Up until I played with the Popcorn Hour C-200, the Seagate GoFlex TV HD media player (henceforth known as SGFTVHDMP, or simply GoFlex), was leading the pack.

Yes, it has issues (the plug felt like something from a Meccano set and the interface was a bit slow to respond),
but in terms of features and functionality it is definitely ahead of the curve. Further, of all the players, I found this to offer the best image quality.

Connecting the GoFlex to the internet using the Ethernet or optional Wi-Fi adapter allows the user to stream digital content from a home network or popular online service providers such as YouTube, MediaFly, Picasa and more. (The letdown here is the use of an annoying on-screen keyboard. Typing in search phrases can be quite tedious.)

On the plus side, the GoFlex’s GUI was easy to navigate, despite the fact it packed quite a lot of features in. However, on start-up, it did take a while to ‘index content’.

While navigating the GoFlex, I found that it was a bit ‘hit or miss’ in that the GUI in the image directory worked a treat (it was one of the only ones to show thumbnails), but then the same interface was a little annoying for video fi les. To some extent, the GUI reminded me of the old File Manager program on a PC (back in the days of Windows 3.1).

Accessing vTuner, a internet radio application, saw the program become a little unstable; there were long load times and it crashed. But once it was restarted, it was quite intuitive, just a little less responsive then I would have liked.

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