Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex TV STAJ100

Ok, let’s get something straight right away. The biggest thing I was looking forward to with this little device was if and how well it handled ISO files. I have great news, in that it does so very nicely. You basically browse to where the ISO files are located, and just click on the file. It starts playing immediately and at that point functions just like a DVD player. I would even suggest that it’s better than a DVD player in that it has a very quick response to commands, such as chapter skips and fast forwarding. Video quality is fantastic. I have this plugged into a Panasonic 42″ Plasma at 1080P and the up-conversion is very good.

So, that being said, I’m immediately happy with this device. For me everything else is just a ‘nice to have’ feature. Let’s talk about those nice to haves…

The device is small. It has a door in the front that can open up to insert Seagate’s FreeAgent’s HDD’s. Doing so isn’t required to use the device at all. You can just as easily stream music/videos/pictures from a network device. However, on the main screen there are buttons associated with music/videos/pictures, that won’t work unless you do have the drive installed and Seagates software sync’ed up with a PC (Win or Mac). At some point, I’ll get around to installing that software on my Mac or my PC, but I haven’t done so yet.

Plugging in and powering up was a snap. It took less than 30 seconds to power up and I was ready to go. There was no lengthy setup to perform. Literally plug and play. I was immediately able to click on some of the Internet features, such as Youtube and Flickr. Looking at pictures in HD is really amazing. Extremely clear and really a pleasure to look at.

The remote is small, but a bit cheap. This seems to be a common theme among these devices in that there’s no real though put into the remote. It’s not that complicated, so I feel it’s very easy to use once you’ve learned the button layout. It has the common playback buttons, as well as arrow buttons and a home button. If you’re ever lost, click on the home button to get back to the main menu. The one thing I hate is that the IR sensors aren’t very forgiving. You have to firmly push on the remote buttons and make sure that you’re pointing directly at the GoFlex. There’s no feedback, so you essentially have to wait a few seconds to know whether or not it’s going to work. I wish there was a LED on the device that blinked when it received a command.

The only other feature that I’m interested in is the NetFlix playback. It works very similar to others in that you can browse your saved queue and select the movie you want to watch. It’s work very well. Video quality also is very good and is likely limited to what NetFlix is able to stream. There’s seems to be zero strain on the device to playback movies.

The interface is very basic. I would place it significantly below the quality of the Roku box, but better than most other media players (aka PCH or NMT, if you know what I’m talking about) I’ve tested. There doesn’t appear to be any way to modify or customize the interface. There’s an options menu that lets you do very common stuff like check the network settings, change video resolution, etc…

Overall, I like the device and successfully met my requirements for ISO files. I hope that future updates improve on the interface as well as add other features. One feature in particular that I would like to see is Amazon OnDemand. I don’t use that service that much, but it’s nice to have when you want to watch some of the latest releases. That being said, I would have no problem in recommending this as a solid Media Player. It’s probably one of the best values out there today.

Pros

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- Plays ISO files perfectly

- Great up-conversion for movie files

- Excellent video quality (for 42″ plasma @1080p via HDMI)

- NetFlix playback works very well

- Interface is pretty quick, even when browsing network devices

- Excellent value

Cons

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- The remote is a bit on the cheap, but decent button layout.

- Not enough feedback when using the remote. It’s hard to tell if the button you clicked is doing anything.

- Requires firm button clicks and direct pointing at the device.

Wishlist

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- Add Amazon OnDemand

- Improvements to interface, such as better feedback when clicking remote buttons

- Improve the remote IR sensitivity

- Recognize folder bitmap images. Would be very helpful when browsing video folders.
Rating: 4 / 5

The Seagate Free Agent GoFlex TV STAJ100 is a small box, about the size of a videocassette, that serves as a router for audio and video sources, providing an output of multiple types of such information to your home theater. So you can plug the unit in to your LAN using an ethernet cable and then access shared media folders on computers in the household that are on the same network. This makes it easy to look, for instance, at the iPhoto libraries or at iTunes music libraries, so long as these are set up to be shared at their source. Another alternative is to simply take a flashdrive, load it with pictures or music, then plug it into the USB port on the GoFlex TV, and everything comes through on the TV. You select what you want to do through use of a provided remote control.

Another approach is to use Seagate’s FreeAgent GoFlex ultra-portable USB drives. I tested one of the new 500GB drives, hooking it up to my Mac with its USB cable, moving over some appropriate files, then plugging the drive directly into the GoFlex TV box. Again, accessing the various files was problem-free. This is a good approach if you don’t have handy LAN access near your television or if you haven’t purchased the additional WiFi adaptor available from Seagate. I tested various types of video sources as well as various audio and picture sources. Everything came through in 480i on the TV screen. A quick visit to the Settings menu and I realized that 480i is the default setting but that the unit can be set at any of the typical resolutions including 1080i and 1080p. Once I modified the settings to 1080p, all video sources came through at whatever their appropriate resolution was.

So far, this is similar to some capabilities that I have with my TiVo box, which also allows remote connectivity through your home network to the media files on your computers. There are a few advantages to the Seagate approach – the biggest is that it can utilize multiple formats which the TiVo doesn’t recognize. It is far less likely to fail when attempting to read some unusual file format, but you may wish to review the legible formats at the Seagate website. The second is the availability of a USB port and data hookup for Seagate hard drives. That’s a nice addition.

But the biggest plus for me is the availability of streaming video from Netflix, something I can’t get on my TiVo. Before now, I had to take my Mac, set it up for streaming from NetFlix, then hook up the HDMI converter and an audio cable (since Mac laptops haven’t until recently had audio outputs incorporated into their video output), and finally figure out where I was going to sit the laptop so that cables would reach the TV, the electrical outlet, and so forth. I tried it once just to see if it all worked, but here it’s much easier. There’s a dedicated box. You turn it on, it almost immediately accesses your NetFlix streaming queue, and you pick what you want to watch. The quality and speed of the service was excellent, with video that comes close to Bluray disc quality. Your mileage may vary, depending upon the speed of your connection, but Netflix servers delivered HD quality for those movies where they’ve enabled HD streaming.

The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex TV STAJ100 arrived with an AC Adaptor, remote control and batteries, composite cable, and component cable. Note that the GoFlex TV can also utilize an HDMI cable as well as an optical cable, so you’re fully covered no matter what pre-processor or monitor your system has. I hooked mine up using the HDMI output directly to a 52″ Sony XBR, but ultimately you’ll want to run the HDMI through your other components so as to take advantage of the sound quality throughput.

My first unit was DOA but Seagate was responsive and I had a replacement unit almost immediately. The replacement unit had a serial number very close to the first unit so it doesn’t appear that there was a string of faulty units; rather I just got one that had a glitch.

So in conclusion, this box is a fantastic way to stream NetFlix videos – if you use it for nothing but that, it’s worth the price of admission. The fact that it also works with YouTube, Flickr, and with almost any audio/video/photo that you throw its way – that’s just a bonus.

Downsides for Seagate to explore on the next iteration:

1) The name!! Should I call this a “FreeAgent” or a “GoFlex” or an “STAJ100?” The problem is that FreeAgent GoFlex also refers to a line of hard drives from Seagate, so the only distinguishing feature of the name is the part that says “TV.” I can’t call it a TV, however. Let’s have a “Name this Device” contest.

2) The interface to look at photos and play music is straight-forward and intuitive but doesn’t have the beauty of, say, a Macintosh or iPhone interface. I realize the price is the driving factor here and that we’re weighing improved capabilities against more powerful and impressive firmware. I too would take the improved capabilities initially, but for the next version it would be nice to see something a little more like iTunes or iPhoto itself for accessing and sorting the available media. Right now, there’s something of a DOS feel to the interface — we’re a little better than a command-line interface, but there’s room for improvement.
Rating: 4 / 5

I agree with the comments in the previous reviews. One quick heads-up for anyone looking to bundle this with the recommended items (hard drive and cable)…. The 1TB “go flex” drive has a larger footprint and does not fit into the drive slot on the front of the box. It can be connected via the USB port on the back but if you were hoping for the ability to slide the drive into the front slot use must order a “go flex” drive sized lower than 1TB with the 14mm profile. Not a big deal just a heads up.
Rating: 4 / 5

After reading the two ititial reviews on this product, I decided to purchase this system vs. their main competitor.(too many bad reviews) I already have an XBox360 with a fully loaded Media Center Interface for movies using Media Browser as a front end. (elegant) Although the XBox serves its purpose with games, movies etc, we were looking for something simpler to just power up and play dvd content complete with menus and the bonus for us was the Netflix access. Of course this unit is quiet as well vs. XBox.

Although I already have Netflix on Xbox, and it is a bit more elegant that that of the GoFlex TV version of Netflix, it works just fine and is quick to get started. No flaws as of this writing. Instead of purchasing a GoFlex drive for the GoFlex TV, I modded an older external micro SATA drive and case I already had and it fits perfecty into the front of the unit and works well. I use this primarily for the DVD content which includes menus. (nice to have) We also keep our pics and music on this drive as well for quick access. (Saving the other two USB ports for additional storage at some point)

Networking – The one area that was not quite clear in the user guide is where they indicate that under the selection of “Movies” from the main menu, that if you have a Network shortcut created and connected, that the system should automatically just find any movies on that network drive and include them into items that also come from the local GoFlex drive on the unit. (Movies Icon on main menu) After much research in the forums, I found that is not to be the case. I was able to connect the unit via the Network to my Windows Home Server and save that as a shortcut so there is a workaround. I did also encounter issues trying to connect to 3 other Windows 7 machines where it kept telling me “Login failed”. Again, after more forum research, people were doing registry setting changes and all kinds of things just to connect to another computer. I ran out of patience at that level and don’t really need the connectivity beyond that of the Windows Home Server but it would be nice to know more about this process in clear terms.

Another nice feature is access to any Media Servers you happen to have running on a home network.(PlayOn and Windows Media Player) I was able to use my Win 7 machine via GoFlex TV to play content as well. I don’t really have that much need but it is nice to know it is there and works.

As a bonus, there is also access to things like “MediaFly” which I found to be a good source of some HD content.(Free is good)

Remote Control – As indicated in another review, the remote control is a bit weak but I was able to use my existing Logitech remote and incorporate all of the GoFlex buttons into my remote which is yet another bonus. The remote that comes with the unit is perfect for other family members that want more simplicity. (imagine that!)

File management – It would be nice to have the ability to do more advanced thing with the system like copying files to the unit drives via the network or deleting items from the unit when done watching a movie if needed. Then again, that is part of the beauty of this system – pure simplicity. There may be a way to connect data and systems to this unit more easily using the GoFlex Net storage component that is part of the GoFlex series as well. Researh on that to follow……….

USB – It is nice to have two additional USB ports. I use one with a wireless keyboard when working in the settings section of the unit. Worked flawlessy with no software to install.

PROS:

Plays DVD content from hard drive or Network- with Menus.

Netflix – works right out of the box and no network issues using ethernet

CONS:

Could use better network management – again, that may be possible via their GoFlex Net product

File management interface – for adding or removing files as needed vs moving the drive(s) around.

All in all, a very nice, intuitive, easy to use system for the entire family. (even my dogs can operate this unit)

Love it so far.

Rating: 5 / 5

With the current firmware, the new Seagate FreeAgnet GoFlex TV performs identically to the older FreeAgent Theater+ it replaces. The menu looks EXACTLY the same, and the some of the problems that the FreeAgent Theater+ has is also present on the Goflex TV.

GOOD

-Playback virtually everything I throw at it.

-Excellent picture quality

-Compact and light weight

-Behaves like a regular DVD player – play back DVD ISO or VIDEO_TS folder with MENU support

-Built-in dock for FreeAgent Goflex via internal SATA connector – actually you can hook up ANY 2.5″ SATA hard drive directly but the front of the hard drive will protrude out from the Goflex TV by 0.5 inch so it looks awkward if you just use a bare drive.

-Netflix support

BAD

-Heats up a lot after prolonged playback (just like the FreeAgent Theater+), especially if you use the Goflex hard drive with the Goflex TV. When I use the FreeAgent GO with FreeAgent Theater+, the hard drive does not heat up as much.

-For some reason, when power down the Goflex TV via the remote control, the indicator light turn orange BUT the Goflex hard drive that’s inserted does NOT power down and keeps spinning!! This ia a major design flaw in my opinion (when the FreeAgent Theater+ is turned off, Freeagnet GO powers down)

-No way to categorize files on the hard drive – everything is displayed on a big long list

-Cost $20 more than the FreeAgent Theater+ yet no new features are added

BOTTOM LINE – it’s a better deal getting the FreeAgent Theater+ and FreeAgent GO portable hard drive

Rating: 3 / 5