Seagate is partnering with Paramount to release 21 of the studio's recent films on the hard drive maker's 500GB FreeAgent Go external HDD.

It sounds a good deal, but there is no shortage of catches. Firstly, only one film is free: J J Abrams' remake of Star Trek. The remainder are available to purchase for $10-15.

In order to watch Star Trek, you'll need an unlock key which can only be obtained by registering your details with Seagate.

And, finally, the movies are only available to US-based Windows users.

Still, it's a novel way to get content into punters' hands. This is likely just a one-off promo, but it shows one way a company like Seagate could enter the video retail trade: load a drive full of movies from all the major studios and sell them to punters on a video by video basis. ®