Hd to tv and wireless? Help!!

pboreham

pboreham

Kick. Snare. Hat. Ride.
5 August 2002
C*lchester
Southend Utd
Guys, my problem...

I want to hook up my external hdd to my tv to play back vids. But also want to transfer them wirelessly from laptop to the hdd.

So do I need some sort of nas plus a media out device?

Bit confused... One of you hip young things must have a similar set up?!

Suggestions please :)
 
WD TV Live has the capabilities.

I have the normal WD TV's which I find pretty good. Just connect a usb HDD and you are good to go with most formats. Although a mate of mine only has 1080p movies (+10GB p/m) and his WD TV had issues playing them so he got a one from a different make.
 
I use a Popcorn Hour, great piece of kit, plays almost all files and filetypes, can put a laptop size hard drive inside for storage (I used a spare one from an old 360), can also transfer stuff from usb flashdrives or just watch straight from the flashdrive, can stream stuff from your PC to it and watch that way, can upload files from your PC via FTP/file transfer wirelessly (if you buy the wireless dongle) and you can even download directly to it from Nzb's/torrents which IMO is the best feature :)
 
From what I have read the popcorn is the best out there, it's just so much more expensive. 300euro vs 100euro for the more generic ones if I remember correctly.
 
Well they do refurbished A110 if you're on a real tight budget but yes it's not uber cheap :) We got the A200 for £204 and then the USB wifi dongle was £28 but it was money well spent IMO :)
 
Cheers guys.

I had an AppleTV which would have done pretty much exactly what I now want (why do I go through these phases!)

I've only got a laptop, so if I download anything, i have to move the laptop into another room to watch it with the GF.

Would be so much easier to have something in the lounge and either stream directly from laptop, or just preferably (so laptop doesnt always have to be on) drag it across the network onto a HDD in the lounge.

Didnt want to spend a fortune really as its only for convenience, not a necessity...
 
Tim7 said:
Must be hard that, moving a small computer designed to be portable ;)).
Click to expand...

Smart arse! Its the fact that its my work machine, so its got a kinda of semi-docking thing going on to my back up drive, second monitor, external drive, speakers etc etc.

Plus it means watching it on a small screen with crappy sound. I could hook it up to the TV I spose... just not an elegant solution all in all!
 
your not going to achieve anything without spending some money

you can have your laptop/hdd connected to the network and then have some device in the other room like a pop corn hour which can stream over the network and/or the external hdd can connect to that to play directly through the pop corn hour as that is connected to your tv

unless you tv has a usb port or networked and has the ability to browse nas drives etc then you are still in the same position.

you would need a networkable device to talk to a nas drive to be able to play it on the tv you would need a clever bit of kit in between
 
Last edited:
Bitter Rivals said:
your not going to achieve anything without spending some money

you can have your laptop/hdd connected to the network and then have some device in the other room like a pop corn hour which can stream over the network and/or the external hdd can connect to that to play directly through the pop corn hour as that is connected to your tv

unless you tv has a usb port or networked and has the ability to browse nas drives etc then you are still in the same position.

you would need a networkable device to talk to a nas drive to be able to play it on the tv you would need a clever bit of kit in between
Click to expand...

Which really was the crux of the question.

I have a laptop, I have a 1gb external drive and I know there is a device that you can connect a HDD to and then that to the TV via HDMI (name escapes me).

Its being able to do it networked that I wondered if people could suggest the best thing.

Popcorn, AppleTV or something else. As I say, I have the storage space, so dont really want to spend out on an all-in-on device - just something to connect the HD to the network via wireless.
 
you say you don't want to spend on an all in one device. but you need such a device to achieve what you want

to be able to connect to the lan, to be able to connect to the tv.

no magic piece of kit other than a media device to connect the hdd to. you can probably find a cheaper alternative to the popcorn hour etc but it would probably be better stretching to a pop corn hour simply because you could sell it at a later date and still not loose to much money
 
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