so i’ve got an Apple extreme wireless router, two Samsung smart tvs and a hard drive plugged into the router, i can see the files on the drive on my mac but not on either of the tvs but i can connect to the internet on both. Any ideas what im doing wrong?

Have you checked the file types that your TVs can read?

Occasionally our TV just plain refuses to see a file that other devices can see… It doesn’t happen with any particular file type, though, so it’s almost impossible to solve.

Can you specify the IP address and name of the shared disk or does the samsung need to see the drive first before connecting to it?

A quick google came up with this:

download “PC Share Manager” app for the TV and it should let you see network drives and PC share folders.

Smart TVs are not actually that smart.

Yes, not using Apple TV. Media in iTunes and use Apple TV to get on the big screen and stereo. Easy. Granted if you have an eclectic mix of acquired media of different formats you might have some work to get to this stage, so I can understand why you might not want to…

The first thing that springs to mind is that you don’t mention any DLNA servers. I don’t know how or even if your Smart TV can see networked media if it is not served up using DLNA. Twonky is an example of DLNA server software for the Mac.

I’ve experimented with DLNA Servers on my Mac serving up my Sony BD player which is DLNA compatible. It was a faff compared to iTune and Apple TV.

Oops, just re-read your post Wolly. Probably the file format is not supported by the TV. Encode the files in something it can read or go with a better solution.

using the supplied talk talk router instead of the Apple i could see the files on both tvs so i think the formats are correct.is there such a thing as a stand alone dlna server without having either a computer/console turned on?

Some NAS have a DLNA server built in, but you shouldn’t need it really. Your TV may not support the sharing protocol the AE uses (forgotten what it is now).

Quite a few external HDDs have DLNA servers built in. I’m no expert, so will have to defer you to Google at this point. I went the Apple TV route simply so I didn’t have to become an expert 🙂 However, I just leave my Mac on unless I’m away for a few days. I use it every day for several hours a day and it probably uses more electricity cold-booting it every day than just letting it sleep. OSX has a wake for network access feature that works reasonably reliably with the Apple TV. Since you have an Airport Extreme I suspect it will work even better for you.

Thanks for the replies, after a bit of googling i think something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Personal-Cloud-Storage-Network-Attached/dp/B00499DMRQ/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t should do the job

Plex is also a pretty good server – don’t know if there is a Mac version. The PC version is free, but the app for iOS is a couple of quid, I think. This enables you to watch any type of video file on an iDevice as it re-encodes the files it serves on the fly.

I’ve used Plex on an old Mac Mini and it works well with a Samsung Smart TV so that’s an option. Other possibility is a Raspberry Pi running xbmc which will play pretty much any format from a network drive – Easy to set up (almost 1 click) and cheap. I’ve got one plugged into a Panasonic TV and it’s really good – you can even control it using the TV remote.

Samsung Smart TV’s require the HD to be plugged into the TV’s USB socket, or it can connect to a DLNA server across the network.

The WD My Book Live will do the trick. 😉