Media shearing for NAS to TV

[confuzzled11]

What is the best way to share video media from a NAS drive to a TV? HDMI port would be nice. Running network cables is not a problem.

 

[ryanmission]

I have never heard of a NAS with HDMI. And even if it did...it would have to rely on either the TV or the NAS itself to run the movie. Im pretty sure you need an intermediate device such as a PC, or HTPC.

You'd have your NAS connected to your router, and your PC connected to the router, with the TV connected to your PC.

 

[confuzzled11]

The movie will be stored on the NAS drive I just want to view it from the TV and need a way to do it without having to locate a PC at the TV.

 

[ryanmission]

Well...ethernet doesnt work over HDMI...so there's no way to get the movie from the NAS to the TV, and i doubt your TV has an ethernet port.

 

[confuzzled11]

Looks like a WD TV Live box will do the job. Anyone using one?

 

[kisos]

confuzzled11, I have just the thing for you. What you need is Imation's Media HDD Pro. It is a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) with the following:

1. A 500 GB hard disk inside of it.
2. RCA (or phono as they are sometimes called) sockets, both in and out to allow you to record from any video source and play on any TV.
3. Component and S/PDIF out sockets to watch your videos on any TV and direct the audio to a HiFi system.
4. HDMI out socket
5. USB A socket to allow connection of a Wireless dongle to connect to your wireless network, or you may connect a USB flash disk and play movies/photos off that flash disk without having to copy it first to the internal 500 GB hard disk.
6. USB B socket to allow you to connect it directly to your PC and use it as a regular external USB-connected hard disk
7. Finally, a 10/100TBase ethernet port to connect it via an ethernet patch cable to your network.
8. You may play videos stored on your PC directly to your TV if the DVR is connected to your network. You (sort of) log into your PC from the DVR and then browse your PC folders until reach the desired movie and hit play. If your network speed supports it, your movies should play seamlessly.

Here is how I am currenly using it:
1. Record movies from free-to-air satellite receivers and have the DVR record it at DVD quality MPG files. Later on I copy them to my PC and store them on DVDs, either as Video DVD using Windows DVD Maker or as an MPG file.
2. Digitizing all my VCR tapes by connecting my VCR player to the DVR and then burn the MPG file on DVDs as mention above.
3. As an external hard disk connected via either USB or ethernet

A note on speed of data transfer: a two-hour DVD quality movies takes up 4.7 GB of disk space and this is the file size I usually deal with because I record a lot of movies. The fastet speed I have managed to squeeze out of the DVR when copying files was 30 Mbytes/s i.e 240 Mbits/s which is pretty good. This means that a 4.7 Gbyte movie should take less than 3 minutes to copy. However, using ethernet, the maximum speed I managed squeeze out was 1.875 Mbytes/s i.e. 15 Mbits/s. This means that the same movie should take around 42 mins to copy; pretty slow. I am still searching for a solution to that problem.

I hope this was useful.

 

[confuzzled11]

I have not been able to find it for sale in the US.

 

[kisos]

I wish I could help you with that. I bought it in Kuwait from a store called Jarir http://www.jarirbookstore.com. It is a Saudi chain with a couple of branches in Kuwait. I've called them by phone to check if they would ship it to you in the US if you paid them first, but they don't do that anymore. If you know somebody in Kuwait who is visiting the US soon you can always ask them. The funny thing is when I have searched the internet for information about this device, I could not find anything official. Here is what it looks like http://www.q8blackmarket.com/2009/10/review-1-tb-media-hdd-pro.html

 

[kisos]

Confuzzed, I've scanned the box as JPG images in case you would like to have a look at them. I just can't figure out how to upload photos to this thread. Any suggestions?