Using time machine to restore to an external hard drive

Hi my iMac running Mountain Lion has been broken beyond repair but fortunately I have a very recent Time machine backup. I backed up the entire machine and from memory there was about 1.4 TB of data (mostly photos, movies etc)
I want to replace the iMac with a solid state drive air or MacBook Pro however 1.5TB doesn't go into 256GB.
My question is - Can I use my Time Machine backup to restore all my large files to an external drive hooked up to whatever new computer I get, and still use it to restore programs, emails, system settings etc to the new computer. Even if I can't restore system settings I can do all that manually, my main concern is getting the files from Time machine to an external hard drive.
Thanks in advance for any help!
SB

Check here if it helps you but BE VERY CAREFUL!!!
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1399
Cheers
Simon

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