<p>In order to provide a host. apparatus (20), such as a digital television receiver, with the capability of transmitting commands to an external storage medium device (21) connected to the host apparatus (20) over an external databus (22), the host apparatus (20) is provided with: a command bus (28) and a command interface (26, 27) arranged in accordance with one of the ATA/IDE standard or the Serial ATA standard for transmitting commands to a storage medium device over the storage medium command bus (28); and an integrated circuit chip (29) connected to the command bus (28); and to the external databus (22) and having an interface arranged to convert commands received from the command bus (28) in a format in accordance with said one of the ATA/IDE standard or the Serial ATA standard into a format for the external databus (22) and to transmit the converted commands over the eternal databus (22). The external databus (22) may be arranged in accordance with the IEEE 1394 standard or the Universal Serial Bus standard. The storage medium device standard may be an Advanced Technology Attachment standard.</p>
