Hard drives could be the next video cassette, if Seagate's new FreeAgent Theatre HD media player takes off.
The unit, which connects to a TV, accepts branded FreeAgent hard drives in a top-mounted slot.
Speaking at its UK launch last night, the company explained the introduction, saying: 'what we want is for people to buy plenty of our FreeAgent portable drives, so we ship them in various colours so that users can theme them like tapes, perhaps using a red drive for digital images and black for videos.'
However, the market leader in storage was put on its back foot at the launch, defending the unit's lack of HDMI connectivity and hi-def file support.
'This is a very new market,' argued a spokesman, 'people are only just realizing that they don't have to store their personal files on a PC. So it was more important for us to concentrate on developing an easy to use interface than offering HDMI. We don't think it will be a problem. The FreeAgent sits on the top of the TV and delivers the kind of files most users would want to play.'
The media player offers legacy composite AV connections, coaxial digital and component outputs for a 1080i output. It ships with a Scart adaptor, but without hard drive, for approx. £89.
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