Such a device exists
 

Hello;

My TV does not have a USB port to support media playing etc. Tired of burning avi's to disk and playing through the dvd player. Is their a device that can accept a usb connection that then connects to a television. Someone suggested the Apple TV, but from what I have read the USB is only used for diagnostics.

The Apple tv connects your tv to your computer wirelessly, so you just use the Apple tv to view the media files that are on your computer. Apple tv is a great for this and does so much more (YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, iTunes, NHL, etc, etc)

Alot of blue ray players have a usb port for playback on them. Id take a look at them.


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Depends what you are trying to view on your TV. Pictures, movies on computer/DVD?CD, streaming video, etc. Is the only option you have USB?

Is playing media files from a computer an option or are you only looking for USB options? If so, yes most newer Blue ray options have different types of ports or wireless. There are also many other devices which can connect to your TV via other inputs.

PS3/Xbox works too, depends on what formats you're going for, each comes stock with large HDDs these days too.

Does your TV have a spot where you could plug in a computer tower same as a monitor ( rs2 port I think ). There is an adaptor for USB to rs2, I had to buy one for my Profilux to hook to my computer.

WDTV. connects to your TV via HDMI and can connect an external USB drive (2 ports) or stream off other devices on your home network or media over the internet. Plays avi, mkv etc.

DB9 cables are the standard older style monitor cables (my TV has that), newer video cards have HDMI as well.

mean VGA?

It sounds like you are trying to do this (correct me if I'm wrong)

You have media files on your computer (movies... By the sounds of it since you are burning .avi files)

You want to put them on a USB drive then walk over to the tv and play the files.

You could get rid of the USB portion by using an apple tv.

As long as you have iTunes installed on your computer you can play any media files in your library (stored on your computer) and stream it to your tv.

You could also do the same thing if you have windows 7 and an Xbox 360.

$129 for an Xbox
$119 for an apple tv

I have both but like the interface on the apple tv. It seems peppier than browsing media on the 360.

You're looking for a media box. Popular brands are Apple TV, WDTV, Boxee, Patriot Box and Asus O! Play. Check out the reviews and see what features you need.

I have had an Asus for a couple of years. Add a 2.5 inch hard drive or a flash stick and you can watch your AVIs, XVIDs, MKVs, blue-ray rips plus anything you can find on the net - also supports eSATA. Has component, HDMI, optical out. Has not failed on any format I've tried. These are as cheap as $50 on sale.

If you're interested in Apple TV do some research to see if it will do what you want. DRM makes iTunes, Hulu, Netflix pretty restrictive for a lot of people.

try this..
 

buy a media player such as Patriot Box Office ( at $29.99 w/ rebate sometimes.. I use this one) or Western Digital's WDTV...dlink Boxee, Asus !oplay, etc as well as others. Plays every format including music, jpgs, rmvb, iso, avi, quicktime, mkv ( ie blue ray rips) etc.
Also, can put onto a network via ethernet or a cheap wifi card, plays thru USB as well. I put in a hard drive on mine which serves as a movie/media juke box.
Can also be open source moded to play youtube, etc.

This is what Apple TV should have done but it has to avoid the legalities of what other companies like Patriot doing movie player rips (ie illegal downloads).

msjboy

Thanks everyone, appreciate the replies. Correct just want to copy avi's to a usb stick as opposed to burning to a dvd and playing in the player. Checked my tv and no HDMI input, time for a new tv. :cry:

I do have a XBOX 360 that came with my Telus Optik TV subsrciption. Never used it and it's just sitting in the closet gathering dust. Will pull it out of the closet and see if it will do what I need. I have win7 as well. Yes I know a Xbox sitting in the closet. Shows my age and interest in video games.:biggrin::biggrin:

Patriot Box also seems like a good idea as well

HDMI isn't the only way... you can old school s-video or even older depending on your computer's outputs. No need to "copy" just connect :)

Looked up the patriot Box and it seems to be a a real good product. From the looks of it the Patriot can almost do everything.

If you have an xbox 360 simply install vuze on your computer. It's a torrent download application but it allows you to stream movie files to your xbox. We watch all of our downloaded content this way and it will cost you nothing.

I've got 2 WDTV live boxes. The interface isn't as fancy as some of the other ones out there, but it's dead simple and has played everything I've thrown at it. It will hook to your network or accept files via one of the 2 USB ports. Pictures, video, music.
Costco has them from time to time for ~$80 and I've seen them on sale at Tiger Direct for even less.
They have a new model that has built in wifi so if you don't want to run a hard line, it will connect and stream HD content via wireless N. It also works with netflix, hulu, youtube and a handful of other web media sites.

If you're running media centre or windows media player 11 you can also use your computer as a wireless media hub that your Xbox can connect to.

We run macs otherwise that would have worked too.

One thing to note is you have to CRANK movies to hear them over your xbox's fan :lol:

look up a device called "popcorn hour"

it can stream 1080p from usb to your tv

I picked up a $50 dvd player that has hdmi out and reads DiVX/MKV with aUSB port. works great, plays lots of stuff that my xbox say's I can't. Also, you can set up an xbox as a media extender, so it plays movies from your computer. I found it too much work to scroll through them, so just use a USB for most, or plug in the laptop to my TV.

i stream movies from my mac to my xbox no problem. you just need a utility called connect360. works perfectly

I just stream wirelessly to our tv from our computer, or else hook up the laptop with the HDMI and you can view your files from there, I think all tvs have HDMI now days. ours is like 3 years old and it does

I already had Vuze installed so I've just been streaming with that.

Depending on what inputs your TV has & how close your computer is to it, you may be able to simply use the TV as your computer monitor & play the movie on your computer while watching the TV/monitor. I have a an LCD TV that's a few years old now but it has a VGA input for computer. I've often hooked my notebook to this input & played videos/movies on the computer while viewing them on the TV. Essentially your TV becomes the computer monitor and you'll see your Windows OS on the TV. If you can do that, simply run whatever software on your computer that shows the media you wish to watch & it should display on your TV. Bottom line, connect your computer's video output directly to your TV if that's possible. No extra hardware or software required, except a VGA extension cable. If your computer & TV both have HDMI IN/OUTPUTS, Bob's your uncle & you'll get full HD.

Could do that, but then don't I have to use the computer to pause, stop fwd etc as opposed to something dedicated like the patriot that has a remote.

No you control it with your xbox controller. Click on videos and you can browse all the titles you have in your Vuze library. It's not terribly fun scrolling through the list but we prune the library as we watch things. There are certainly more elegant solutions but it works for us. Watch a season of whatever show, replace with next season. So we're only scrolling through a short list.

If you're looking to organize a big collection of movies etc this is not for you. Using window media center might be I'm not sure.

search for media players or dvd/blu ray player support usb. example o!play, LG blu ray player.

If you have a ps3 or xbox360 download a program called Vuze it's a torrent program which includes streaming software. It's free and it streams video pics music seamlessly to your gaming device and smartphones.

Lots of devices will stream video and connect to a computer, console, or server to share pictures, music and video.

However, you will need a real media player to do the real-time conversion of the video through hardware.

If you are building your own media library by ripping your DVD's & Blu-rays, you will have to transcode (convert) the files before hand to stream them. If you don't do this, the amount of data trying to be streamed will make everything choke. Depending on how fast your computer is, transcoding can take all night.

With a hardware media player, you can just pull off the .vob files from DVD or .m2ts files from Blu-rays or make an .iso if you have ripping software. You will still have to use something like Any-DVD HD to remove the copy protection but this takes minutes.

You should be aware that backing up your purchased, music, movies and games and will be illegal once Bill C-11 is passed by the Conservatives.

Fines for downloading content over the internet could be $20,000 per file. If you are streaming video or music over your own network/ devices, that will technically be breaking the law because you cannot convert it into a format to be streamed without removing the copy protection. That will leave us with Netflix (crap in Canada compared to the USA), Hulu (not available in Canada) or iTunes (Apple - big supporters of locking up their content)

Better rip your disks now while it is still legal because the bill is already in Parliament

XBMC
 

As I've been doing this kind of thing for a really, really long time --- I had a computer hooked up to my crappy tv, then DVD with USB, and an original Xbox with XBMC (Xbox Media Center).

Bang for buck -- a small zotac box (tiny computer with low power CPU and almost no fan noise at all), and download a copy of XMBC live (open source and free) and install it on a $150 box or an extra PC you have :)

Then buy a simple "Windows Media Center" remote and plug it in. XBMC has a easy to read at a distance interface, can play every movie format I've thrown at it, 1080p no problem, You simply connect it over you home network (or wireless) to you PC and play the movies directly from it without having to do the "copy to usb, move usb, playback movie
" for everything -- just go through the files on you PC directly, it even downloads cover art and movie info automatically.

It also does music, photos, facebook, youtube, etc. It doesn't do netflix yet.

It's polished, and clean and my daughter has been using it since she was 5, so it's really really easy to use. You can even try it out without installing it by running it directly from the CD. On my system it is up and running in under 20 seconds from the time I hit the power button.

An for those who want to get extra fancy -- if you have more than 1 of these, you can set them up to "sync" the video/audio on multiple TV's so you can move from room to room and have the same thing playing......

Well, pulled the Xbox out of the closet and spent almost all of Sunday afternoon getting it to work on my Win 7 computer. Took awhile but seems to work ok. Having some issues with getting sufficient bandwidth, but that is another story.

Some limitations I see, using the xbox remote is painful for navigating the media center. Media center and xbox do NOT support *.srt subtitles. Workaround is to embed the subtitles into the AVI's using Freemake Video converter.

Not too bad, still pondering whether to purchase a Patriot, perhaps not and invest in a Logitech harmony remote instead.

Not cheap though !!

At least you know you had workable supplies at home, though. :)