DVD Player USB port and Hard Disk access

akcoolrider

New Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2010
Messages
17
Points
0
Location
Hyderabad
Hi all

Very informative site. Great going guys.

I own many Panasonic products and I bought this home theater system SA-PT150 last year and its great so far. This model comes with a USB port as well which reads pen drives of 4 GB (I havent tried higher capacity ones yet) but when I connect a external hard disk it doesnt read. I have a Seagate 250 GB external hard disk, 2.5" which doesnt need an auxillary power supply (the 3.5" hard disk needs separate power). The LED light on the hard disk which blinks for power and data access, does blink when I connect it to the player so the player is able to read, but I get a message on the connected LCD TV that this kind of device cannot be played.

of course, the hard disk works perfect when connected to a laptop.

My question this:
Do USB ports have power ratings? Is it due to the power requirements of a motor/drive of a hard disk that its not able to read it when it can read a simple 4 GB pen drive (which is a solid state device and has no moving parts)

I am planning to buy a 1 TB 3.5" hard disk sometime soon. If power is the issue, this should play as it has its own auxiliary power supply. or is the issue something else?

Any simple fixes you can think of are welcome!

Otherwise I am planning to buy a WD media player to play from the HD whose output I can connect to the home theater.

I am also looking for any Panasonic tricks to play other newer formats. Mine only support .avi not even mp4!
 
Just checked. The hard disk is NTFS. i think thats the default. I can change it to FAT32 and try. The USB is 2.0.

The manual says a few more interesting things:

"Supports MPEG4 (.asf) files. Not recommended to use a USB extension cable. It is not recognized by this unit"

Extension cable? how is that important?


Will changing to FAT32 fix it all now that I know it is USB 2.0?
 
Changing fat32 will solve the problem.Extension cable causes Data loss & so player may not read large files properly.
If you use best 2.0 cable,there shldnt be problem.

Same prob with me happened when connected Bad usb cable to PC,Data wldnt be read.When changed high speed 2.0 Data cable ,no problem.
 
The USB 1.x and 2.0 specifications provide a 5 V supply on a single wire. An USB supplies no more than 5.25 V and no less than 4.75 V (5 V5%) between the positive and negative bus power lines. For USB 2.0 the voltage supplied by low-powered hub ports is 4.4 V to 5.25 V.

In addition, an unit load is defined as 100 mA in USB 2.0, and was raised to 150 mA in USB 3.0. A maximum of 5 unit loads (500 mA) can be drawn from a port in USB 2.0, which was raised to 6 (900 mA) in USB 3.0.

What units you can connect to the USB depends upon the power requirements of the unit. Some hard disks that need between 5 to 10 volts and between 500 to 1000mA, can be managed, for example, by connecting it to two USB ports.

Units that have larger power requirements would need external power. A Barracuda 7200.12 hard disk, for example, needs 12 volts and 2.0 amps. This can never be powered by USB.

Check the power requirements of the units you plan to connect, and then use an external power unit where needed.

Cheers
 
Ok, cool. I will try converting it to FAT32. I think XP allows conversion from FAT32 to NTFS through an inbuilt utility that too only once, dunno about the reverse. I will start researching on converting and its pros and cons. I have tons of data.

Coming to data cables, the ext hart disks come with a cable to connect to a USB port, that should be good right? The hard disk end is a smaller and the other end standard USB jack. Mine is a Seagate FreeAgent.
 
The USB 1.x and 2.0 specifications provide a 5 V supply on a single wire. An USB supplies no more than 5.25 V and no less than 4.75 V (5 V5%) between the positive and negative bus power lines. For USB 2.0 the voltage supplied by low-powered hub ports is 4.4 V to 5.25 V.

In addition, an unit load is defined as 100 mA in USB 2.0, and was raised to 150 mA in USB 3.0. A maximum of 5 unit loads (500 mA) can be drawn from a port in USB 2.0, which was raised to 6 (900 mA) in USB 3.0.

What units you can connect to the USB depends upon the power requirements of the unit. Some hard disks that need between 5 to 10 volts and between 500 to 1000mA, can be managed, for example, by connecting it to two USB ports.

Units that have larger power requirements would need external power. A Barracuda 7200.12 hard disk, for example, needs 12 volts and 2.0 amps. This can never be powered by USB.

Check the power requirements of the units you plan to connect, and then use an external power unit where needed.

Cheers
Thanks for the thorough explanation Venkat. From your reply, if a USB port on a device, say a DVD player, is marked compatible with USB 2.0 devices, it should have the ratings you have described and since my Seagate FreeAgent Go runs on a single USB 2.0 port on a laptop without the need for extra power supply, it should do so on a DVD player as well, right?

Also, as I had mentioned in my original post, the LED lights on the portable hard disk (on data access and powering up) do blink on connecting it to the DVD player as it does when connected to a laptop. So the problem could be with the file system, NTFs/FAT32 as pointed out by spirovious.
 
Hi Akcoolrider,
I have the same problem. I am trying a 500GB seagate FreeagentGo(newly bought). Same result as you!. Please explain if you were able to solve the problem.... Thanx in advance.

just posted in a separate thread...
http://www.hifivision.com/dvd-players-dvd-hard-disk-recorders/1692-best-dvd-player-iwth-usb-67.html
----------------------- content -------------------------------------

Hi. Re opening this theread after almost 1.5year. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010 guys!
Today i bought a 500GB Seagate portable Hard disk. Tried connecting that to LG 388 DVD player. It shows USB drive but says "No compatible files" when access th USB. Need Help!!!. Somebody Please tell me how can i make it usable with this DVD player. had some clue that it can be partitioned & formatted in FAT32. However not very clear. Looking for more details how I can do that? (like which software to use for pttn. / ) or step by step details from some1 who already did this experiment. .................... Thanks in advance.
 
Hi Kaverao

I am yet to try changing the file system. Change from NTFS to FAT32 will erase data AFAIK, so gotta back up and then try.

If you don't have much data, why don't you try converting it to FAT32?

From my research so far, the main limitation seems to be that you cannot have files more than 4 GB and this being an older file system, wastes a bit of capacity because of cluster size 32 kb vs 4 kb in NTFS. Even PS3 or Xbox will need you to use FAt32. Also the type of file system matters if you use the hard disk across platforms.

Partition magic seems to be the most popular software but Gparted is recommended by many. I havent tried either though.
 
Sorry you are out of luck. FAT32 will not support the large partitions of your HDD. Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional can format FAT32 volumes up to 32 GB only. As a FAT32 partition goes beyond 32GB, the cluster size that is used jumps from 16K to 32K, thus "wasting" far more drive space when small files are stored. Hence M$ recommends using NTFS for larger partitions and did not program the tools to allow larger partitions to be formatted.

However most multimedia devices come with a capabilty to use FAT16 only. They will not read FAT32 or NTFS or linux partitions.

You can try using other partition manager tools to create a large FAT32 partition and check but your wasted space will increase to 8MB - only for the FAT table (add for each backup of FAT within the disk partition structure). You may lose on speed of access as FAT table is referred to very frequently.

Edit: PS: Actually here is a more accurate link that explains the problem with being FAT http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/partFAT32-c.html :)

HTH
Regards
 
Last edited:
Kaverao, the LG388 does not support any device that has more than 650 files. In addition, the player may not support external hard disks at all. Techtree tried connecting a number of drives, and the player could not see any file inside any of the drives. You only option is to connect a portable drive with less than 650 files and see if that works. Otherwise you are out of luck.

Coolrider, please check the manual of your system with reference to USB drives. Do this before formatting or changing anything in your drive. Most players are limited to using only pen drives and may not have the capacity to read external drives.

Cheers
 
Venkat,

I checked the manual. No mention of 'pen drive only' or anything similar. i was piqued because as I had mentioned in my original post, the portable hard disk went 'live' when I plugged in. So it is able to access, so its not limited by power needed to operate a disk drive (compared to a solid state pen drive).

I just ordered a Kingston 8 GB. That should do for a while.

gobble,

Your answer applies to me (250 gb) and kaverao (500 gb) I guess.
 
[for akcoolrider] Thanks for reply. Yes, i'm planning to try tomorrow.
[for venkatcr] I tried 160GB Westernal digital HDD (borrowed from my friend just for trying this) on LG388. works fine!. it recognizes all files.
However i really doubt abt it for a 500GB!.
 
Last edited:
[for venkatcr] I tried 160GB Westernal digital HDD (borrowed from my friend just for trying this) on LG388. works fine!. it recognizes all files.

In my analysis of the Pioneer 220, (http://www.hifivision.com/dvd-players-dvd-hard-disk-recorders/7472-pioneer-dv-220-dvd-player.html), I realised that a DVD Player actually creates the directory structure itself, and does not even read the directory structure created by the OS. At least that is what Pioneer 220 does.

Given the limit of about 300-600 odd files, they may be using a primitive file system (FAT 16/32) and will certainly not understand large drives such as 250 or 500GB. I have a feeling (could be wrong) that they will happily read drives up to some 150 odd GB.

Some experimentation will be welcome.

Cheers
 
Last edited:
Hi Venkatcr. may be you are right. in that case my HDD will be only for backup! ...sad :-(. anyway let me try & tell u.

Can you pls tell me if u know any free disk partitioning tool (available to download ) for partitioning the HDD which will do the job safely. [though its a new HDD & i don't have much data, i'm concerned abt the money i paid ;-) i.e. dont want to risk the device].
And ideally what sizes/number of partitions are suggested on a 500GB.?. I feel i can have at the most 150GB dedicated for movies. rest can be for PC data backup.

Waiting for any useful reply.
 
Hi Venkatcr. may be you are right. in that case my HDD will be only for backup! ...sad :-(. anyway let me try & tell u.

Can you pls tell me if u know any free disk partitioning tool (available to download ) for partitioning the HDD which will do the job safely. [though its a new HDD & i don't have much data, i'm concerned abt the money i paid ;-) i.e. dont want to risk the device].
And ideally what sizes/number of partitions are suggested on a 500GB.?. I feel i can have at the most 150GB dedicated for movies. rest can be for PC data backup.

Waiting for any useful reply.

Hi,

AFAIK, partition can be made by connecting the HDD to a working computer and using the default disk management application available in XP, Vista. I normally use this method to do partitioning. Your HDD will have some years of warranty, so no worries.

Otherwise, you download one from "Free Download Partition Manager software."

Also, 150-gb partitions will be good, as if you try to do small partitions, you will end up losing some GBs of unpartitioned space. So, try to have a large-sized partitions.

Rest, our experts will chip in and clear your doubts.

Cheers!
 
Can you pls tell me if u know any free disk partitioning tool (available to download ) for partitioning the HDD .....
Waiting for any useful reply.

Venkatesh has already given you a link. Partition Magic is the best, but it is not free. If you have good contacts with a local computer shop/service centre, maybe he can help.

Since you are talking about an external drive, the number of partitions can be anything. Just mentally divide the files you will have into a number of groups and that is the number of partitions you must have. For example - movies, music, personal, official.........

Cheers
 
Thanks guys!,

venkateshsmart, you said "using the default disk management application available in XP". Can you pls tell me where is it available?. i could nt find it in accessories.
 
A beautiful, well-constructed speaker with class-leading soundstage, imaging and bass that is fast, deep, and precise.
Back
Top