TV USB Media

Ares

CCS Hall of Fame
Donator
CCS Hall of Fame '19
Joined:
Aug 21, 2012
Posts:
41,422
Liked Posts:
39,620
I am trying to deal with an issue I have with my upstairs TV in my room.

I have been leaving an external hard drive connected to its one USB port for a while, I keep my movies, shows, documentaries, etc so I can watch them on it as I try to fall asleep.

My movie collection has grown to where it and the TV seasons and documentaries get over the 1TB mark.

So I figured, not a problem, get a bigger drive and put everything on that, problem solved.

Nah.... over 1TB drives are "not supported"... I have a 1.5TB and it reads but freezes and skips and junk, and anything larger the TV won't even recognize it.

My thought was to see about just doing a pair of 1TB drives connected to a KVM switch with a remote and just flip between them if I wanna see stuff on the other drive.... anyone know if that will work? A KVM to a TV USB port?

Anyone have any better ideas?

PS: Yes I know I am being a lazy fuck not getting up and just switching the drives out when need be, but I have money and I can't help wanting to solve this problem rather than just living with not being able to really solve it the way I want to.
 

Crystallas

Three if by air
Staff member
Donator
Joined:
Jun 25, 2010
Posts:
19,890
Liked Posts:
9,618
Location:
Next to the beef gristle mill
My favorite teams
  1. Chicago Bulls
HTPC or kodibox reading off the network.
 

Ares

CCS Hall of Fame
Donator
CCS Hall of Fame '19
Joined:
Aug 21, 2012
Posts:
41,422
Liked Posts:
39,620
HTPC or kodibox reading off the network.

Help me out, what is HTPC standing for here?

I had the thought of seeing about having something that could interface to the TV and read from the network, would be ideal.
 

Crystallas

Three if by air
Staff member
Donator
Joined:
Jun 25, 2010
Posts:
19,890
Liked Posts:
9,618
Location:
Next to the beef gristle mill
My favorite teams
  1. Chicago Bulls
HTPC is just a computer with components focused on watching television.
home theater personal computer

I was going to do one of my lengthy posts with a too much information that some people don't care for....

Here. Easy button: https://www.amazon.com/NVIDIA-SHIELD-TV-Streaming-Media-Player/dp/B01N1NT9Y6

Hook up your TV, your drives to this. Then when you grow, the shield has wifi and all you do is change networks to a file server on the home network, or use ethernet. The Shield is not an HTPC, but for all intents and purposes, it might be better for you. What do you think?
 
Last edited:

Ares

CCS Hall of Fame
Donator
CCS Hall of Fame '19
Joined:
Aug 21, 2012
Posts:
41,422
Liked Posts:
39,620
HTPC is just a computer with components focused on watching television.
home theater personal computer

I was going to do one of my lengthy posts with a too much information that some people don't care for....

Here. Easy button: https://www.amazon.com/NVIDIA-SHIELD-TV-Streaming-Media-Player/dp/B01N1NT9Y6

Hook up your TV, your drives to this. Then when you grow, the shield has wifi and all you do is change networks to a file server on the home network, or use ethernet. The Shield is not an HTPC, but for all intents and purposes, it might be better for you. What do you think?

Yeah I think one of these would cover all my needs upstairs... like you said externals directly connect to it and at some point I will just host everything on a file server and connect to it via the Shield's wifi connection.

Had not thought of the Shield device for this purpose, much appreciated.
 

Ares

CCS Hall of Fame
Donator
CCS Hall of Fame '19
Joined:
Aug 21, 2012
Posts:
41,422
Liked Posts:
39,620
And Shield plays the H265 codec.... I might convert a bunch of stuff to that codec if it is gonna sit on those drives to play thru the Shield, save some space.
 

Novak

Mod in Training/Fire Forum
Donator
CCS Hall of Fame '21
Joined:
Sep 7, 2014
Posts:
16,086
Liked Posts:
12,652
You could just remove movies and/or shows after you watched them.. you don't need wizard of Oz anymore bro.. you've seen it 26 times..
 

Novak

Mod in Training/Fire Forum
Donator
CCS Hall of Fame '21
Joined:
Sep 7, 2014
Posts:
16,086
Liked Posts:
12,652
Inb4 "Never know when I might want to watch this documentary on pallid-winged grasshoppers again broooo"
 

Crystallas

Three if by air
Staff member
Donator
Joined:
Jun 25, 2010
Posts:
19,890
Liked Posts:
9,618
Location:
Next to the beef gristle mill
My favorite teams
  1. Chicago Bulls
And Shield plays the H265 codec.... I might convert a bunch of stuff to that codec if it is gonna sit on those drives to play thru the Shield, save some space.

Not worth it. H.265 is wishy washy as far as getting better compression results. I would just play with it, and use it where you see fit, keep your *264/contained videos as it. Plus, less generation loss.
 

Ares

CCS Hall of Fame
Donator
CCS Hall of Fame '19
Joined:
Aug 21, 2012
Posts:
41,422
Liked Posts:
39,620
You could just remove movies and/or shows after you watched them.. you don't need wizard of Oz anymore bro.. you've seen it 26 times..

Nah
 

Ares

CCS Hall of Fame
Donator
CCS Hall of Fame '19
Joined:
Aug 21, 2012
Posts:
41,422
Liked Posts:
39,620
This Nvidia Shield is working out really well... VLC can play all my media off network shares and oh btw the Shield has a chromecast built in... i might just get 2 more and put them on my other tvs
 

Crystallas

Three if by air
Staff member
Donator
Joined:
Jun 25, 2010
Posts:
19,890
Liked Posts:
9,618
Location:
Next to the beef gristle mill
My favorite teams
  1. Chicago Bulls
But will it blend? That is the question.
 

Ares

CCS Hall of Fame
Donator
CCS Hall of Fame '19
Joined:
Aug 21, 2012
Posts:
41,422
Liked Posts:
39,620
I put it in my blender, can confirm it does not blend... also now i need a new Shield, thx alot Crys
 

Crystallas

Three if by air
Staff member
Donator
Joined:
Jun 25, 2010
Posts:
19,890
Liked Posts:
9,618
Location:
Next to the beef gristle mill
My favorite teams
  1. Chicago Bulls
I put it in my blender, can confirm it does not blend... also now i need a new Shield, thx alot Crys

Did you inhale the smoke?

will-it-blend.jpg



On a more serious note. Which model did you go with? I don't have a Shield of any generation, but used the prior model and liked it a ton. The DIYer in me thinks I can build something better, but the fact is, nothing anyone can build under $300 (without going power hungry used x86/hacked game console) will outperform a Shield as a strict cable-cutter box.
 

ShiftyDevil

CCS Donator
Donator
Joined:
Apr 28, 2011
Posts:
7,278
Liked Posts:
4,708
My favorite teams
  1. Chicago Blackhawks
  1. Washington Huskies
I'd second the Shield as well. I've had a chromecast, Roku, FireTV stick, regular FireTV, even built my own HTPC way back in the days when Windows Media Center was a thing that was still supported. We got a Shield a month or two ago and it's way, way better than everything except maybe the purpose built HTPC, so if you want an off the shelf solution I'd definitely recommend the Shield. (The FireTv's both suck, especially the Stick, no matter what decision you make, just don't buy one of those)

EDIT: I'm Special person, you already bought a Shield. Good decision.
 

Top