As yet, most people have resisted the urge to put a full-blown PC at the heart of their entertainment system.

Many of us have, however, ended up with lots of movies, music and photos stuck on computers that we’d much rather enjoy in the living room.

For those who don’t want to invest in a home network media streaming device, the ATMT Mobile Media HDD HV355U offers a simple solution.

The 160Gb HV355U could easily be mistaken for just another external hard disk drive. On the rear of the device, however, you’ll find a surprisingly wide array of audio-visual output sockets, including Scart, composite and component video, along with analogue and digital (coaxial) audio.

In fact, the HV355U acts as a sort of go-between that can talk to both your PC and TV/hi-fi. When plugged into a computer via USB, it acts just like any external disk drive. You can drag and drop what you like to it – video files, digital photos, music, documents – and use it to back up data.

In addition, it can also be unplugged from a PC and connected to your television, whereupon you can use the remote control provided to browse through the contents of the disk and play back media files.

Audio and picture quality rather depends on the source files. In our tests, a high-quality DivX file looked stunning, particularly when played through the component output using the 'progressive' option. A heavily-compressed, low-resolution MPEG-1 file, on the other hand, looked blocky and horrid.

Format compatibility is also a bit of a problem, since only specific file types are supported (MPEG1, MPEG2, DivX/XviD, JPEG, MP3 and WAV).

The HV355U won’t play back DV video footage that's been captured from your camcorder, for example, unless it is converted to another format first. And, sadly, the package doesn’t come with software to do this.

That said, if you’re willing to put up with this and can live with the idea of physically carting something back and forth every time you want to add something new, then the HV355U option is most definitely worth investigating.

Related reviews 
LaCie Silverscreen 
Verdict: A simple way to watch or listen to digital media on your TV, but there are cheaper alternatives
Rating: 3/5
Price: £265