Playing AVI files through TV

[VXRTOM]

Hi All, wondering if you AV Geniei's can offer some advice.

I have a substantial number of movies stored on an External HDD and my PC (all in .avi format) and soon i'm buying a nice new full 1080 HD TV which it would be nice to play these films through.

Ideally what I want is some kind of Home Cinema that accepts USB input from a HDD that I can simply connect, select the files on the TV and play them - simples.

However, The last thing I want to do is start converting the files to another format. Surely there's something out there thats compatible with .avi?

Until now I have been playing files on a laptop and connecting it to the TV with an HDMI which works fine but is a short terms solution.

I'm sure i'm not the only one in this situation, so what do you do? and what would you recommend to be the most efficient and simplest (if possible) soulution?

I would very much appreciate your thoughts.

Tom

[trooperiziz]

Depends entirely on your codec, the avi extension is just a container that can contain different types of video files...

Personally, I built my own media pc, but a simple and cheap solution may be to buy an xbox360 and plug the hard disk into that (assuming it is formatted as a FAT32 drive)

[russ_a]

I found that any cheap option struggled with 1080p movies, plus Im sure that FAT32 has a 4gb file size limit.

In the end I built a media player that runs Vista. I used to really hate Vista but found the media centre to run like a dream. Even the Mrs can use it via the remote control and that's saying something!!

With the media PC you can play any format without the need to re-encode too, unlike the PS3 or XBOX360.

[VXRTOM]

Thanks for the ideas, I'll have a look around at those. I've also been told that a popcorn hour a-110 would do the trick
Anyone got one?

[militantmandy]

What about something like this?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prod...

I'm very tempted for one of these!

[Marf]

Have you got an XBox/PS3? You can use something like TVersity to stream the files straight from your PC.

[VXRTOM]

Yeah I've got a ps3. Will loook into that option but I really wanted a sperate unit I can jut plug my external hdd into and play files from it

[VXRTOM]

militantmandy said:

What about something like this?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prod...

I'm very tempted for one of these!

yeah I saw that earlier, looks to be ideal for the purpose I want it for and very cheap. I looked a reviews of it and many people mentioned avi files very jittery and often not playing at all. Might give it a go none the less at that price!

[militantmandy]

VXRTOM said:

militantmandy said:

What about something like this?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prod...

I'm very tempted for one of these!

yeah I saw that earlier, looks to be ideal for the purpose I want it for and very cheap. I looked a reviews of it and many people mentioned avi files very jittery and often not playing at all. Might give it a go none the less at that price!

where were those reviews? i'd be interested to read them. there's only 2 or 3 on the OC site, so not a particularly wide spectrum of views. seems perfect though, if it works properly!

[.:ian:.]

militantmandy said:

VXRTOM said:

militantmandy said:

What about something like this?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prod...

I'm very tempted for one of these!

yeah I saw that earlier, looks to be ideal for the purpose I want it for and very cheap. I looked a reviews of it and many people mentioned avi files very jittery and often not playing at all. Might give it a go none the less at that price!

where were those reviews? i'd be interested to read them. there's only 2 or 3 on the OC site, so not a particularly wide spectrum of views. seems perfect though, if it works properly!

Amazon buyers seem to like it : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-1080P-Medi...

I`d give a +1 for a popcorn hour box though.

[VXRTOM]

militantmandy said:

VXRTOM said:

militantmandy said:

What about something like this?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prod...

I'm very tempted for one of these!

yeah I saw that earlier, looks to be ideal for the purpose I want it for and very cheap. I looked a reviews of it and many people mentioned avi files very jittery and often not playing at all. Might give it a go none the less at that price!

where were those reviews? i'd be interested to read them. there's only 2 or 3 on the OC site, so not a particularly wide spectrum of views. seems perfect though, if it works properly!

Just found the comments about judderyness - seems thay were a year ago on old firmware anc has since been updated. I might go all in for the WDTV as its much cheaper than the popcorn hour - although everyone says great things about the popcorn hour (especially on AVFORUMS).

[LeoSayer]

I've got a WDTV and it is pretty good.

It plays most video files, but not everything so check first. For example, it doesn't play MOV videos taken from my Panasonic digital camera, even though is says it plays MOV. It comes with some half-decent conversion software though. Apparently there is a WDTV2 coming out soon, although I'm not sure when or what the differences will be.

There's a decent forum here:
http://wdtvforum.com/main/

and a bug/fix list:
http://wdtv.uservoice.com/pages/17442-general

[VXRTOM]

Thanks for the info / links. I might hold out for the WDTV2 then depending on when or if it comes out

[militantmandy]

LeoSayer said:

I've got a WDTV and it is pretty good.

It plays most video files, but not everything so check first. For example, it doesn't play MOV videos taken from my Panasonic digital camera, even though is says it plays MOV. It comes with some half-decent conversion software though. Apparently there is a WDTV2 coming out soon, although I'm not sure when or what the differences will be.

There's a decent forum here:
http://wdtvforum.com/main/

and a bug/fix list:
http://wdtv.uservoice.com/pages/17442-general

cheers muchly!

[tenohfive]

My cheap and cheerful £70 Samsung DVD player has a USB in option. I've used it to run music etc from my phone, so can't see any problem doing the same with that.

[plumAJP]

my laptop has a hdmi output, so i hook my hard drive to the laptop and hook the laptop to the tv and i play all my filve in a few formats.

only problem is i havent worked out how to get sound through my 5.1 surround. its coming out of the tv currently, i have no hdmi input on my dvd player/processor

[clonmult]

plumAJP said:

my laptop has a hdmi output, so i hook my hard drive to the laptop and hook the laptop to the tv and i play all my filve in a few formats.

only problem is i havent worked out how to get sound through my 5.1 surround. its coming out of the tv currently, i have no hdmi input on my dvd player/processor

I was thinking of doing the same, but now I've got the PS3, thats connected through to the laptop via DLNA and the video just streams perfectly. Not HD, just "regular" dvd quality Divx, but works very, very nicely.

Did have an LG PQ6000 Plasma TV, which supports Divx files on a USB stick plugged in the side. Which was uber cool, the picture was utterly stunning, shame that we had two in a row that went pop ....

[Mr2Mike]

VXRTOM said:

Thanks for the ideas, I'll have a look around at those. I've also been told that a popcorn hour a-110 would do the trick
Anyone got one?

Yes, the Popcorn will play back 1080P video from a USB driver through HDMI and also has component, svideo and composite outputs. It can do a LOT more than that though: you can put a hard drive in it and create a network media/file server, you can use it as an external USB hard drive, it can download files via bit-torrent, it can used as an internet radio, it will play videos from most of the popular video sites (youtube etc.) and accepts RSS feeds from various useful sources (weather, news etc). It's a great bit of kit, though they have recently brought out the C200 which is even better (for more money).

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/

[Quick silver]

I have a cheap 'Funai Progressive' (HDD/DVD-R/DVD-RW) that plays avi, divx, mov etc. I write the files onto a disc & play them as a you would a DVD.

[funkyol]

VXRTOM said:

Hi All, wondering if you AV Geniei's can offer some advice.

I have a substantial number of movies stored on an External HDD and my PC (all in .avi format) and soon i'm buying a nice new full 1080 HD TV which it would be nice to play these films through.

Ideally what I want is some kind of Home Cinema that accepts USB input from a HDD that I can simply connect, select the files on the TV and play them - simples.

However, The last thing I want to do is start converting the files to another format. Surely there's something out there thats compatible with .avi?

Until now I have been playing files on a laptop and connecting it to the TV with an HDMI which works fine but is a short terms solution.

I'm sure i'm not the only one in this situation, so what do you do? and what would you recommend to be the most efficient and simplest (if possible) soulution?

I would very much appreciate your thoughts.

Tom

I do this one of several ways:

1. Connect my netbook via a VGA cable which goes from my netbook to the VGA in on my TV
2. Connect my mac via HDMI into the TV
3. Copt the film on to a USB stick and plug it into my PS3. The PS3 has DivX so plays everything fine.

HTH