External Hard Drives and Blu-ray Players

[WyldeMan45]

Up until the point where my PS3 died on me AGAIN, I had been able to use my external hard drive in the USB and view all the video files I wanted through my tv. However with that now dead are there Blu-Ray players with a USB that will allow me to use my external the same way?

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

Up until the point where my PS3 died on me AGAIN, I had been able to use my external hard drive in the USB and view all the video files I wanted through my tv. However with that now dead are there Blu-Ray players with a USB that will allow me to use my external the same way?

Yup! I actually just got the Sony S470 player from that Disney Movie Rewards deal.

I have also been using an external HDD with my PS3 and (even though my PS3 still works fine), this player also has USB ports, so I decided to try this out on it.

The videos play just fine through this machine. In fact, in some way, I almost like using this player for this purpose more so than the PS3 (with some movies/videos, the PS3 has issues with fast forwarding... at least for me).

The only real "problem" that I've had with it (which really isn't a big deal) is that at first the player doesn't want to recognize the hard drive, and some kind of error message initially comes up (it is not doing any damage to the player or the hard drive.. it just doesn't want to cooperate at first). But then after a brief time, it works fine.

This BD player actually has a similar menu system as the PS3, only not as well animated as the PS3 menu. So you select the options on the player (including accessing the HDD) in much the same way.



I'm sure that there are other players that do this as well, but speaking solely from my first hand experience, I can state for certain that this particular works well for this.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

Yup! I actually just got the Sony S470 player from that Disney Movie Rewards deal.

I have also been using an external HDD with my PS3 and (even though my PS3 still works fine), this player also has USB ports, so I decided to try this out on it.

The videos play just fine through this machine. In fact, in some way, I almost like using this player for this purpose more so than the PS3 (with some movies/videos, the PS3 has issues with fast forwarding... at least for me).

The only real "problem" that I've had with it (which really isn't a big deal) is that at first the player doesn't want to recognize the hard drive, and some kind of error message initially comes up (it is not doing any damage to the player or the hard drive.. it just doesn't want to cooperate at first). But then after a brief time, it works fine.

This BD player actually has a similar menu system as the PS3, only not as well animated as the PS3 menu. So you select the options on the player (including accessing the HDD) in much the same way.



I'm sure that there are other players that do this as well, but speaking solely from my first hand experience, I can state for certain that this particular works well for this.

Oh very nice, so what kind of formatting does it support? The majority of my files are .avi and the rest are .mp4. Looks like that player is only $120 on amazon which is MUCH cheaper than buying another PS3.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Honestly, all of my files on that drive are mpeg2, so I really can't say for sure what other formats it supports. I would imagine that since it's Sony, it would support the same formats as the PS3, but I can't say that for certain.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

Honestly, all of my files on that drive are mpeg2, so I really can't say for sure what other formats it supports. I would imagine that since it's Sony, it would support the same formats as the PS3, but I can't say that for certain.

Alright thank you, i'll keep researching and see what I can find about the supported formats.

[richieb1971]

I have a Panasonic BD60 and it supports AVI via USB. I am not sure if it supports 720 AVI though, I only tested SD AVI.

[rocknemeth]

One company that advertises USB playback for your multimedia files on the blu-ray machine is Acesonic USA.
According to their webpage "Acesonic’s BDK-2000 Blu-Ray Multimedia Karaoke Player is a multi-functional, high-definition, networked, multimedia player. It can play all your media from discs, USB drives, local network or internet in HD quality up to 1080p. The Acesonic Blu-Ray Multimedia Karaoke Player includes an HDMI port and it is compatible with the latest audio, video, picture and karaoke formats including MP3, WAV, WMA, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (MPG/VOB), MPEG-4 (AVI), DivX, MKV, and JPEG. Additionally, this is the world’s first Blu-Ray player that supports RMVB and MP3+G files.
The built-in Blu-Ray multi-format player supports all types of discs such as Blu-Ray discs, DVDs, VCDs, CD+Gs, CDs and data discs. There is no player in the world that can play more types of discs than the Acesonic BDK-2000.
A built-in Ethernet port enables you to enjoy streaming content online via BD-Live or play local network media files on your network PC or network storage. A built-in USB port enables you to play all of your music, pictures or videos stored on your USB drive."

See the machine at the Acesonic website link below......

http://www.acesonic.com/index.html

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

Alright thank you, i'll keep researching and see what I can find about the supported formats.

Based on the BDP-S470 manual it supports the following video files:

File format           Extensions
MPEG-1 Video/PS,      .mpg, .mpeg,
MPEG-2 Video/PS, TS   .m2ts, .mts
---------------------------------------------------
DivX                  .avi, .divx
--------------------------------------------------- 
MPEG-4 AVC            .mkv, .mp4, .m4v, .m2ts, .mts
---------------------------------------------------
WMV9                  .wmv, .asf
---------------------------------------------------
AVCHD