Seagate Launches Freeagnet Theatre HD Media Player

SEAGATE BRINGS ENJOYMENT OF DIGITAL CONTENT TO THE LIVING ROOM WITH SEAGATE FREEAGENT THEATRE HD MEDIA PLAYER

Stylish Media Docking Solution Makes it Easy to View Movies, Videos and Photos on Your TV Screen

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - January 07, 2009 - Seagate (NASDAQ: STX), the world's leading provider of storage solutions, today unveiled the new Seagate® FreeAgent® Theatre™ HD media player, a complete home theatre solution designed to enhance the experience of enjoying digital media by providing an easy way to play your favourite videos, movies and photos on your TV. The Seagate FreeAgent Theatre media player is a new accessory designed to work with the company's award-winning FreeAgent® Go™ portable hard drive, enabling people to easily enjoy stored digital media on their TV screens rather than their computer monitors. Just tuck the media player next to your TV, pop in your FreeAgent Go hard drive, point, click, and enjoy as your personal memories and favourite movies come to life before your eyes in HD quality video with surround sound. The announcement was made at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show, taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada.


"Consumers are awakening to the fact that the PC isn't the best place to store or view their photos and videos, says Chris Chute, research manager for IDC. "Over time the living room and robust storage solutions will go hand-in-hand to facilitate the next-generation of sharing memories."

According to IDC's digital imaging research1, consumers the world over capture and archive over 15 billion gigabytes of digital photos and video every year, most of which is primarily viewed and stored on the home computer. However, according to a recent survey by Parks Associates2, more than a quarter of consumers are interested in accessing personal content - such as photos and music - directly on the TV, while nearly a third of respondents expressed interest in being able to view movies and other PC-hosted video through the TV. Historically the only way to transfer digital files from the computer to the home entertainment centre was through complicated home networking solutions or the time-consuming task of burning multiple DVDs or CDs. Now the Seagate FreeAgent Theatre Media Player provides a way for people to easily store and move their media library between their PC and home entertainment system so they can share their favourite photos, movies and videos with family and friends in a familiar and comfortable setting.

Key Features and Benefits
The Seagate FreeAgent Theatre media player introduces a new way of thinking about how an external hard drive is used. Back up, storage and protection have always been the primary function of an external storage device. With FreeAgent Theatre, Seagate now introduces enjoyment:
• Experience high-definition movie viewing with DVD-like playback control and surround sound.
• Pair slideshows of high-resolution photo libraries with music collections and customise with specialised transition effects.
• Easily synch and organise digital media from multiple computers using the FreeAgent Go drive.
• Instantly access entire libraries of digital media by simply popping a FreeAgent Go drive into the media player or connecting another external storage device using the external USB port.
• On-screen navigation is a snap with the handy remote with an intuitive interface and familiar button layout.

Seagate FreeAgent Theatre couples cool functional design with technical simplicity. The docking solution eliminates the need for fumbling with excessive amounts of cables or complicated network setups, while its familiar DVD-style remote control interface makes it a breeze for any member of the family to use. Its sleek, piano-black encasing makes this new component look right at home beside the DVR, DVD-player and television.

The included FreeAgent Theatre software is a rich media-specific synchronisation application for the automatic transfer and organisation of all the photos, music, videos and movies stored on your computer. And since the FreeAgent Go drives are now available in a variety of colours, it will be easy to catalogue and organise digital libraries according to the colour of the drive-storing favourite movies on one drive, family photos on a second and music on yet another.

"Consumers today are the number one creators and aggregators of digital content-most of which holds a sentimental or emotional value and is unfortunately trapped on their home computers," said Pat King, senior vice president of Seagate's Consumer Solutions Division. "For years, Seagate has provided solutions for storing, organising and protecting this personal content - now, with Seagate FreeAgent Theatre, we provide the ability for families and friends to share and enjoy these memories together in the comfort of their living rooms."

Technical Specifications
One of the key features that make the Seagate FreeAgent Theatre so easy to use is the number of supported Audio/Video formats. The FreeAgent Theatre media player supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats, and DIVX files with video resolutions for NTSC, PAL and HD up to 1080i and even provides support for subtitles. The audio formats supported include 5.1 channel surround sound, where available, and also plays the popular digital audio formats including: MP3, WMA, WAV and OGG. To download and transfer content to the Seagate FreeAgent Go, a Windows XP or Vista operated PC is required, with 256MB RAM and an available USB port. FreeAgent Theatre connects to any TV with either composite, S-video or component video and audio inputs and an AC outlet.

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ENDS

About Seagate
Seagate is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of hard disk drives and storage solutions, providing products for a wide-range of applications, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, and Consumer Solutions. Seagate's business model leverages technology leadership and world-class manufacturing to deliver industry-leading innovation and quality to its global customers, with the goal of being the time-to-market leader in all markets in which it participates. The company is committed to providing award-winning products, customer support and reliability to meet the world's growing demand for information storage. Seagate can be found around the globe and at http://www.seagate.com

[1] Source: IDC, Worldwide Consumer Video Content and Archive 2007-2011 Forecast: The Video Bible, Doc # 210035, December 2007; IDC, Worldwide Digital Image 2007-2011 Forecast: The Image Archive Bible, Doc # 209873, December 2007

2 Source: Parks Associates, "Digital Media Habits II," John Barret, director of research, October 2007

Seagate, Seagate Technology, and the Wave logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. FreeAgent, FreeAgent Theatre, and FreeAgent Go are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC or one of its affiliated companies in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. When referring to hard drive capacity, one gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes and one terabyte, or TB, equals one trillion bytes. Your computer's operating player may use a different standard of measurement and report a lower capacity. In addition, some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus will not be available for data storage. Seagate reserves the right to change, without notice, product offerings or specifications.

Last updated: Apr 7, 2020 at 12:58 pm CDT