External Harddrive w/TV output

[moozxy]

Does anyone have or know about an external harddrive that has TV output?

I want to back up all my videos and movies and be able to watch them on TV instead of burning loads of discs.

Cost wise I'd like something under or around £100

Thanks in advance

 

[Darkforce]

I've seen them about on ebay and places like dealextreme, they look pretty good though I imagine you might run into trouble if you are using less common/more recent codecs or containers.

If you don't need the portability buy an xbox, softmod it and put in a larger Hard drive and put XBMC (Xbox Media center) on it. It's a phenomenal bit of kit.

 

[Veho]

How's this?

 

[Mucuna]

I use my PS2 for that. PS2 and my 4Gb flashdrive. It's awesome.

 

[moozxy]

I've seen them about on ebay and places like dealextreme, they look pretty good though I imagine you might run into trouble if you are using less common/more recent codecs or containers.

If you don't need the portability buy an xbox, softmod it and put in a larger Hard drive and put XBMC (Xbox Media center) on it. It's a phenomenal bit of kit.

How do you get the data onto your xbox?

 

[Hadrian]

My parents got one from ASDA for £40, played pretty much everything including brand new movies that usually use latest codecs plus it played both NTSC & PAL videos.

Sorry I can't say what brand it is though.

I do recommend the Xbox route if you already have one those.

 

[Darkforce]

How do you get the data onto your xbox?

Connect it to a PC using an ethernet cable. The xbox can also read data DVDs and with an xbox to USB adapter read USB flash drives under 4GB.

 

[Xeijin]

What your looking for is a media center, a little box, usually with a remote, you can stick a hard drive in and it'll play your videos for you.

The cheapest (and IMHO best) way to do this, if you have an old xbox lying around, is to softmod it. Then you can stick XBMC on (probably one of the most versatile media center applications ever) and use it to play all your DVDs etc. If you buy the right cable the Xbox can even output at HD resolutions via. Component Input (but if your source media is not HD, all it will do is upscale).

If you buy a commercial media center I would make sure it is Xvid/Divx compatible before committing to a purchase. Judging by your avatar, I'd assume you watch Anime, and seeing as most anime is encoded in Xvid ... you get the picture. This is partly the reason why the xbox is the best route, it can play almost every media, and any it dosent always have the potential to be added as its constantly updated. The only snag is it's a little tricky to setup.

 

[moozxy]

hmm.. sounds good, since as a matter of fact I do have an old xbox lying around xD

how would I go about setting it up? Is it too difficult for DIY?

 

[Harsky]

hmm.. sounds good, since as a matter of fact I do have an old xbox lying around xD

how would I go about setting it up? Is it too difficult for DIY?

I wanted to softmod my Xbox at first but the fact that I had NONE of the equipment (the action replay, the game to make it work etc etc) and I couldn't be bothered hunting them down so I just paid up for a modchip and got someone to installed it. Haven't regretted iy since.

But yeah, I also have this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...0PLAYER&doy=2m9

Sadly, it doesn't play a wide range of files but since most of my files are AVI, it doesn't have any problem playing them. Handy if you have a spare HDD lying about.