Can I use my hard drive as a media player?
October 8th, 2013
How would you get your hard drive connected to a TV?
My Samsung 32 inch TV has a slot where I can plug in a HDD.
Your TV has a SATA port…?
No my TV does not have a Sata port. On the side panel of the TV it says HDD so i should have said external hard drive.
prozac4312 replied: How would you get your hard drive connected to a TV?
Quite a few of the new TV’s have a USB port that you can connect an ext hdd to.
To answer the OP, you will need a micro media player if your TV doesn’t support this.
Also, some TV’s with a USB port will only play image files (older models)
If the tv has a USB slot. Then try it.
Do u hav a ps3/xbox 360 ?
Is the external hardrive Fat32 format?
If u got a ps3/xbox 360 then connect external hardrive USB to the ps3 or xbox 360 USB slot
My Samsung has a HDD port to (connect it via USB)… For my TV, this is used to RECORD TV.
Might be the same for yours.
I have a 40 inch Samsung LED Smart.
There are NAS hard drives which you can connect to tv and play everything, right?
And it should be no problem to let external hd running for hours, right? Its a hard drive, its supposed to be running and running and running…
Your right I should be able to run an external hard drive for several hours without a problem. To the person who asked the previous question I do have a PS3 so I can plug the external HDD to the console. The external hard drive that I am talking about is a Hitachi 500 GB HDD which I believe is in FAT32 format.
ed2010 replied: My Samsung 32 inch TV has a slot where I can plug in a HDD.
Did you plug it in and see if it will play them? Did you recently buy it? It’s probably the same one I have.
My Samsung will play ALL movie formats right from my usb drive. From the USB Input.
It has a built in media player. If you recently bought it, then yours should too.
After selecting the usb drive, it should show selections: Videos-Photos-Music.
If you see Videos, Then your good to go!
On the box my tv came in it read: Connect Movie Share.
It plays all formats.. like mkv h264,avi, divx,xvid, mpg1/2/4,vob, and everything else. Dvd’s are now obsolete on my tv.
Samsung knows how to make a tv right.
If your hard drive plays what you want through the TV then that’s fine..
Your HDD will always be running while watching movies..That’s normal. however it is connected
The TV that I have is a Samsung 550 32 inch 550 series which I bought from Frys. I can play video files that are stored on the HDD. However, when I tried playing mp3 files that are stored in folders it didn’t work. I guess I am not suppose to have the files placed in folders. Here is a link to the product: http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/LN32D550K1FXZA. The HDD I have plugged into it is a 500 GB external HDD so there is plenty of storage space for TV shows and movies. I do have a separate DVD player and Blu-Ray player but sometimes I want to play backed up TV shows and movies instead of having the actual disc. The TV is very nice with a lot of features.
ed2010 replied: The TV that I have is a Samsung 550 32 inch 550 series which I bought from Frys. I can play video files that are stored on the HDD. However, when I tried playing mp3 files that are stored in folders it didn't work. I guess I am not suppose to have the files placed in folders. Here is a link to the product: http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/LN32D550K1FXZA. The HDD I have plugged into it is a 500 GB external HDD so there is plenty of storage space for TV shows and movies. I do have a separate DVD player and Blu-Ray player but sometimes I want to play backed up TV shows and movies instead of having the actual disc. The TV is very nice with a lot of features.
Mine is model: LN34D450G1DXZA
You must select Music or the mp3 files won’t show up.
So if you have Videos selected… only movie files will show up.
But yes, mp3’s and video files should show up in any amount of folders deep.
Your model says: ConnectShare Movie. That’s the name! So your good to go!
..my bad.. I said Connect movie share. It’s ConnectShare Movie. lol
They would sell a lot more of them if they wrote on the box “This plays all movie formats.” lol and list the file types on the box.
-You can stop the movie.. click to play it again later and hit the D button to go right back where you were watching.
-When the movie file is playing, hit the Tools button to adjust the picture size mode.
and a pc connected to it looks better than a monitor. Just get the vga cable.. and the speaker cable.
So your all good.. you just gotta figure out all the buttons. lol
if u have a console you can stream media straight to it.
Is it alright if I have the external hard drive running for several hours while watching videos? What do you think?
i note you say external HD, the answer is as long as you can connect the drive to the tv, like i use a 500gb ext hd to my 60″ tv through my philips dvd player it costs $39 ay wallmart here in the USA, they have similar players online, anyways my dvd player also has a usb port it plays all divx,avi, mp3 jpg ect, it can run all night no problem, i have been using it for 2 years so far. hope this helps,