Media player/NAS query

[Bahumat]

Hi guys,

Giving up on the Rasperry Pi as it won't be fast enough for my needs (I think???).

I want a device which can be plugged into my TV via either HDMI or USB. The device probably needs an OS for the GUI so it can come with a small hard drive, or I can buy one. The drive only needs to hold the OS, so maybe even running it from USB.

The device will have a portable hard drive plugged in. The device is effectively just a means to allow the TV to play anything I throw at it, so a glorified VLC player if that makes sense.

I would like it so that I can access this device over the network. I can copy files/movies onto the device via the portable drive plugged in.

The idea behind my thinking is this. I have something which can play anything I throw at it, however if a friend invites me over to watch films, I can literally unplug the portable drive, take it to his and plug straight into the TV. Yes maybe his TV will not play a certain file format, but I can live with this.

What's key here is I would not be streaming content from the device to the TV over WiFi. The connection would need to be physical.

 

[Bahumat]

Now that I've written it down it's basically just a small, quiet, unobtrusive PC with an external drive lol. Does anyone know of something that could accomodate my needs?

 

[dysfunction]

An Acer Aspire Revo is really small...

 

[Embattle]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=43&catid=2502&subid=2509

 

[SheepCow]

RaspberryPi will happily do that (1080p video)

 

[Bahumat]

RaspberryPi will happily do that (1080p video)

Sorry for the noob question, but will I be able to use my Windows PC to transfer files onto the USB hard drive which would be plugged into the PI? Can the PC see the Pi like a mapped drive so to speak?

 

[SheepCow]

If you just stick something like Ubuntu on to it then you can literally use VLC to watch on the TV and use Samba (Windows file sharing for *nix) to "share" the USB drive over the network. Then you can copy files around on your desktop/laptop etc.

 

[SheepCow]

My experience (more than a year ago) of Raspberry Pi was XMBC was too slow to be useful, Ubuntu worked fine. There are loads of guides these days to do it "properly" - it's probably the most common use of a pi

 

[dysfunction]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=43&catid=2502&subid=2509

Those are very much like the Acer aspires

 

[soze]

I am using a Zotac mini XS something. I find that when working the RPi was fine when it was not it was a pain to get running. Now this new one was set up once and has worked fine. Well worth the extra money. The IR port means it works with my Harmony too.

But there are other options like The Little Black Box a small XBMC box that works out the box. http://www.amazon.co.uk/the-Little-Black-Box-TLBBV1/dp/B00DW1KZAO I have not tried one but I have read some good reviews.

 

[Hawkwind]

Western Digital TV Live - cheap and plays just about any format you through at it. About 38 GBP in UK.

http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330

 

[Bahumat]

I saw a few reviews saying the WD stuff was not very good. I was surprised as they make good hard drives. So far the link @Embattle posted is looking like the favourite.

 

[Moriath]

I have a wdtv live and never had any problems with it

 

[Embattle]

I've had a WDTV and have had the odd niggle but nothing major, personally I've got a Roku 3 now but it is more limited in some ways than the WDTV unless you've the right setup.

 

[MYstIC G]

Sorry for the noob question, but will I be able to use my Windows PC to transfer files onto the USB hard drive which would be plugged into the PI? Can the PC see the Pi like a mapped drive so to speak?

RasPi + OpenElec.

Hook it up, OpenElec has default windows shares done by default.

The complicated bit in this scenario would be issuing the right command to symlink whatever your storage device is onto one of the pre-shared folders.

To get around that personally I'd just unplug the storage device and stick it into the PC to transfer direct. That would be quicker than anything over the network tbfh.