Seagate is a name synonymous with quality hard drives, and their latest release, the FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player has something to do with hard drives as well. This device has room for a hard drive, where it will function as a next generation home theater solution that was specially designed to instantly and easily hook up your digital media library to your home entertainment system for seamless interaction, while ushering your living room into the 21st century instead of being laughed at by your mates each time they drop by. What makes the FreeAgent Theater+ HD media

Viewsonic, a name more often associated with LCD displays and monitors, have unveiled a couple of portable media players known as the MovieBook VPD400 and VPD500. They will be made available for both Europe and the US, where the two models will come with HD playback through its video-out connector (720p resolution), a 800 x 480 resolution LCD display (the VPD400 will carry a 4.3″ screen while the VPD500 has a more generous 5″), 8GB internal memory, a microSD memory card slot and a 1900mAh battery which is good for up to four

MP navi’s maiden effort in the world of portable media players isn’t anything to shout about, while you do get a 4.3″ touchscreen display, it comes in a super slim chassis with support for a wide range of audio and video formats – pretty much like any other generic portable media player out there. At least it has above-average looks unlike other cheaper brands, but this looks set to be a South Korea-only device, which means you can pick it up for approximately $114 in that part of the world.

Freecom has released enough diverse disk-based products over the past few years to inspire hope that its latest attempt to bridge the network-attached storage and media streamer divide would succeed. Not the case, according to Register Hardware’s review. File copies to the device were quick enough over USB, but once tethered on Ethernet got rather slow (10 minutes for a 1GB file, 36 minutes for 1,024 1MB files), and even worse over WiFi (14 and 44 minutes, respectively). So, that whole NAS aspect doesn’t exactly work out. Neither does the streaming side, with an

Much like Sony’s PlayStation 3, Spark’s VTube clearly wasn’t designed to sit nicely in-between a 7.1-channel AV receiver and a cable set-top-box. Engineered in some backwoods lab about 30 kilometers south of Shenzhen, the so-called VTube looks to be a pretty standard media player outside of its unorthodox design. The unit packs HDMI / component / composite video outputs, an Ethernet jack and a Toslink optical audio output, and those who dig internal storage can slap a 2.5-inch HDD within to keep those old Office clips handy. Predictably, it also supports pretty

Remember when Seagate introduced its Betamax-esque FreeAgent Theater HD way back at CES this year? Of course not — you were locked onto the Palm Pre keynote. At any rate, the next generation of that very device somehow made it through the product development stage and now sits in our very hands, and we have to say, it’s no more modern in person than it is in press shots. Equipped with the usual assortment of ports (HDMI, component, composite, Toslink, Ethernet and two USB) ports, the FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player gets all of its content from a FreeAgent Go USB

Here we go again: round umpteen of the fight to break and re-enable Pre syncing with iTunes is now underway thanks to the release of iTunes 9, and we’re sure there’s plenty more where this came from. Endlessly amusing to casual observers, yes, but Pre customers are the ones losing out — sure, Palm might be able fix this in a jiffy (especially since they continue to tout compatibility with the Pixi), but meanwhile, media sync’s out of the picture once more. Stay tuned for more on this as it develops.

If you can’t wait to see what new announcements Microsoft will have surrounding Windows 7 Media Center, then you should head over to Engadget HD for our live coverage of the event. We made our predictions early, which means you can either look in awe of our genius or laugh as we miss every mark, either way click through to see what’s new in Media Center.

This just in from our team at Microsoft’s MCE event at CEDIA — the OEM requirement on CableCARDs has been officially lifted, freeing Joe Six Packs all over from having to buy whole systems. The photo above pretty much says it all — enthusiasts (hey, that’s us!) can add CableCARD tuners to their PC. Even though a DIY workaround has been around for a while, it’s nice not to have to break/bend the rules to get your shows recorded, isn’t it?

Today is officially the first day of CEDIA Expo 2009 and now that Microsoft has announced its Media Center news, it’s the partner’s turn. Up first is Nevius which is of course releasing new Media Center PCs with Windows 7, so of course the new looser DRM and other features are included. Niveus is stepping up the hardware though too by adding RAID and SSD drives to the Pro Series, and also a new Windows Home Server requirement for its full system restoration capabilities. The other new offering is the aptly named White Glove service, which basically means the services