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media player

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I need to get a new (portable) media player that will plug into a tv to play movies while I am travelling.

There appears to be plenty off choice but I am looking for one that will read 4tb external drives formatted with NTFS and play MKV files.

Anyone know of any that can do this. (preferably under £100)

Thanks

Comments

  • that
    that Posts: 1,532 Forumite
    edited 2 January 2019 at 8:11PM
    A few problems. Unless you get a powered disk (3.5), the 2.5 disk will either suck the battery power of your device, or will not work at all.

    those 4TB disk have a bit of reputation for going faulty much quicker than the 2Tb ones. SSD would be better being robust and in consuming less power, but the cost might be prohibitive.

    Mobiles work well, and add on a powerbank, plus a few SD cards.

    Some like tablets, but for me lying down holding a tablet to watch a film, and 45 mins into the film my arms ache.

    I prefer a laptop, and let it lie on my stomach with a hard back book sandwiched in between the two so there is air flow. Last time I loaded a 500Gb with films and watched that.

    Someone may come along and say Chrome Cast, or Firestick too, but they are not my bag.

    ######
    then you have something similar to this, and it can be configured to one of four modes. It re-broadcast your eithernet cable or wifi connection, especially those where you have to put your email details in first to get a connection (like some uk pubs) and from there allows vpn software

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Wi-Fi-Wireless-Portable-3G-Wireless-Router-Travel-TP-LINK-TL-WR703N-150Mbps/202264417365?

    there is something probably much newer, faster and better than this by now. You need to google these types of devices a fair bit to see exactly what they can do, and they may need to be re-flashed probably with dd-wrt, or openwrt?
  • tberry6686
    tberry6686 Posts: 1,135 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I think I haven't been as clear as I should have been,

    The sort of thing I am after is something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Newest-Android-EASYTONE-Quad-core-support-T95S1-1/dp/B07FFW328L/ref=pd_ys_c_rfy_199625031_10?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07FFW328L&pd_rd_r=23P5Y9214J0NZ2JHVJA5&pd_rd_w=rm0ZL&pd_rd_wg=ypG3T&psc=1&refRID=SV0B26PDK1FS6GHECR0X

    only problem is i cannot find one that will read 4tb drives.

    haven't had any issues with the 4tb drives so far.
    A laptop would work but I already have to carry a big laptop due to work (external drives are blocked on it) and so would have weight issues with another one
  • that
    that Posts: 1,532 Forumite
    edited 2 January 2019 at 10:19PM
    Not knowing the hardware spec of the usb, would be worried that it would not handle the current of a physical disk

    USB2 had a limit of 0.5 amps at 5 VDC for EACH port. USB3 raised that to 0.9 amps per port. the ones that use a 12V adapter are a bit different

    A typical sata 5400 RPM drive spins up at 1.2A (max) and needs 0.42A to write.

    I have two 4TB ones. One failed after 4 months, bought a second one to try to recover the first one, no, i did not drop it, it just died... one day when I have time.... :)
  • If you wanted to go DIY, you could build something around a raspberry pi. My home media system has a powered USB hub providing power to a usb disk and the pi.

    I assume that since you plan to play on a TV, you have mains power available.

    (I use home-brew software, but there are things like kodi that should work out of the box.)
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