Review: Media Streamer Shootout

Getting content from your computer to your television is hardly a new idea, but now that Apple has taken up the cause, everyone seems to want to get into the game.

The idea here is simple: Add a tiny box to your home-theater setup that can stream movies, music and photos across the network from PC to TV—and, for good measure, access Netflix, YouTube, Pandora and other cloud-based entertainment streaming services, too. Many of these devices include USB ports for hooking up a hard drive or thumb drive, so you can play less permanently stored video on an ad hoc basis.

We looked at three such offerings—including Apple’s latest—and found that, much to our chagrin, none of these were very compelling solutions for getting movies off your home network or for streaming media from the web. And yet, each is different in its own special, useless way.

Apple TV

The good news is that the Apple TV was the best product in this roundup. The bad news is we still wouldn't recommend it unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool Cupertinophile who can't live without at least one of every gadget Apple makes.

There's no complaining about the hardware. In true Apple fashion it's a sleek and sexy hockey puck of a device, and setup is a breeze. Of course, in keeping with Apple’s other electronics, the Apple TV is useless without iTunes on your computer unless you simply want to access media directly from the iTunes Store. And Apple would really love it if you did: The Apple TV interface is overwhelmingly dedicated to selling you content, presented as a cacophony of clickable posters in no discernible order.

If you push past the come-ons to browse your PC library, the interface works well enough, although the ridiculous remote tries its best to thwart such efforts. Movies look good and audio is crisp and clear – provided, that is, that you've connected to your network via Ethernet. We had nothing but trouble when using the Apple TV's wireless connection, to the point where it frequently dropped out in the middle of streaming a song and eventually lost track of our PC's media library altogether. You're best advised pretending Wi-Fi isn't even an option (which it actually isn't on the other two devices we reviewed) and simply plugging into your router.

With a maximum resolution of 720p, movies won’t look as good – in theory – on the Apple TV as they will on other streamers (both WD and Seagate support 1080p), but the reality is that heavy compression and stutter are far bigger problems than how many pixels you're getting. We had generally good success with Netflix and YouTube streams, but searching for content with that gum-stick remote is a nightmare.

Bottom line: This is passable technology, but hardly Apple's finest hour.

$100, Apple

Western Digital TV Live Plus

For a much different approach to media streaming, consider WD's Digital TV Live Plus, a squat rectangle of a device with a chunky remote that recalls the sophistication of your finer motel television set clicker.

The device’s menu recalls Sony's XrossMediaBar, and navigating it can take some getting used to. But once you've figured out where things have been squirreled away, the system becomes reasonably easy to handle. The remote and the menus are snappy and responsive.

The only problem with the TV Live Plus comes with actually trying to watch or listen to media with it. Movies played from the network, from an attached hard drive or from Netflix frequently were missing the audio. And, although the TV Live Plus claims to support all the formats that the other devices here handle, it had more trouble playing back videos than the rest. Video quality was hit-and-miss. Locally-stored flicks looked fine, but our Netflix playback was the jumpiest of the bunch, with frequent skipping and freezes.

Bottom line: Again, for very limited uses, the TV Live Plus works well enough, but more often than not, its quality issues are frustrating to the point where you'll wonder why you didn't just spring for a Tivo.

$150. Western Digital

Seagate GoFlex FreeAgent TV

As tragic as the WD streamer is, it's a positive masterpiece next to Seagate's GoFlex FreeAgent TV, one of the least impressive consumer electronics products we've encountered in years.

One look at the interface and you'll see the clear embodiment of a cheap Chinese import that's had someone else's name slapped on it before being rushed to market. It's not just an affront to the eyes to look at, in actual use it's a disaster. The FreeAgent is so sluggish that you soon adapt to it by punching buttons three times and hoping for the best – that eventually one of those presses will actually register and do something, sparing you from simply sitting there in wait. What it might do, who knows: The interface is so badly conceived that the remote features both Home and Menu buttons, and they do wildly different things.

Actual performance is dismal. Raw video quality – in terms of image clarity – was the worst of this trio, although streaming was at least less jittery than the WD. And for some reason, audio playback came through at an extremely low volume, requiring we jack up the sound on the TV.

Bottom line: The only interesting or unique aspect of the GoFlex is the front panel, which flips open to reveal a dock into which you can slide a Seagate hard drive. Of course, the drive isn't included, and it's only compatible with a certain model series of Seagate drives so, well, perhaps "interesting" is too strong of a word.

$130, Seagate