Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Playing DVD from external hard drive

Hi,

I would like to burn all my dvds on an external hard drive and connect it directly to my Denon 3808 via USB and watch movies. Is that possible?

Do I need any software installed on the hard drive and what format should I be using to save the dvds?

Thanks

Sam

Just to be more specific, I use a mac and mactheripper would be the software I would use to back up the DVDs

thanks

Sam

No it's possible because you're 3808 isn't loaded with the codecs required to play the movies, although it is my understanding that it would work with something like an Oppo DVD player, but I could be wrong.

I don't think the USB connectors would work for movies, the 3808 has no codecs for movies only audio. You would need to have some sort of playback codecs on the external drive and a processor to use the codecs to output the converted signal to the 3808, basically a HTPC.

Jason, do you have an iPod etc.?? Reason why I'm asking is because I have a Zune player and I can hook it up to my 3808 and play music and video from it. Do portable media players have codecs installed on them?

Just did a quick search, and my Zune player does come loaded with codecs, allowing video output.

Ipods do have the video codecs but they are a minicomputer these days, more so than an external HDD.

Cam, your Zune doesn't output the video over USB though, does it? Certainly iPods and Zunes will output video over a composite or s-vid connection.

You need a media player. Look at Popcorn Hour, they have nice systems for reasonable price (I have their 100 model).

I've seen Composite to USB adapters though, which I would think would work. but why would you do that when you could just hook up the RCA to the video in connection

No it doesn't, you're right, it's outputted through video connectors from the Zune dock

Does the 3808 have the software to opperate a hard drive?

Fred, when I was wondering if my Seagate external hard drive would connect to my 3808 I'm pretty sure someone in the forum successfully connected their external hard drive to their 3808.

Sure it does, but I think it only decodes MP3s on that drive. A hard drive formatted in FAT32 is the same (as far as a computer's concerned) as a flash drive.

Yeah, the zune only plays *.wmv movies by default.. but you can convert to that format from others to make it work. From my experience any time I tried to play a movie from my zune on my 50" tv it looked like crap.

Hmm. So if Denon chose to, they could provide support to decode other audio formats (as long as there is enough onboard processing power).

It will decode any audio format it is programmed with, it covers the usual suspects, FLAC, WMA, MP3, ACC, etc. from a hard drive. All Denon would have to do is add video codecs and possibly a stronger processor to do video from a HDD.

I suppose they could, but they're likely worried about getting pushback from the media conglomerates (guess who has too much power).

Attaching a HDD to the 3808 is only going to get you music & pics.

SAM - Do you have a PS3? If so, you could plug your HDD into the PS3 and get at your DVDs that way. Here is a threadthat goes into great detail about that.

Unfortunately, the thread is Windows-centric and you mentioned you have a Mac. While MTR will rip a DVD, you need to get it into a single .vob file (of less than 4GB) and load it onto a HDD that is formatted in FAT32.

Read throught the thread to see what I am talking about. Alos, you may be able to find some info at Videohelp.com about the .vob file thing. That would really be the only problem.

Does your graphics card have s video out? You could just hook your pc up to the Denon or straight to the TV for the Video and run a cable from the line out on the soundcard to the Denon.

Play the movie on your PC using any player you like and watch it on your HT.

I used to that with mine, my PC is 30 feet from the TV.

This looks pretty cool.

I think you found something you could plug into the USB and play movies with on the 3808.

Hi,

That does look quite cool. I will do some research into this gadget. Thank you all for your help

Sam

You could always call Geek Squad for help:

Newegg has the unit for $119 ($30 rebate)

After a lot of frustrating work messing around with different codecs, I have overcome the 4GB, FAT32 limit via my PS3 by using a product called TVersity on my computer that streams to my PS3 wirelessly and freely reads NTFS drives for files as big as you need.

No good for a Mac though.

I realy only restate it as a warning to those who are considering using it and are not familiar with codec usage. It works flawlessly once you get it tweaked but it's not for those without patience and some PC video format experience.

For the Mac, if you really need to use NTFS, you can use MacFUSE. I haven't used it for awhile, but it seems to work ok.

Macs read NTFS natively. You only need MacFUSE if you want to write to NTFS.

Ken has a point.

I'm not Ken, Calvin.

Lord help us!

LMAO.