Play movies from External Hard drive on philips LCD

whiteshadow

Hi all,

Looking for some advice and im very new to the area of Media players and home entertainment.. i dont know what HTPC stands for so mods if this is the wrong place, apologies and feel free to move.


Ive got a 1 TB external hard drive full of movies
Ive got an newish LCD tv with USB, HDMI and all that..
it can only read mpegs though and not avi / divx

To watch movies from my hard drive i have to connect up the
laptop have cables from DVI to HDMI convertion and audio jack to audio input... for some reason now the audio has stopped working

It's a pain and the laptop isnt tiny so have to bring it back from work each night if i want to watch a movie.. there has to be an easier way.

I was considering getting a mac mini that i could leave beside the TV to use to play the movies through... but they're pricey.

What other options are available ? media players? can they mount an external harddrive? any ideas?

Hope you can help or sell me your old gear!
thanks

keith_d99

Hi Whiteshadow,

Would recommend the Popcorn Hour (www.popcornhour.com) - have a quick earch through boards - there have been a good few threads on it. The thing will play pretty much anything you throw at it - and has HDMI output. Even has it's own torrent client, works as a NAS etc. Also you can plug your old drive into it though USB.

Keith.

whiteshadow

thanks keith, will check it out...

also came accross this

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/1772722/art/iomega/screenplay-tv-link-usb-2.html

seems as it could be good