Watching Movies From A Usb Thumb Drive

[ThaiLife]

With the USB Thumb drive capacity growing all the time , I wondered if there's a way to watch movies Etc from a USB Thumb drive on a normal home TV , my DVD player does not have this option ( does your DVD player have a USB option ) and I really don't get on too well with burning to a CD / DVD , any ideas, thoughts and comments most welcome.

[ashacat]

This is how I watch all my movies nowadays. I got p@ssed off with all the DVD's building up in my room! I just plug the thumb drive straight into the DVD player and play it like a normal DVD, easy...

Edited January 29, 2009 by ashacat

[matte]

It seems as it's possible with LG DVX298H, for example. I have not checked if You can play straight from the stick, but it is certainly possible to dump your movie to the hard drive and then play it. I guess it depends on what quality is involved and what movie format.

[malcolmswaine]

I also watch movies this way. My DVD player allows me to watch regular and DivX encoded AVI's. Its pretty handy, but there are 2 drawbacks as far as I can see

1) It can take a while to copy a movie onto a thumb drive (USB isn't the quickest technology for data transfer)

2) If you're downloading movies from the internet, then as a often as not, they will be encoded using some other codec. Updating the firmware on the DVD player for each new codec obviously isn't going to happen, so a bit of hacking is often in order.

What I did buy a while back, but haven't yet tested, is a Samsung Omnia phone/PDA. It comes with TV out capabilities and built in 8GB storage as standard along with WIFI. When I get the chance I will probably hook this device up to my TV and stream the movies across my wireless network from a file server. Its the ideal solution really.

[ThaiLife]

Thanks guy's for the info, most of the items I watch originate from the internet in .rar files, then I play them on my Mac using

RealPlayer - QuickTime Player - VLC , so may be there could be a problem once ive transfered the items to a USB thumb drive, getting the DVD player ( with a USB option ) to recognizing the format, I suppose I could take a few USB thumb drives with a range of things ive downloaded on it, and try it out on a DVD player in a shop , any thoughts on that idea ?

[ricklev]

I bought a 900 baht Elze dvd player with a usb port a few months ago. It's played every downloaded file I have stuck on my thumb drive (so far) without a problem. I would guess all the cheap dvd players are equally adept at most files.

I have a S video out port on my laptop that can hook up to any TV with an S Video to RCA cord. I have been wondering how much an S video card costs; that might be the best solution.

[sniffdog]

I once bought a cheap USB DVD player at BigC. Sometimes the movie played alright, but most of the time it stuttered. Now I stream straight from my hard drive.

[Sel]

I have found the cheap DVD players with usb port stutter every now and then during every movie even if you use a high speed thumb drive.

Easiest is vga cable from computer to tv display (if you have a newish flat screen)

[delboy]

Most of the reasons for the stuttering are because the original .avi file was coded with a feature called BVOP, which the cheaper DVD players can't handle. I check with GSpot first and then, if necessary, just re-compress the file without BVOP using VirtualDub before copying it to the thumb drive, and then it plays fine.

It's an extra step, I know, but it's still much easier than burning a DVD.

[jaideeguy]

That's the only way that I view movies nowadays. when shopping for the DVD player, just make sur that it has USB input and supports DIVX [mine is a pioneer 400] and as far as speed in transfering movie from your hard drive to thumb drive, it takes me less than 4 minutes to copy a full length movie. Fast enough for me and a lot faster than burning a DVD. Also, deleting files is almost instantaneous, so you can use your thumb drive over and over and save the clutter of DVDs that you may only watch once.

[Cuban]

We bought a DVD player a few years ago in Phuket, it plays both USB sticks and SD cards drectly. I have tried using my USB external HDD - but the DVD player seems to run out of it's internal memory while indexing the 400GB drive (no real surprises), makes a good stab till about 50-75% of the root directory then reboots and tries again.

[Digitalbanana]

I have found the cheap DVD players with usb port stutter every now and then during every movie even if you use a high speed thumb drive.

Easiest is vga cable from computer to tv display (if you have a newish flat screen)

The stutter might also be due to the cheaper USB DVD players having USB direct ports which are slower than the higher priced units with Fast USB ports? At least thats what the Philips sales rep was trying to sell me today.

[JustAnotherFarang]

Can anyone recommend a dvd player that will play DIVX movies with subtitles such as .srt.

Or alternatively a program that could quickly hard code the subtitles onto the movie

Cheers

JAF

[aussiebebe]

I used to watch movies burned to DVD from my laptop, then graduated to USB drives. I found that my Phillips DVDplayer had a tough times of this as it could only recognise certain file types. I then bought a quality Pioneer DVD player from Tesco which handled a wider range of movies from USB far better and even upscaled moves - who needs HD?

Since buying an HP laptop with HDMI out, I now just display my laptop on my TV when I want or need the larger picture. I think that running the movies right off my laptop is best as it can play any file type.

[pmcd8243]

I use thumb drives exclusively to watch movies I have downloaded. It seems the cheaper DVD players(less then 1000 baht) are more likely to have a USB port. The best solution is to transfer a movie file(Mine are .avi) and bring the thumb drive with you and test it in the store before you buy. I have an ELZE DVD player(700 Baht at Lotus 2 years ago) that plays just fine. Its not HD but is perfectly acceptable.

P

[sniffdog]

Can anyone recommend a dvd player that will play DIVX movies with subtitles such as .srt.

Or alternatively a program that could quickly hard code the subtitles onto the movie

Cheers

JAF

Any DVD player which handles DIVX is able to process .srt subtitles. Just dump em in the same directory as the DIVX movie ....

I have a Sony DVP-NS708HP (around 4,000 baht). Very good player, although nowadays I hardly use it as I play all myDIVX movies straight from my harddisk to my HD TV.

[angiud]

I know many people will complain for the price, but this small box is useful to connect any memory (pendrive, hard disk, etc) and watch the content on your Full HD tv.

It has 2 usb and a HDMI port and any kind of codecs (also MKV, AAC, H264), so I usually use it to see the 1080 or the 720 movies I download from the net.

Price in Thailand around 5000 baht.

More informations: http://www.bigitshop.com/online-shopping/W...dia-Player.html

[Digitalbanana]

It seems the cheaper DVD players(less then 1000 baht) are more likely to have a USB port. The best solution is to transfer a movie file(Mine are .avi) and bring the thumb drive with you and test it in the store before you buy. I have an ELZE DVD player(700 Baht at Lotus 2 years ago) that plays just fine. Its not HD but is perfectly acceptable.

A walk around the Thailand malls today shows most of the more expensive brands, Sony, Pioneer, Philips have USB ports in their DVD players? All they all as reliable as these cheap ELZE players at playing the plethora of downloads available off net I wonder?

[JustAnotherFarang]

Can anyone recommend a dvd player that will play DIVX movies with subtitles such as .srt.

Or alternatively a program that could quickly hard code the subtitles onto the movie

Cheers

JAF

Any DVD player which handles DIVX is able to process .srt subtitles. Just dump em in the same directory as the DIVX movie ....

I have a Sony DVP-NS708HP (around 4,000 baht). Very good player, although nowadays I hardly use it as I play all myDIVX movies straight from my harddisk to my HD TV.

Sorry, thats not true. I have a Fantazia model from Tesco Lotus which is perfectly capable of playing DIVX but will not play the subtitles. I have tried all combinations of different subtitles and nothing has worked so far...........

BTW for those who complain of the picture stuttering, have you tried pausing your movie for a second and the playing it again.......seems to work for me

JAF

[Digitalbanana]

I know many people will complain for the price, but this small box is useful to connect any memory (pendrive, hard disk, etc) and watch the content on your Full HD tv.

It has 2 usb and a HDMI port and any kind of codecs (also MKV, AAC, H264), so I usually use it to see the 1080 or the 720 movies I download from the net.

Price in Thailand around 5000 baht.

More informations: http://www.bigitshop.com/online-shopping/W...dia-Player.html

Thanks for link. Looks like a good idea. Anyone seen these on sale or only just the one online site to buy? Outside Thailand prices are 129USD so the Thai price seems high.

[phaethon]

I have all my movies on two 1TB drives which I will bring over with a universal IDE/SATA adapter, the original disks are in the attic.

For most of my data and backup I use WD Passport Drives which use 2.5 Iron-age inch (laptop) drives up to 500GB now (£85 for 400GB the other day). About the size of a small phrase book and no external power supply needed

[sniffdog]

Can anyone recommend a dvd player that will play DIVX movies with subtitles such as .srt.

Or alternatively a program that could quickly hard code the subtitles onto the movie

Cheers

JAF

Any DVD player which handles DIVX is able to process .srt subtitles. Just dump em in the same directory as the DIVX movie ....

I have a Sony DVP-NS708HP (around 4,000 baht). Very good player, although nowadays I hardly use it as I play all myDIVX movies straight from my harddisk to my HD TV.

Sorry, thats not true. I have a Fantazia model from Tesco Lotus which is perfectly capable of playing DIVX but will not play the subtitles. I have tried all combinations of different subtitles and nothing has worked so far...........

BTW for those who complain of the picture stuttering, have you tried pausing your movie for a second and the playing it again.......seems to work for me

JAF

I've tried this on as number of DVD players (cheap to medium expensive) and it all worked. Of course, I can't judge for all the players on the market.

[LivinLOS]

I know many people will complain for the price, but this small box is useful to connect any memory (pendrive, hard disk, etc) and watch the content on your Full HD tv.

It has 2 usb and a HDMI port and any kind of codecs (also MKV, AAC, H264), so I usually use it to see the 1080 or the 720 movies I download from the net.

Price in Thailand around 5000 baht.

More informations: http://www.bigitshop.com/online-shopping/W...dia-Player.html

Thanks for link. Looks like a good idea. Anyone seen these on sale or only just the one online site to buy? Outside Thailand prices are 129USD so the Thai price seems high.

Well with 5k baht being only 140 ish USD I think thats 10 USD price premium is fairly lean myself..

It doesnt have a network port and abaility to pull data over a net does it ?? I would take 3 if they did, want a media jukebox not just a file player.. Even so, handy little box.

[tigerbeer]

i have a couple cheap ELZE dvd machines with USB slots. When a movie .avi does not play. Check out the codecs or specs of the movie using Gspot. Then use the free software SUPER converter to convert the file. Normally pushing down the audio from 48000 khz to 24khz solves the problem. I normally also lower the video bitrate to below 1000kbps. Make sure u follow the frame rate from what is displayed in Gspot to Super converter.

Right now I would be more interested in new dvd machines that include mkv as a playable file and which includes a higher range of divx playability/speed. Give it some time, and it would be cheap cheap cheap .

my only problem is replacing the ELZE remote controls as no one seems to store spares. I have kids who break them every other month!

[Thairish]

I'm not sure if this is a bit off topic from the OPs post, but I saw the Western Digital media drive and thought the other readers may have a better insight into the Network Media Tanks, like the Snazio Media Cinema, which I saw in IT Mall here.

I'm wondering if any one has or used this type of media server? I have heard there are many similar models that are made in China, I'm sure there are cheaper options available here, anyone know where? Oh the price I was quoted for the Snazio was 15,900 Baht without Hard Drive or Wifi options.

Cheers

[Digitalbanana]

Your reply is completely on topic, thanks for highlighting this product, I too would be interested in feedback from experienced users... looks more interesting than the WD product.

[jeffer]

Looking in Carrefour yesterday and about half of the DVD players had a USB slot. Cheapest one was only 770 baht although not surprisingly it  wasn't the nicest looking model. Saw a Pioneer DV310s for 2290 baht, maybe the best value of the well known brands.

http

://www.pioneer.com.au/Products/Home%20...rs/DV310S.aspx

[Digitalbanana]

Well with 5k baht being only 140 ish USD I think thats 10 USD price premium is fairly lean myself..

It doesnt have a network port and abaility to pull data over a net does it ?? I would take 3 if they did, want a media jukebox not just a file player.. Even so, handy little box.

The prices of this device are quite competitive at Pantip, at around 4990B. On the BigIT web link costs over 5600B for home delivery. Nice small and eay to use box if no need for another DVD player with USB port,

[Stabbo-Lad]

I've tried to play movies via my Pioneer hifi/dvd player via the usb port and no joy. I bought two new Kingston sticks and neither work. It plays mp3 files ok but not movies. Definitely a Divx player and definitely Dixv/avi files.

Any ideas?

SL.

[MartinEMS]

Does ayone know what the size limit is for an LG (sorry don't know the exact model) to accept a USB thumbdrive. I tried my external 180GB HDD and it wouldn't recognize that, popped the gf's 1 GB thumbdrive with a movie on it and that seemed to work fine.

I would just like to know if there is a GB size limit that DVD players can handle. The LG DVD player I bought just last week from PowerBuy at the Emporium, comes with USB, DivX etc... so it's fairly new.