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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great idea, made simple., 19 July 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
This is the optional media adaptor for the Seagate Free agent portable HDD(Seagate 500GB FreeAgent Go Portable Black USB 2.0), which needs to be purchased separately and is not included with this item. You don't need a Seagate drive any USB external drive will work with the USB socket on the front of the device, but the built in slot will only fit the FreeAgent drive. The device is straightforward to use and plug in using the supplied composite A/V cable. When a USB drive is connected then you can navigate through all compatible media files to view on your TV. Pictures can be viewed as a slideshow with background music, if desired. The supported video codec's do not include wmv which is a shame.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of the simplest and best multimedia devices I've used., 12 Aug 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
I didn't want to like this product when it arrived.
With no HDMI out put and no hard drive included in the box (very misleading when you look at the pictures) it felt over priced and under spec'd. I could feel the negative review coming together as I opened the box.
But then I plugged it in to my TV set, stuck a USB flash drive into it and bingo; I was very impressed.
What I like about the Seagate is how simple it is to use. I am a Mac user so I didn't touch the included software (non of which is OSX compatible); I just plugged stuff in and it worked every time; photos from a flash drive, video from a flash drive, even plugging my digital camera directly into the unit worked first time every time.
The Seagate reads flash drives in a snip and transition times between files (be they photo, video or music) are quick and slick. It's a much better experience then burning photos to a disc and waiting for a compatible DVD player to stutter through each one. It's easy to set up slide shows from existing files and mess about with timings and transitions (should you want to). The menus and the remote control are all clear and simple and get the job done. Also, the unit is fairly small so it won't dominate your lounge.
My only negative comments are the price, lack of HDMI (very disappointing when the product boasts 1080 HD play back) and the remote feels a little bit cheap. Also, make sure you don't already have a box under your TV that does everything you want the Seagate for (like a modern games console or DVD player/ PVR with a USB input).
If you are looking for a simple and user friendly way to enjoy your digital media on a TV then the Seagate is it. I'd like to see the price become a little more competitive, but overall this is an excellent product and I was really impressed.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I like it, with a few reservations., 22 July 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
NB - Since I first wrote this review, the words 'With hard drive' have been removed from the product description. I'd therefore like to note that *without* a hard drive I do think this product is quite overpriced, and would certainly have given it at least one star less. Apart from that, the review stands.
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1 - First impressions.
2 - Software.
3 - Acceptable media formats
4. -Final thoughts.
1. First, what is it? It enables you to transfer any of your media files (movies, photos, music) to a portable hard drive, then play them through any TV, using the handy little remote control.
My first impressions of this unit were very favorable. It's totally hassle-free to set up, and couldn't be any easier to use. The enclosed quickstart instructions will have you up and running in minutes.
Basically, you just transfer your media - pictures, movies, or music - to a hard drive (my unit didn't come with the promised hard drive included, but yours should.)
However it's very easy to connect ANY usb drive to the media player via a convenient port on the front of the unit.
2. The packaged software is AWFUL. It will only run on Windows, and once installed, it will auto-run every time you boot your computer - needlessly using resources and slowing down the PC. And there's no option to turn off this annoying autostart 'feature.' Since the functionality the software offers is so limited anyway, I just uninstalled it again.
Anyway, it's totally unnecessary - just plug in your usb drive, transfer the media files you want to watch, and that's it. The beauty of this is that you can use the unit with any operating system. I prefer Linux, and it works just fine.
3. Supported media types:
Audio:
* MP3 * AC3 * ASF * OGG
* WAV * WMA * M3U (It was VERY nice to see OGG supported - vastly superior to mp3!)
Video:
* MPEG1: MPG/MPEG, DAT
* MPEG2: MPG/MPEG, VOB/ISO/IFO, TS, MKV
*DivX® files: AVI, MOV (through DivX converter), MP4, DivX
* XVID: AVI
No WMV files worked.
(I was pleased to see that the unit will happily play ISO files - so I can copy a DVD to a hard drive and play it through the unit. I was less pleased at how often it failed to play AVI files, either marking them as 'invalid' or playing the picture without the sound. For example, it would only play silent versions of videos I'd taken with my little 'Flip' video camera. I also think it's a great pity they didn't include the OGG video format, OGV)
Photo: JPGs are fine. Not surprisingly, it didn't like GIF files. Nor would it accept BMP files.
4. Final thoughts.
I like this unit, and I can see myself using it a lot. The price tag doesn't seem excessive - provided you DO get the promised hard drive as part of the unit. I didn't, but that may have been because mine was a freebie for review purposes.
It's extremely easy to use, and my one gripe (apart from the software) is that it was so fussy about some movie files.
I'm quite happy to give this a four-star review, and might even have gone to four and a half stars, if that option had been available.
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