Tech Olive

We received an email from reader Vino Odios asking:

I’m planning to purchase an HD media player for my home, but I’m just confused which one to purchase; the WD TV Live or the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+. Some say that the WD TV Live has issues with firmware. once they update the box goes off and never turns off. Some say the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ won’t play some video formats. Can you suggest to me which one is the best?

While there are a plethora of choices for choosing an HD media player for your home theater, Western Digital and Seagate seem to be the only companies that have the bases covered well with their media players. And while we think that Vino actually means “once they update the box goes off and never turns on,” we’ve heard that the WD TV Live does have issues sometimes when you update to the newer firmware, as well as a few bugs that could get annoying for some users. From what we’ve seen, it has a good looking user interface and it’s quite smaller than Seagate’s FreeAgent Theater+. On the contrary of what Vino has heard about the Theater+, it pretty much plays any format you throw at it, including .MKV files, but unlike the WD TV Live, it has a pretty lame looking and sluggish interface. So if the interface is important to you, get the WD TV Live. If you want to play it safe and stay away from firmware issues and bugs, get the Theater+.

If you’re having trouble deciding on what to get or have a technical issue of any sort, let us know by emailing us at techolive@techolive.com.