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Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ (Media Hound, under $250)

You've got a hard drive full of movies and television, but playing these digital files where they're meant to be played -- on your living room TV/receiver setup, rather than your computer -- can be tricky business. Though its interface is light years behind that of Apple TV, the FreeAgent Theater+ ($150) excels in flexibility: The device can play nearly any file you throw at it (WMV, AVI, MP4, MKV, and VOB, to name just a few). Also, 720p and 1080p files play back without a hitch, and the device even makes sense of complicated folder hierarchies and file names. Media hounds will be best served by putting all of their content on an accompanying Seagate FreeAgent hard drive (which plugs into the device), but for overall bang for the buck (especially for folks with loads of downloaded movies and TV), it's still a great value.