Buying a Cheap 1TB Hard drive to watch films on Samsung TV

HIM_POPPY

I have no idea what to look for there are so many choice on ebay, anyone know any cheap deals here. I am looking for a 1TB or 2TB hard drive which I can just usb plug into my Samsung tv and play films on.

USB 2 USB 3 are confusing me what is the difference?

Also does manufacturer matter, will some be quicker?

Are there speed differences between hard drives? (Would a more expensive 1TB with some better technology be quicker than and other? If so what is the technology and distinguishing aspect to make it quicker? SATA?

Thanks guys

JJ_Egan

How are you going to put films on the hard drive
USB 3 connection on your TV yes/no .
http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/usb_3_explained.html

I use a 2TB portable hard drive connected to USB 2 port on my TV .
Videos in Mpeg format are copied from the PC to the drive .

No speed difference when watching videos .
SATA is for internal PC drives you need a portable hard drive like .
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Passport-1TB-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B0081LDYW6

fenlander_uk

On the assumption that you're going to transfer the files from a PC to the drive, then play them via the TV's USB port, just about any portable 1TB drive will do the job.

There is no reason to choose anything other than a USB3 drive. If your PC has a USB3 port, copying files to a USB3 drive will be much quicker. If not, it will work perfectly anyway, but at the lower USB2 speeds.

I have one of these and it works perfectly (and it's cheaper on Amazon than it is on Ebay). I have several others of different makes and they work perfectly as well. It's not a choice you need to work up a lot of anxiety about.

If you find later that some files don't play on your TV, it will almost certainly be down to the TV being unable to cope with the specific file format involved - it's most unlikely to be a fault with the drive.

EDIT: just noticed the previous poster's link to Amazon. That is one expensive drive! I notice the 'newer model' mentioned is almost half the price. You certainly don't need to pay more than £50.

kwikbreaks

You also need to check just what video formats your PC USB port can support. Try putting something you want to play on a USB stick first (assuming you have one).

Come to that why do you want 1TB - that will hold a lot of films. Are you thinking of using the drive as an archive for them too or just a transfer device?

HIM_POPPY

So I am plannign on having the hard drive as a film only archive only and will just be permanently plugged into my tv to play films. I thought films would only play in DVI format by USB. Think I will go for a 1TB option which should be able to hold 500 films.

So it doenst matter if I have USB 2 on my pc that will just run a bit slower. I am just going to download onto my PC and then drag and drop the films onto the hard drive and probably store a bank of 200-300 on there.

So I need to check what file format my TV will play.

Do I need to download any software onto my tv it is a smart tv LED samsung about 2 years old so Im guessing should be fine to just plug any hard drive in by USB and it will just recognise the hard drive.

Will I have to change to the channel or will it just automatically play the film. How can I test this? Plug my laptop into my tv by USB to USB to see how the tv recgnises media?

Thnaks for all your help guys. Trying to find the cheapest hard drive, looks like can get £35 on ebay for 1TB

stef73

I have a samsung tv but I use a 32gb memory stick not a hard drive , mainly because where the usb port is located it hides the stick and I dont want wires hanging downfrom the side of the tv.
Mine plays most common formats mkv avi divx its just plug and play when I insert the stick the tv asks do I want to play from this I press yes,
If its already in the tv I just press media on the remote and it goes into the usb menu

wiogs

I don't know about your TV but my LG has a USB port which would allow me to attach a device but not play videos only look at photos.

It was a fairly simple hack to get round this and no extra software was required.

I now just select the USB input from the remote.

Worth testing your own TV USB port.

fenlander_uk

Another small conundrum you may need to resolve :
- HD movies are frequently larger than 4Gb
- To save files larger than 4Gb on your hard disk it will need to be formatted as NTFS, not FAT32, which is the default on new drives
- Some smart TVs can't handle NTFS

HIM_POPPY

Ok today I downloaded a 700 mb film to USB plugged in an played really easily into my tv, just selected the USB option, it was an AVI file.

What other file foramts should I try and test (I guess most come in avi format? Which file format plays best?

Silly question but will bluray hd digital file format play on my tv? Or do I have to just play digital 720p DVD formats?

I have two USB ports on my tv a:

HDD 5V 1A
5V 0.5 A

What is the difference between these two?

JJ_Egan

Your file was probably a Mp4 format the most common type .
All you can do is put video on your drive if TV does not play then it will need the format converting .

fenlander_uk

All these file 'types' - .avi, .mkv, .mp4 etc. are just containers that can hold video and audio streams encoded with a variety of codecs. It's quite possible that one .mkv file will play properly but another won't, simply because the streams they contain are of different types, not all of which are understood by your TV.

That said, you should find that most TVs will cope with most files of the three types mentioned above, plus .mpg and .ts. You may have more problems with .mov and .wmv files as they are less well supported. Files that don't play can be transcoded on your PC to a format that does, but this is a time-consuming process.