Hi,

I’ve got a USB hard drive that I’ve filled with movies which I intended on connecting to my Mums TV. However, the TV is quite fussy about the file format and won’t play about half the films.

Is there a really basic media player type thing that will connect to the tele via hdmi and read files from the USB drive? Obviously, good codec support is a must as is a basic and easy to navigate interface.

Ta!

plug the USB drive into a Raspberry Pi running RasBMC (which is just XBMC). Possible to control it with the TV remote depending upon the make of TV otherwise just use a keyboard.
Really pretty simple to set up and works very very well.

Which file formats will it play ? Convert the films to that format, I use Handbrake, its free.

I Have a mede8er 600: http://www.mede8erforum.com

It plays everything I’ve thrown at it, even Divx1,2,3 with a software tweak.

I have a Crystal Acoustics Media Matchbox(which is for sale BTW)
Not found a file format that it wont play, it has a USB port and have used it with USB Hard-drives and thumbdrives.
It also has a SD card slot which I used a lot.
The remotes quite basic but works, PM me if your interested as dont want much for it.
Using a hacked Now TV box for streaming content instead now.

The Raspberry PI is equally fussy about the formats it will play even if you do pay for and download the codecs.