New to Old - Digital Media

Tysonator

Tysonator

Tysonator

Associate
Joined
20 Sep 2005
Posts
2,022
Location
Wilderness of ESSEX
Hi,

Alter recently having to move furniture around for some DIY Project. Upon returning the furniture to the normal area occupied in my lounge. I noticed just how many CD’s and DVD’s I own, and more importantly how little I actually watch them. I supposed Sky, Virgin, Netflix etc have had a hand is this trend.

So what I am hoping to do is rip most of my CD’s & DVD’s to a Hard Disk Drive ( HDD ) and hook the HDD up to my HiFi.

Now my problem is how to connect all this digital media to my HiFi !
I own a Samsung LED TV ( not a Smart TV ) and is does have a 2 USB sockets. One can be used for HDD.
This is good for viewing video content, however how can I connect my nor mp3 music to play through my HiFi.
The HiFi is separate units, Sony Mosfet A/B amp 2 channels 120W RMS, Yamaha AV E1000, 5 channel. Both were purchase in mid to late 90’s. I also have Mini disk and CD play.

Any suggestions please ?
 
As your TV is not smart you will need something to act as an interface between the HDD storage and outputting via the Hi-FI

There's a huge spectrum in what is available to you
At the bottom there is a now TV box with plex side loaded (I am actually not sure if that can play from a HDD)
Next up probably a raspberry pi 3 with Kodi or openelec
Then and android box or amazon fire TV

Probably worth checking out the Kodi thread.

I suspect there may be more audiophile targeted separates that do the job also but would probably be expensive
 
ArchAnGeL said:
As your TV is not smart you will need something to act as an interface between the HDD storage and outputting via the Hi-FI

There's a huge spectrum in what is available to you
At the bottom there is a now TV box with plex side loaded (I am actually not sure if that can play from a HDD)
Next up probably a raspberry pi 3 with Kodi or openelec
Then and android box or amazon fire TV

Probably worth checking out the Kodi thread.

I suspect there may be more audiophile targeted separates that do the job also but would probably be expensive
Click to expand...

I will look into he Kodi, Android TV and Amazon Fire as I thought one of these might be able to help for Video content.
My next issue will be which HDD to use to plug into the bridging box or the USB socket on the TV.
My last option which I was hoping not to do is purchase a new Yamaha AV processor / Amp as the later generations have WiFi, blue tooth. I am sure some of the units can have a USB fed source of media to play through the AV / Amp unit.
 
I suspect the USB on your TV is only for the TV's built in media player software which is likely to be pretty limited on a non-smart TV

Do you already have the external HDD?
 
think about if it is worth the cost and effort, especially as you said you rarely watch them.

a few subscription services gets you most stuff for cheap. Amazon prime also has music. as long as they have what you listen to.
oh and the likely hundreads it would cost you, you could just rebuy for years the few that aren't on streaming services as and when you want to watch,
 
Last edited:
Glaucus has a good point there.

Does your amp currently connect to the TV? Spdif out or maybe RCA?

The problem is most of the player boxes, especially the cheap one will only have HDMI out. So if you can connect by HDMI to the TV and then TV to the amp that would by ok

Otherwise you will need to connect the media player directly to the amp for audio which will either mean a HDMI>RCA breakout box (messy) or a more fully fledged HTPC (media PC)

I asked about the HDD as if you don't currently have one then you will need to buy one. You could use NAS storage and a cheap player but then again cheap NAS boxes are a bit of a pain for transfer speeds.

The other option, as mentioned above, would be a more fully fledged HTPC with internal hard drives. But cost goes up.

Or cheap box with USB HDD plugged in (gets a bit messy)

----

If we are getting serious here,

What would your budget be?
How much media do you have (and anticipate getting)?
What sort of network access is there? Wired or Wireless (how good)?
 
ArchAnGeL said:
Glaucus has a good point there.

Does your amp currently connect to the TV? Spdif out or maybe RCA?

The problem is most of the player boxes, especially the cheap one will only have HDMI out. So if you can connect by HDMI to the TV and then TV to the amp that would by ok

Otherwise you will need to connect the media player directly to the amp for audio which will either mean a HDMI>RCA breakout box (messy) or a more fully fledged HTPC (media PC)

I asked about the HDD as if you don't currently have one then you will need to buy one. You could use NAS storage and a cheap player but then again cheap NAS boxes are a bit of a pain for transfer speeds.

The other option, as mentioned above, would be a more fully fledged HTPC with internal hard drives. But cost goes up.

Or cheap box with USB HDD plugged in (gets a bit messy)

----

If we are getting serious here,

What would your budget be?
How much media do you have (and anticipate getting)?
What sort of network access is there? Wired or Wireless (how good)?
Click to expand...


The Amp is not connected to the TV as I had used up all my inputs on the Amp.
After some clean up of separate units I do have a spare phono input to use. My Samsung TV UE40C6000 has Phono Audio out and I have networked it to the router.
A review here;
https://www.reevoo.com/p/samsung-ue40c6000

The TV can access some files on my Laptop when it is switched on. The TV read / browsing speed is slow.
The TV does have 'Connect Share Movie' which I think is a USB port. So in trying to keep it simple I wonder if I can just get away with an external HDD like a western Digital or Seagate pocket type HDD !

I beleive I do not need a Media PC and hopefully no need for breakout box.
 
So you can connect some sort of player to the TV by HDMI and get the audio to the hifi by the RCA. I am being specific not saying phono. The RCA connections from the TV will output a line level signal. If that is fed to a true dedicated phono input on the Amp, the signal will be too stong. Anything else (line/CD/Aux) will be fine

I was going to suggest you get a amazon fire TV and plug the HDD into that and read media from it. When I googled, I found some problems with non Fat32 drives. I don't know if that is resolved or not. Maybe someone who has one could comment.

Perhaps Rasberry Pi 3 and you will need a remote of some description

I think using the TV connect share is likely to be very painful.
 
Tysonator said:
The Amp is not connected to the TV as I had used up all my inputs on the Amp.
After some clean up of separate units I do have a spare phono input to use. My Samsung TV UE40C6000 has Phono Audio out and I have networked it to the router.
A review here;
https://www.reevoo.com/p/samsung-ue40c6000

The TV can access some files on my Laptop when it is switched on. The TV read / browsing speed is slow.
The TV does have 'Connect Share Movie' which I think is a USB port. So in trying to keep it simple I wonder if I can just get away with an external HDD like a western Digital or Seagate pocket type HDD !

I belive I do not need a Media PC and hopefully no need for breakout box.
Click to expand...
..nvm
 
ArchAnGeL said:
So you can connect some sort of player to the TV by HDMI and get the audio to the hifi by the RCA. I am being specific not saying phono. The RCA connections from the TV will output a line level signal. If that is fed to a true dedicated phono input on the Amp, the signal will be too stong. Anything else (line/CD/Aux) will be fine

I was going to suggest you get a amazon fire TV and plug the HDD into that and read media from it. When I googled, I found some problems with non Fat32 drives. I don't know if that is resolved or not. Maybe someone who has one could comment.

Perhaps Rasberry Pi 3 and you will need a remote of some description

I think using the TV connect share is likely to be very painful.
Click to expand...

I will look in to using a Amazon TV Fire stick. I had not considered this before.
The idea of using a pocket HDD is appealing as a pal of mind has media ( films ) in Mp4 format which I would be able to copy paste on to the HDD and play directly on to the TV, well that is the plan !
 
I don't think the fire tV stick has a USB port so you would need the full fire tv (but investigate the issues I mentioned above) or a NAS type drive
 
rpi supports hdmi cec, so can control with most modern tv remotes
I think your tv doesnt have rca out from the manual, only optical and headphones.
Suggested solution
rpi3, hdmi break out to rca /optical + external hdd, pi and splitter about £50.
HDD size will depend upon how many dvd's you have (this will cost the most).
 
lude1962 said:
rpi supports hdmi cec, so can control with most modern tv remotes
I think your tv doesnt have rca out from the manual, only optical and headphones.
Suggested solution
rpi3, hdmi break out to rca /optical + external hdd, pi and splitter about £50.
HDD size will depend upon how many dvd's you have (this will cost the most).
Click to expand...

I do have an ethernet port ( which I have connected TV to router. I can push content from my samsung mobile to TV via Samsung Media Share app ) , though I do not know if the on board firm ware on the TV will browse a NAS or HDD connected tot he router.
I will have to also look into rpi
 
I had said TV (still in use in bedroom), and it was painfully slow to browse files over a network.(Even worse fast-forwarding or re-winding).
Personally I use a Firestick (Kodi) connected to a NAS drive, on it. Also this has the advantage of serving other devices around the house.
 
Dsteviedee said:
I had said TV (still in use in bedroom), and it was painfully slow to browse files over a network.(Even worse fast-forwarding or re-winding).
Personally I use a Firestick (Kodi) connected to a NAS drive, on it. Also this has the advantage of serving other devices around the house.
Click to expand...

Good point, I remeber some time ago I plugged a USB flash stick in the TV and it did take ages to laod and scroll through.....:mad:
 
I did not understand how you will use the yamaha e1000, does this have a DAC inside it, (and what is the digital input to it - google would not tell me)
in which case it would probably provide the best analog signal to drive your hifi speakers rather than taking phono out from the tv.
I think you will be disappointed with sound quality driving your hifi amp from the tv phono , versus using your current cd player.
[ I do not have an a/v amp with hdmi input and driving my hifi amp from a soundcard on my pc where I have ripped cd's is vastly superior to pc(hdmi)->tv(phono out)->hifi amp ]

Also for rpi3 suggestion, although you can get a nice wolfson dac add-on board to drive your hifi, it does not support h265 video codec so i think is not very future proof (setting up a rpi is also imhop non-trivial)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom