SageTV HD Theater Reviews

Expert review by: Will Smith (maximumpc.com)

SageTV HD Theater

Streaming boxes are a mixed bag these days. With super-polished commercial offerings like the AppleTV, as well as streaming functionality integrated in every other consumer electronics device—from the Xbox 360 to the TiVo—we thought the age of the...

Works great with SageTV servers; fanless and quiet; very customizable

Doesn't work well without SageTV server; remote lacks a real keyboard; fiddly

For anyone who has already bought into the SageTV lifestyle, the HD Theater is a great way to connect more rooms to the media hub. However, we can’t recommend the HD Theater if you haven’t already purchased SageTV. We’d rather run the more-polished and...

Oct, 2009

Partner Source

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Expert review by: Terrence Russell (wired.com)

Little Black Box Streams HD Content Like a Flash Flood

Ready to start moving some HD content around your home? SageTV's wonder-box is up to the challenge.

Combination of standalone mode, extender capabilities, and web video make it a steal for the price. Sports all the A/V connections du jour (component, composite, HDMI, SPDIF, S-Video). Plays media in a ton of formats: MPEG, H.264, WMV, AVI, AAC, FLAC —...

No integrated Wi-Fi. Flashing status lights are ridiculously bright. Switch from “extender” mode to “standalone” requires a power cycle. Remote is unnecessarily complicated and hardly universal. Mediocre quality for web video. Sorry home audio buffs,...

Apr, 2009

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Expert review by: Jamie Lendino (pcmag.com)

SageTV HD Theater

way to watch all of your media and millions of Internet videos on your home HDTV. It's much smaller than its predecessor, the stereo-component-size SageTV HD Media Extender, but the new unit still manages to pack in the same features. These include...

Smooth local network streaming, even in high definition. Small size. Includes plenty of cables and a full-featured remote. USB ports finally work

Still no Wi-Fi capability. Sparse, boring selection of online content. Plenty of hiccups in online streaming performance. Some stability issues

The SageTV HD Theater isn't the killer, must-have media extender we've been waiting for. It's a decent box, but only if you skip the online video section and stick with USB or network streaming.

Mar, 2009

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Expert review by: Michael Brown (digitaltrends.com)

SageTV HD Theater

The SageTV HD Theater is akin to Western Digital's WD TV HD Media Player in that it can stream music and video to your television independent of a computer—that means you don't need a computer at all. Like that device, it's outfitted with HDMI,...

Computer-independent ; inexpensive ; HDMI output ; 1080p ; 10-foot user interface ; very extensible ; Ethernet interface

Insufficient documentation ; should support more file formats ; slightly buggy

The SageTV HD Theater can be frustrating to set up, but experienced DIYers will appreciate what it has to offer

Jan, 2009