 1024 x 768 screen resolution that displays crisp graphics and album covers. You have your entire digital music collection plus thousands of internet radio stations available to you
* Mount it flat on a wall; or on a wall bracket with stand so you can tilt and angle it; or simply place it on a pedestal on an aluminum floor stand
* Designed by Anders Hermansen
* Cabinet finish is Aluminum/black
* Dimensions and weight is 12” x 7” x 3” and 5.8 lbs (31cm x 19cm x 8cm and 2.65 kg)
* Connections are via three which go to the BeoMaster 5 (DVI, Power, USB)
* An Aluminum and black wall bracket is included with the Beosound 5 and as an option you can have an extended wall bracket, a table stand in black and a floor stand in aluminum

Beosound 5 Overview

The BeoMaster 5 uses a VIA 2.0 Ghz processor made by VIA Technologies Inc with 1GB of random access memory and a 500GB hard drive and runs an embedded Microsoft Windows XP SP2.

The unit has DVI-I, S-Video and YPbPr for TV along with Masterlink, two Powerlink sockets, two USB sockets and a 10/100 Mbit/second ethernet.

BeoMaster 5 provides power to the Beosound 5 as well as infra-Red and USB mini. Display resolution via DVI-I is 1920x1200 and supports HD 1920x1080p

Something like this might not do well to come from Toshiba, as WirelessHD is limited to line-of-sight transmissions and NFC is slower than Bluetooth, in addition to hardly being equipped on anything. The design concept is fantastic though, and this shiny almost-ball could sit anywhere in your room and look great (or at least interesting). The driving force behind the design is even more enticing: make the unbound device look like something you could put on your coffee table, shelf or counter, because, well, that's exactly where it might end up. [Ubergizmo]

Media Server Madness

I don't remember when the obsession with home media servers developed, but it seems virtually every research firm has caught a bad case of media server fever. For example, this week a Parks Associates report arrived in my inbox claiming shipments of media servers would hit nearly 50 million by 2010. That echoed another recent report from ABI Research that declared "Media Server PC category to exceed $44 billion by 2011."

My question: Who the hell is buying these things?

But then I read what's actually considered a media server. Parks defines it as "a platform that can provide digital content to other platforms through certain networking technologies." In short, any network-attached device, like the Buffalo Technologies Linkstation 250GB Network Storage Center; multimedia PCs or any machine that runs Windows Media Center; set top devices, like TiVo or cable boxes from Scientific Atlanta; and high-end options like the McIntosh MS300 Music Server. ABI defines them pretty much the same.

After the Vista demonstration at this week's analysts meeting, I was curious to know what analysts thought would actually run these things. For those who didn't see it, a forlorn Micro-softy tried in vain to demonstrate a voice recognition program that performed so badly, analysts in the crowd laughed at the poor guy. In short, the disastrous demo didn't inspire confidence the company could ever produce good software for an entertainment device.

So I decided to ask Michael Wolf, ABI's principle analyst for broadband and multimedia research, to find out why he thought media servers would be so hot over the next few years. Wolf said Intel's push for Viiv to be the center of the digital home and new devices like the PS3 would make servers more appealing to consumers than today's options.

I can buy the PS3 angle, but when it comes to the push for Viiv, uh, no. And the problem is not with Intel. Rather, the problem is that these multimedia PCs are supposed to run Vista. These days, few people buy new PCs (Didn't someone recently declare the PC era over?) and virtually no one is buying Media Center PCs. So why would anyone buy Vista machines to run digital media? "Today Media Center is a hybrid," Wolf says, "but with Vista, it becomes part of the core operating system." I don't know about you, but the core of my entertainment experience will never be a PC.

Besides, God knows when Vista's actually coming to market. Sure, Microsoft says it's supposed to arrive early next year, but they don't sound overly confident. In fact, one joke making the rounds this week was that Vista was to be renamed Windows 2010.

So what's the alternative? Well, I've said before that smart CE companies should think about how they can partner with Apple to develop an interface for their devices—one based on the iPod. Sure enough, this week analysts began saying iTunes could be the "Trojan Horse" that allows entry into the digital den. All that's required is for CE manufacturers to add support for iTunes to their products.

If there really is a market for home media servers, it makes sense people would gravitate to an interface they already know. Otherwise, the market is just another analysts' fantasy—the type that aims to create a market that doesn't really exist and costs companies a lot of money.

And that doesn't benefit anyone.