Hooking up external hard drive with USB: I have a question, as people say in their review that you can play videos directly from a hard drive, so can you use any portable hard drive like WD passport or seagate freeAgent and hook it up with USB?
1709499
Exactly, but a little known fact is that for this Philips DVD/USB player you can format up to 6 partitions with Fat32 on a larger external hard drive, which allows for up to 192 GB of Philips USB accessible space. Partition any external hard drive by using Disk Management (it's found in Windows XP under Control Panel --&gt; Administrative Tools --&gt; Computer Management --&gt; Disk Management.) (Be *extra careful* that you don't accidentally partition & format the wrong drive --- ie an external hard drive is generally NOT your C: drive.) As for the extra space on the external drive beyond the 192 GB, a single NTFS partition can be formatted to utilize the rest of the drive's space for storing extra files you don't need to access directly through this dvd player's USB port. Once the external hard drive is formatted / partitioned into the six Fat32 "drives" you can rotate through the "drives" by pressing the USB button on the remote control. I was able to rip all of my CDs to MP3 format and store all of my music on my external hard drive to play through my home theater system. Very cool.
1669753
Even USB 2.0 drives can will work for watching HD movies. The big difference will be the transfer speeds transferring large movies or HD movies to and from the USB drive. Transferring HD movies on a USB 2.0 drive is painfully slow.
2206384
Idk about a straight hard drive install. Not sure how you would access the files. I do, however, regularly connect my computer/iPad to the tv thru an HDMI cable. I can watch files on the unit or stream from the internet.
543517
The manual says it only supports playback of pictures from USB devices, though it lists the supported file types as JPG, DIVX, and MP3. I have never tried playing anything from a USB drive on this device, and don't know if firmware updates might have changed what is described in the manual.
1032037
If your using the USB then yes, but I would recommend a NAS hard drive because it streams faster for video's than USB does. Hope this helps you.
1302300
Depends on what devise you have plugged in. A usb stick should work without the power cable, external drives would not.
1119958
yes, i use my external for this all the time. just plug it into the usb port. no problem with any video filetype i have found yet
1867066
Do the external drives to be connected to the hub have their own power source? If they are intended to run off of the power of the hub, you may have problems. This is my speculation based on the note under the product description stating the product should not be used with WD passport hard drives. I have several of those, each 1TB, and they run off the power of the hub. Currently, they are plugged into USB 2.0 ports, but they are USB 3.0 compatible products used as "backwards compatible," and run very slowly with USB 2.0, but they run. With USB 3.0, there is evidently a reason they are not supposed to be used. So, I would say it depends on whether the external hard drives have their own power source and, specifically, if they are WD passport drives, the product information I saw said they should not be used with this hub.
1618811
What exactly to you have that is connected to your computer that is powered by the USB? Keyboards, Mice, Game Controllers, Flash Drives, USB Memory Card Readers, all these things should work just fine. External Hard Drives I am not sure about, but If your External Hard Drive is Powered though a AC Adapter (Or DC Adapter if You live outside the USA) I am guessing it should be OK, but if you are not sure or uncomfortable about hooking up a hard drive to a USB extension cord like this one. Then you are better off just using the shorter USB cable that the External Hard Drive came with. Good Luck to You and Have a Merry Christmas :-D What exactly to you have that is connected to your computer that is powered by the USB? Keyboards, Mice, Game Controllers, Flash Drives, USB Memory Card Readers, all these things should work just fine. External Hard Drives I am not sure about, but If your External Hard Drive is Powered though a AC Adapter (Or DC Adapter if You live outside the USA) I am guessing it should be OK, but if you are not sure or uncomfortable about hooking up a hard drive to a USB extension cord like this one. Then you are better off just using the shorter USB cable that the External Hard Drive came with. Good... » Read More What exactly to you have that is connected to your computer that is powered by the USB? Keyboards, Mice, Game Controllers, Flash Drives, USB Memory Card Readers, all these things should work just fine. External Hard Drives I am not sure about, but If your External Hard Drive is Powered though a AC Adapter (Or DC Adapter if You live outside the USA) I am guessing it should be OK, but if you are not sure or uncomfortable about hooking up a hard drive to a USB extension cord like this one. Then you are better off just using the shorter USB cable that the External Hard Drive came with. Good Luck to You and Have a Merry Christmas :-D « Show Less
958682
Of course you can play any AVI directly from an USB pen drive... works perfect!!!I only have a doubt, have anyone tried to play any AVI from a portable Hard disk (USB 2.0) ?
639542
I cannot specifically say that a "USB Player" will be recognized. I plugged in a thumb drive and it worked. I have also plugged in an external hard drive through a "Blac X" (USB) and it works flawlessly. I assume that any standard USB device will be recognized and therefore should work. I read the first comment about lousy product and service. That has not been my experience. I emailed a question about using thumbnail displays and received a prompt reply the following day that addressed, and answered, my specific question - it was not a generic automated response. I cannot specifically say that a "USB Player" will be recognized. I plugged in a thumb drive and it worked. I have also plugged in an external hard drive through a "Blac X" (USB) and it works flawlessly. I assume that any standard USB device will be recognized and therefore should work. I read the first comment about lousy product and service. That has not been my experience. I emailed a question about using thumbnail displays and received a prompt reply the following day that addressed, and answered, my specific question - it was not a generic automated... » Read More I cannot specifically say that a "USB Player" will be recognized. I plugged in a thumb drive and it worked. I have also plugged in an external hard drive through a "Blac X" (USB) and it works flawlessly. I assume that any standard USB device will be recognized and therefore should work. I read the first comment about lousy product and service. That has not been my experience. I emailed a question about using thumbnail displays and received a prompt reply the following day that addressed, and answered, my specific question - it was not a generic automated response. « Show Less
1708012
Yes, you can attach a hd external in this device with your videos, photos, etc...You can't put direct in your computer.WD TV works like a media center, access data from external devices (pen drives, HDs...) put in your USB.WD TV conect if your tv with HDMI cable..Easy, very easy...You don't need Internet conection, but if you have WD TV will download information about your movies, tv shows... You will have something like a Netflix in your home.Regards,Alex
520660
I'm looking at ir. It is a diagnostic port only, you cannot show video from a USB drive, but you should be able to get power from it. Good luck.
774391
Great question. I purchased and configured several but never attemped to test without a HD. I honestly don"t know but imagine it would since there is an option to select internal HD or USB HD. However, this is a solid product and is an excellent substitute for a external HD.
1974012
Seems to work pretty well... I have used both USB flash drives and USB HDD with various movie formats (AVI, MP4, H264, etc.)
118403
I'm not sure if you can plug a external hard drive directly to the t.v., I usually connect my t.v. through my local network. For example I'll turn on my computer and have it set up through windows media player. Same thing with my music......
1866318
Well, which is it? This question is critical. Can someone from WD weigh in? It's almost inconceivable you can't direct attach this to a computer via USB.