Watching Dvd's on TV from Hard Drive

Whiteknight

I am in the process of copying all my DVD's on to a portable hard drive so that I can free up some space on the shelves (will box the DVD's up and store them) what is the best way to be able to connect the portable hard drive to my television so that I can watch these films without having to connect my computer to the television?

The hard drive is USB and my television will not read any of the data from it.

[Deleted User]

Are the DVDs copy-protected retail versions? That might explain why the TV can't read the data on the stick.

pappa_golf

in what format can your TV read files? , MP4 , AVI etc etc


at that point someone can explain the best programme not only to convert , but to shrink from the possible 8 gig size as well (unless you "really" do want subtitles in Russian?)

pfpf

Whiteknight. I suspect you have copied the DVDs to the hard drive as a straight rip of the .vob file. I have been looking for a way of playing .vob files directly from hard drive to TV for ages but never found a definative answer on the subject.
The recently posted offer of a sharp TV looked promising as the list of supported files included .vob but I never got a confirmation from anyone who actually owned the TV, and I suspect it may just mean DVDs discs. Indeed I have never seen a confirmation relating to any device other than a PC.
So I will follow your thread with interest as I would like to find any way at all of playing .vob from HD to TV.

esuhl

Can you connect the TV to your local network? If so, you could plug the hard drive into a PC and share them over the network.

Some routers (such as one my ISP provided) have a USB socket that can be used to share the contents of a hard drive over the network.

Otherwise, you might be able to connect a PC (with the hard drive attached) directly to the TV.

But, as above, the problem might be due to the TV not being compatible with the file format of the ripped DVDs. You might need to transcode them to another format.

pappa_golf

unfortunately due to the legalities of "ripping" DVDs , I cannot suggest a DVD RIPPER that will do this


perhaps Mr google might be able to assist in finding a DVD RIPPER (TOOL)

Whiteknight

Thank you the replies, the issue with the Tv not reading the hard drive is that the Tv wants to format the hard drive which would wipe all the data from it.

The files are being ripped as MP4 format, I could play the films via my laptop connected to the Tv but had hoped to find something to connect the hard drive to that would then connect to the Tv, via HDMI.

esuhl

Whiteknight wrote: »

Thank you the replies, the issue with the Tv not reading the hard drive is that the Tv wants to format the hard drive which would wipe all the data from it.

Perhaps the filesystems on the drive aren't compatible with the TV.

You could try letting the TV format the drive, and then copying the files back onto it to see if that helps. (Obviously, make sure the drive is backed up first.)

pappa_golf

Whiteknight wrote: »

Thank you the replies, the issue with the Tv not reading the hard drive is that the Tv wants to format the hard drive which would wipe all the data from it.

The files are being ripped as MP4 format, I could play the films via my laptop connected to the Tv but had hoped to find something to connect the hard drive to that would then connect to the Tv, via HDMI.

may I suggest you get a "box" to feed your hard drive into , and to plug the "box" into the TV


this is the sort of thing I used http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sumvision-Cyclone-Micro-Media-Player/dp/B005EX8XKW




however , you would be better goiung for the "kodi" media player , which is available on anything from a amazon fire TV (not stick) to the plethora of junk from china

swift1_2

I currently use a Raspberry Pi loaded with OpenElec (Kodi/XBMC), you can connect this to your TV via HDMI and either connect a USB hard drive locally or stream from your laptop/computer.

Kodi can pretty much read any media files. It does a lot more than just play local content, have a google around the web.

pappa_golf

but we cannot mention Kodi , because it "could" be used for illegal acts , according to the PM I got from an anonymous moderator, heaven forbid what they think people in Nigeria use there PCs for