Recommend a product to play media from USB HDD please

lordrobs

lordrobs

lordrobs

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2003
Posts
16,302
Location
Norwich
Hope someone here can help.

Basically i'm after a product I can use to play my media (.avi, .mp3 etc.) which is stored on an external USB 2.0 HDD. I want to display this media on my LCD TV which has either a VGA or RGB Scart input. Obviously if I could use the VGA input at my TV's native res. of 1024x768 that would be ideal but if not RGB Scart would do.

I'd also like to be able to connect the device up to my AV Receiver which would mean wither an Optical or Coaxial connector.

Does such a thing exist or am I asking for the impossible? I see lots of wireless devices but for me it would be much easier if I could just plug my USB HDD into it.

Thanks.
 
The device you are looking for is called a computer ;) It'll be the only thing which will be as customisable as you will probably want, and do absolutely everything including being a multi format video player too. :)
 
com....pu.....ter :confused:


;)

I had looked into making myself a little media pc but these things start getting quite expensive quite quickly :( Its something I should look into more but just wondered if there was a simple off the shelf solution instead :)
 
Kiss 600 or 608. Basically a networked divx/xvid/mp3 player with optional 80gb hd. Has component and hdmi plus wireless so will do high def wmv stuff plus it has it's own built in AV service like weather and stock reports ie browser stuff. Only about £200 or so I believe.

p.s. it has a usb2 connector to plug in any hard drive type device.. like how the xbox 360 works.
 
Thing is that it wont do his TV's native resolution, so it wont look very good displayed on his LCD tv :(
 
Jez said:
Thing is that it wont do his TV's native resolution, so it wont look very good displayed on his LCD tv :(
Click to expand...

Thats a fair point. It would be nice to have it displayed at native which is how i've got it set up at the moment in my room in my parents house. Just wanted to think about how i'm going to have it set up when I buy a place this year as I'd like to have my pc set-up in the second bedroom but be able to view stuff from my pc in the living room.

Maybe I need to re-evaluate the media pc idea. Look at second hand parts instead of new etc. might not be as expensive as I first thought.
 
You could always look at feeding the TV from the pc even if its far away, use a wireless keyboard and mouse to control it. I have a ~15m video run from my sources to my projector which looks perfect, and thats a big display, with a smaller LCD display you could probably get away with a 20m VGA run over decent cable?
 
TBH I had no idea you could run a vga source that far.

Would I be looking at big money for the cable assuming say 15m?

EDIT: from a bit of quick googling not as much as I thought they would be. Another option at least, depending on how the rooms end up being arranged.
 
Last edited:
I'd personally make it up from some cat5e, but no premade cables wont cost much, a quick google for "long VGA cable" revealed a hit selling 15M for £32, 20M for £42, and 30M for £52.

Long cables like this are used all the time in commercial KVM setups.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom