I had written the same problem through another section, but yet to get a proper reply. Experts may kindly tell me any cheapest way of playing movies from a 320 gb portable disk to TV . Iomega, xtreamer and media centres may be there but all above 5-6 k if I am right.Is ther any DVD player to support this. This would have been a cheaper option.Please help
Though most modern DVD players have USB port, they have a few shortcomings for playing computer based files:
1. They do not supply any power through the USB and can only play from a stick drive.
2. Most DVD Players support only the FAT16 and FAT32 file systems. Other file systems (exFAT, NTFS, etc.) are not supported. So if you use a OS that formats flash drives and external disks in NTFS or some such system, your DVD player will not recognise the files at all.
3. For file names and folders, DVD players may not recognise more than 14 characters. So if you are are not following Joliet or ISO9660 standards for files and folder names, the DVD player will not understand your files.
4. Most DVD players have a limit of about 300 folders and about 600 files. If you have more than this in you flash or external drive, the DVD player will not recognise the files.
5. Most DVD players are restricted to understanding few file formats and such as DIVX and AVI. They will not recognise files formats such as MKV.
If you want to play computer based or ripped files on a regular basis, an NMT such as Popcorn Hour, DVX, of WDTV or an HTPC are the best options.
Cheers