Media Players for TV – mainly for USB content.

This is driving me a bit mad. Have a Sony Bravia Smart TV, and a Smart Sony DVD player. Both have issues reading various formats of content, and as it stands neither of them have any chance of playing a large MKV file.

So rather than faffing about converting files, or giving up altogether, I thought it might be worth buying some new hardware. Something to plug and play. I see there are USB players on eBay for about £20, but I’m wondering if anyone has any particular recommendations. As I say, we already have Smart TV, but it crossed my mind that maybe there’s some boxes with some really useful features that I don’t know about? It’s just an area I have very little knowledge of, and I know if I buy something that plays my humble little USB for £20, I’ll soon find something that does that AND has a full selection of 80s computer games for £24. So I’m asking the question first.

Ps3

Don’t put ideas like that into my head. I’m looking for something cheap 🙂

If you like fettling..get a Raspberry Pi and an SD card, load OpenElec/kodi on to it, depending on what MKV they are you may need to splash out a couple of quid on a MPEG codec for the Pi as well. You should be able to set it up as a networked media centre as well as/instead of a USB player too. A bit faffy at first while setting up, but makes a good stable player, likely to operate using tellys remote too. I’ve done it with a Pi – it passes the Missus/kids simplicity to use test. I’d use a Pi2 if I was doing it now.

Install Serviio on your PC and stream it to the DVD player (assuming it’s “smart” enough to support DLNA).

I use a Raspberry Pi and even with the two extra codecs I’ve had to re-rip quite a few of my films to get it to play them successfully.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1123481999/remix-mini-the-worlds-first-true-android-pc

Worth a shot at that price.

Surprised by that Rockhopper… Ive Never had a file that OpenElec wouldn’t play

Raspberry Pi 2 with osmc hasn’t had any issue with anything I throw at it.

The minix windows 8 box is prob what I would go for if doing it again as you can get hd Netflix and all the other streaming sites (Netflix doesn’t do HS as well on android/pi builds from my experience)

Minix about £130 with a decent sized usb HD

I get sound but no picture, can’t remember which format it has trouble with, think its an older AVI?

Media server sounds interesting. Pretty sure Sony support DLNA.

Chromecast?

Assumes you have a laptop / PC nearby with the mkv file – then cast it to the TV with the Chromecast.

I run a Chromecast with my Sony Bravia TV and it’s a neat bit of kit – works with Netflix, Youtube, RedBull etc

I bought a cyclone Media player from Amazon for about £30. Plugs into an HDMI slot, powered by USB from the telly. Plays fine from usb and will stream content from the network: it even works over wireless. Not found anything yet that it won’t play

I too would suggest Chromecast and stream to it from your computer. FWIW Imoften take a streaming device on holiday with content on the phone/tablet and app streaming to hotel/apartment TV via their WiFi

I looked at using a Chromecast, but the downside is that it MUST be connected to the internet. My media player will work over a WiFi hotspot if need be