250gb external hard drive to watch avi's?

Plascebo

I was thinking buying an external hard drive, copying a load of avi films from my mates hard drive to it and simply plug it into the ps3 via usb and, click, watch any movie via the hard drive directly. So with this in mind I borrowed my mates 250gb (Targa), plugged it into the ps3 and... nothing. Anyone any ideas why the ps3 did not recogise the external hard drive? I burned a few of the movies to dvd and they played through the ps3 no problem?

Davei141

Plascebo wrote: »

I was thinking buying an external hard drive, copying a load of avi films from my mates hard drive to it and simply plug it into the ps3 via usb and, click, watch any movie via the hard drive directly. So with this in mind I borrowed my mates 250gb (Targa), plugged it into the ps3 and... nothing. Anyone any ideas why the ps3 did not recogise the external hard drive? I burned a few of the movies to dvd and they played through the ps3 no problem?

Did you press triangle and select "Display all"?

Otacon

It may be the file system. AFAIK it needs to be FAT32. This may be the issue.

Does a USB Device symbol come up at all? If it does, but when you select X, it says "No movies to be displayed" or some such, then that means it doesn't have the right file structure. Audio files should be in a folder called "MUSIC" and it must be at the root etc.

However, just press triangle when at the USB Device symbol, and select Display All and you should be flying then.

ongarite

More than likely formatted as FAT32 like Otacon mentioned.

Plascebo

No USB Device Symbol showed up at all, it was like the ps3 didn't recognise it at all. It is a fairly old Targa model, don't know if that has anything to do with it. I was going to buy this:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=354544

Should this be ok to work directly with the PS3?

Or if anyone has any suggestions for something cheap and functional?

nedd

alright. i have a WD 500gb drive and it works fine. you need to make sure its formatted to FAT32. so when you get you HDD double check the properties on it before you start taking avi's from your mate.

also when the USB device shows up on the PS3 make sure to press Triangle and "Display All" (took me ages to figure that out d'oh)

Plascebo

Sorry to sound like a noob, but how do you know whether it is formatted to FAT32 or not?

Clover

Plascebo wrote: »

Sorry to sound like a noob, but how do you know whether it is formatted to FAT32 or not?

plug it into your pc and right click on the drive then properties and you can see the file system ?

You must put the videos in a folder called VIDEO.

nedd

I dont have mine in a folder called Video. i have a folder structure something similar to this:

TV\TV_Comedy\Family Guy\Season 01

From the Video section of the XMB I can navigate to any folder.