Wanted - media player - can this really be so difficult?

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I would like to buy some sort of media player device that I could use to both

(1) plug into speakers and use it as an music / mp3 player, or
(2) plug into a TV and use it as a movie player

- AND that could read my media files from an external USB hard drive.

I have not tried many options - I have only read about them - but finding such a device is proving surprisingly difficult. The options seem to be-

A DVD player (regular)

This will allow you to listen to music through the TV, but will it let you listen to music through a proper pair of speakers while leaving the TV off? Since most DVD players don't have a detailed display on the DVD player itself, most would require you to have the TV player on to enable you to browse files. Then you would perhaps need to connect the DVD's video lead to the TV while connecting the audio lead to the speakers, which doesn't look as easy as it sounds. Also, most large external hard disk drives are NTFS formatted, a format most DVD players don't seem to recognize

A DVD player (portable)

This has its own display (the screen itself) and will allow you to connect to a pair of speakers without needing to connect to a TV (although it will allow you to connect it to a TV if you like). But it still has the issue with not recognizing most large external hard disk drives.

A media streamer

I'm not sure how these work, but it looks like they stream media files from your computer either wirelessly or by ethernet, and play them on your TV. But I'd rather not have to have my computer running just to be able to watch media files. Plus, I hear wireless streaming does not convey as much info as ethernet streaming (is this right?) Plus, there is again the issue of needing to listen to music files through the TV rather than just plugging the media device into speakers.

An i-pod

Cannot connect to a TV apparently (is that right?)

Another computer or laptop

No thanks - that seems like overkill if all you want to do is play media files!

(PS - I just tried re-formatting a 300GB hard disk drive to the FAT32 system using DOS - see http://geekdrop.com/content/how-to-form ... in-general - and DOS took 4 hours to decide the hard drive was too large to re-format. Great.)

An iPod actually can connect to a Television, I've done it, it's a cord that plugs into the iPod's dock port with AV/jacks at the other end of the cable.
The USB part is where it gets difficult, I also wanted this same sort of device but have never discovered one.

I use my PS3 and a program called 'PS3 Media Server' on my PC.

It creates a Media Server on your network, which the PS3 can recognize... Everything is then streamed over your wireless. There's even compatibility for movie files that the PS3 doesn't natively read. (also works for music, and pictures...)

I realize it's not quite the elegant solution you're looking for, but it's pretty handy (especially if you have kids with PS3s in their rooms, you can make folders with content for each... ^^) and seems to do what you're looking for. (assuming there's a PS3 and a computer handy...) I'm sure that there are ways to do the same thing with Roku players, or newer Blu-Ray players... I just don't know any of the specifics of doing that with any of those.

If not, I'd investigate tablets that can run the types of media that you're looking to run and would also be capable of reading from external hard drives... There are millions of Android tablets out, I'm sure one or two can read a usb hard drive some kind of way...

edit ** in regards to running your pc in the background, you can copy all the files to the PS3, given the hdd is large enough (upgrading hdds is easy) As for quality: it's digital streaming, meaning you're not losing fidelity no matter the medium you use to transmit the information. Ethernet or wireless, they're the same 1's and 0's. There is an option to compress HD movies to fit within your networks bandwidth, but you would have to set that up yourself... SD movie files, music and pictures are all the same as the source quality (they're not compressed)

double edit ** or, you could always hook up the external hdd directly to the PS3 via USB, provided the files can be read natively (all common picture, music files) but there are limits to what video files can be played. DivX works as well as most avi's, and mov's, and mp4's. no .wmv support (go figure) Sorry I sometimes kinda forget about easier solutions...

I think the 360 has some media playing ability, but from what I understood from my friend (who tried to do something similar at his place), it was quite a bit more limited. Not trying to bash, feel free to correct me if that's not the case. ^^



For your P.S. Anything over 32gb (I think) is going to default to exFat thru Windows. There's a special program you need along the lines of Fat32 Convert... Fat32Formatter is one (google search that). Good luck!

Yeah, it is more limited, that's why I hadn't suggested it. It's not portable, when I synced Media Center I couldn't watch TV or find any music files and the next time I tried to access it through the 360, it would not synch. You don't have to use Media Center, you could just put the files you want to view in the sharing folders but that would mean I would have to duplicate files and I'm not thrilled to do that.

I'd say a netbook. They're cheap, will take an external hard drive, are fairly small, and if they have a VGA port, will plug into a TV. I think you can also do it through USB, too.

Another odd option would be a PSP, they're cheap, will play through a TV, but as far as taking an external hard drive, you'd have to do lots of software tweaking for it to be possible. But, plugs into a TV.

http://store.archos.com/archos-tablet-p-96.html This thing here fits your bill exactly but it costs $500.

So I'd just get a netbook and call it a day.

The media server that I use is TVersity for mine for my PS3 and PCs but the only thing that requires a special one is for a samsung device and it requires there special protocol.