Watching TV through a Media Player
July 25th, 2016
I am interested in watching videos stored in my PC on TV. I’m not currently interested in buying a Digital Multimedia Receiver (DMR), rather I’d like something simpler. On a website, I found the following quote: “there are several Media Players available that can read media files directly from USB removable storage devices. This means you can simply copy your files to your USB storage device and plug it in the media player and watch it back on your TV. This is a simple solution and the devices are now very affordable as they don’t have the networking support built in.”
This sounds closer to what I have in mind, but I don’t know how to search for such devices, i.e. what’s their generic commercial name? Do you have any specific one you’d recommend?
Also, by using such a device, does one gets both video and sound (through TV’s speakers) or is anything else needed for audio. I assume the device connects to the TV with HDMI, right?
Many thanks in advance for your help.
Lots of brands out there I have 3 WDTV players 1 has wireless built in, another I have a USB wireless dongle in and the 3rd I just use a USB stick or a portable hard drive with. Be aware though that if your portable drive is powered by the usb it may or may not work as most media player don’t put out enough voltage to adequately power them. Yes both audio and video are handled through the hdmi cable.
A lot available from on line stores and e-bay.
http://dx.com/s/media+player
You probably want to be sure it does 1080p and covers the formats you wish to play.
This one should do all you want..
http://dx.com/p/1080p-full-hd-media-player-with-av-hdmi-usb-sd-mmc-silver-48656?item=8
Will handle a 1TB NTFS Ext. hard drive according to the revues .
You could pay more than that for just an HDMI cable from you local electrical shop !
A BoxChip F10 powered media player would do what you want and is very inexpensive. It has no networking and usually has a card slot. Although having a player which can use NTFS would be an advantage or exFat because both of these would allow large file support which is important for HD files which can be over 4GB.
http://www.iboum.com/net-media-players.php
A lot available from on line stores and e-bay.
http://dx.com/s/media+player
You probably want to be sure it does 1080p and covers the formats you wish to play.
This one should do all you want..
http://dx.com/p/1080p-full-hd-media-player-with-av-hdmi-usb-sd-mmc-silver-48656?item=8
Will handle a 1TB NTFS Ext. hard drive according to the revues .
You could pay more than that for just an HDMI cable from you local electrical shop !
Be aware that that player only supports up to 8GB memory cards, which is not a lot.
Be aware that that player only supports up to 8GB memory cards, which is not a lot.
That’s a bit weird, you would think that if it can handle a large hard drive, it would handle more memory card easily..
get the WDTV that was stated earlier…i have a WD HD media box and i hase a 1tb hdd thats connects to it…plays in up to 1080p
i also have an older WD HD media box and in my case it is hooked to my network and will see all shared folders on my 4 computers in the house.
it also has its own browser, games and more. easy to travel with as well.
If you want a cheap reliable one that will play almost all files, then get a Sumvision Micro 2+
eg
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sumvision-Cyclone-Micro-2-Multi-Media-Player-RM-MKV-HD-/200622574287
cyclone primus is good as well
There are some good ones here (in Hong Kong but reliable seller) some with many more features than you can buy elsewhere.
http://w2comp.com/
cyclone primus is good as wellYeah, got one too 1TB hdd when it full you can buy hdd to change over
Thanks a lot guys. Just one more, rather stupid, question: in the case of players mentioned above, do they support subtitles?
For a little more you could get a HTPC that can do all the above and more like watching live tv streams from wiziwig.tv etc
http://www.mini-box.com/Intel-D2700DC-Mini-ITX-Motherboard $85.00 includes cpu
http://www.mini-box.com/M350-enclosure-with-picoPSU-80-and-60W-adapter $69.00
= 124$
Add ram and a drive (or use windows to go) And youve got a dirt cheap HTPC that can play anything.
Thanks a lot guys. Just one more, rather stupid, question: in the case of players mentioned above, do they support subtitles?
Check the specs to see if they mention “subtitle” or “caption” format..
ie
The mini 1080P full HD media player is very useful. It can play almost all the video format. It is so excellent that can play so many video formats in one HD media player. It comes with enough accessories and manual so that you can use it easily. What are you waiting for? Order one and enjoy the 1080P full HD video with the marvelous player.
- Color: Silver
- Aluminum alloy case
- Plays almost any video and audio files without conversion
- Can play up to 1080p HD videos
- Supported video format: MPEG1/2/4/H.264(MKV/MOV/AVI)/RM/RMVB/FLV
- Max video resolution: 1920*1080
- Supported audio decoding format: PCM/DTS/AC3/MP3/FLAC/WMA/APE/AAC
- Supported image format: JPG/BMP/PNG/GIF/TIFF
- Supported caption format: SMI/SSA/AAS/SRT/SUB/PGS
- Interfaces: DC+AV+HDMI+USB HOST+SD/MMC slot
- Supports SD card up to 8GB
- Supports HDMI & CVBS video output
- Package includes:
- 1 * Media player
- 1 * HDMI cable
- 1 * 100~240V power adapter (US plug)
- 1 * AV cable
- 1 * Remote control (1*CR2025 included)
http://dx.com/p/1080p-full-hd-media-player-with-av-hdmi-usb-sd-mmc-silver-48656?item=8