Some time ago I resolved that it would be preferable to watch videos I’ve accumulated on my 46 inch “smart” TV than on a computer monitor. At first I would transfer the files to my Toshiba 1TB portable HDD, plug it into the TV, and that would be that. This is when I started being annoyed with some of my older TV’s issues;
1) No Wifi
2) Tells me “Format not supported” even though other video files of same format play.
3) Strange buffer limit based on time instead of file size where this TV will not play any video past the 2 hour and 12 minute mark.
I got tired of splitting videos into segments, not to mention converting a video to a usable (MP4) format, so I eventually hooked an old computer up to the TV via HDMI and bought a nice little Logitech WiFi keyboard. This computer was running Windows XP, had about 600Gb of HDD storage, and was WiFi networked to my other machines. Also, by playing videos on the installed VCL player I had overcome all the shortfalls that just plugging the portable HDD into the TV had presented. Then that computer died.
Since I still do all of my CD ripping and internet downloading of videos from other XP machines in my office, I especially liked the WiFi connection to the TV computer. Instead of hauling a portable HDD back and forth as this made things easier.
My girlfriend had given me an HP Notebook she regretted ever buying, and I used it to replace the deceased previous computer. This little thing has the Windows 7 Home Premium OS, and almost nothing for storage space. It came with a 39Gb solid state storage card, so there’s very little space left after installing any OS. Obviously I would need to use external storage devices if I wanted to emulate the previous setup.
I had already bought one of these micro (U-drive?) thumb drives that are close to the size of my thumb nail, but supposedly holds 500Gb. It’s a USB 2.0 drive that came formatted as ExFat, and has been very flakey ever since I started playing with it. When ever I’ve attempted to copy files to this little drive from an XP machine, I will get nothing but grief when I then plug the device into the Windows 7 Notebook. Usually the “Check Disk” box pops up immediately and reports the device has no errors and is working fine, but then I won’t be able to access some (or all) of the data placed on the device. “This folder is corrupt and cannot be read”.
I’m fairly certain it’s not a GPT drive since the XP machines can access it, and I do have the ExFat drivers installed on the XP machines as well, so I’m scratching my head as to why the conflict. On the other hand, I have zero problems when I use my 1TB Toshiba portable drive instead.
I’ve attempted more approaches to resolving this issue than I can remember now, including destroying the partition on the thumb drive, using various formats including Fat32, NTFS, ExFat. Doing this via the Win7, XP, and even Linux OS’s. All for not. Even when I’ve left the drive in the Win7 machine and it was freshly formatted, any data I transferred to the drive via the WiFi network might be there one day and gone the next time I boot up that machine. Unless someone has a clue I’m missing, it seems to me that this product is junk.
My Toshiba drive, even at 1TB, is getting stuffed since I also use it for other things, so I decided to buy a bigger drive and just be done with this little thumb drive. This is when I came across some information that XP supposedly cannot work with GPT drives at all, and cannot access drives that are over 2TB is size, but the info I’ve been reading is not consistent. Some articles say the limit is not on HDD size, but rather on partition size.
Some articles claim that XP cannot, or will not boot from GPT drives unless you first install something called a “Paragon GPT Loader”, while others say XP won’t even boot properly (BSOD) if even an MBR drive larger than 2TB is detected. I haven’t dealt with any of the above, so I really don’t know. I’d hate to spend around USD $100 for a drive that XP cannot use.
Until TV’s come out that have built in mass data storage, and no buffer when trying to play very long videos, I’ll still be brain storming on the best strategy for the time being. I guess I could buy a larger (4TB) portable drive and copy files to it using Linux (if XP won’t work), but that will be a PITA as I’m constantly updating my video collection.
I don’t have any experience with GPT drives, or portable drives over 1TB, so any suggestions would be appreciated.
1) No Wifi
2) Tells me “Format not supported” even though other video files of same format play.
3) Strange buffer limit based on time instead of file size where this TV will not play any video past the 2 hour and 12 minute mark.
I got tired of splitting videos into segments, not to mention converting a video to a usable (MP4) format, so I eventually hooked an old computer up to the TV via HDMI and bought a nice little Logitech WiFi keyboard. This computer was running Windows XP, had about 600Gb of HDD storage, and was WiFi networked to my other machines. Also, by playing videos on the installed VCL player I had overcome all the shortfalls that just plugging the portable HDD into the TV had presented. Then that computer died.
Since I still do all of my CD ripping and internet downloading of videos from other XP machines in my office, I especially liked the WiFi connection to the TV computer. Instead of hauling a portable HDD back and forth as this made things easier.
My girlfriend had given me an HP Notebook she regretted ever buying, and I used it to replace the deceased previous computer. This little thing has the Windows 7 Home Premium OS, and almost nothing for storage space. It came with a 39Gb solid state storage card, so there’s very little space left after installing any OS. Obviously I would need to use external storage devices if I wanted to emulate the previous setup.
I had already bought one of these micro (U-drive?) thumb drives that are close to the size of my thumb nail, but supposedly holds 500Gb. It’s a USB 2.0 drive that came formatted as ExFat, and has been very flakey ever since I started playing with it. When ever I’ve attempted to copy files to this little drive from an XP machine, I will get nothing but grief when I then plug the device into the Windows 7 Notebook. Usually the “Check Disk” box pops up immediately and reports the device has no errors and is working fine, but then I won’t be able to access some (or all) of the data placed on the device. “This folder is corrupt and cannot be read”.
I’m fairly certain it’s not a GPT drive since the XP machines can access it, and I do have the ExFat drivers installed on the XP machines as well, so I’m scratching my head as to why the conflict. On the other hand, I have zero problems when I use my 1TB Toshiba portable drive instead.
I’ve attempted more approaches to resolving this issue than I can remember now, including destroying the partition on the thumb drive, using various formats including Fat32, NTFS, ExFat. Doing this via the Win7, XP, and even Linux OS’s. All for not. Even when I’ve left the drive in the Win7 machine and it was freshly formatted, any data I transferred to the drive via the WiFi network might be there one day and gone the next time I boot up that machine. Unless someone has a clue I’m missing, it seems to me that this product is junk.
My Toshiba drive, even at 1TB, is getting stuffed since I also use it for other things, so I decided to buy a bigger drive and just be done with this little thumb drive. This is when I came across some information that XP supposedly cannot work with GPT drives at all, and cannot access drives that are over 2TB is size, but the info I’ve been reading is not consistent. Some articles say the limit is not on HDD size, but rather on partition size.
Some articles claim that XP cannot, or will not boot from GPT drives unless you first install something called a “Paragon GPT Loader”, while others say XP won’t even boot properly (BSOD) if even an MBR drive larger than 2TB is detected. I haven’t dealt with any of the above, so I really don’t know. I’d hate to spend around USD $100 for a drive that XP cannot use.
Until TV’s come out that have built in mass data storage, and no buffer when trying to play very long videos, I’ll still be brain storming on the best strategy for the time being. I guess I could buy a larger (4TB) portable drive and copy files to it using Linux (if XP won’t work), but that will be a PITA as I’m constantly updating my video collection.
I don’t have any experience with GPT drives, or portable drives over 1TB, so any suggestions would be appreciated.