DVD HDD Recorders with USB input

[TheGhostOfJohnBelushi]

Does anyone know if you can whack an external hard drive into the USB port of a DVD HDD recorder and put divx video onto the recorder's hard drive?

Or are they just for photos and audio?

 

[Xtreme]

Depends on if it is one of the functions of the DVD HDD recorder.

Some might be able to, but the few recorders i've seen and the one that i own only use the usb slot for a usb keyboard input OR to use usb flash drives so that you can view photos on.

 

[TheGhostOfJohnBelushi]

ever tried a divx movie from your flash drive?

 

[Mancey]

I was looking about 6 months ago for one that did exactly that mate. There were some, like the Philips, that had a usb slot, but it was for music and photos only i think, definately not video. It could have changed since then but i doubt it.

Then the xbox 360 got divx support and allowed you to plug in an external hard drive to play divx files, and i no longer required it in a HDD player. The 360 does exactly what you require perfectly, maybe worth considering?

 

[Xtreme]

ever tried a divx movie from your flash drive?

Nah it only does photos and can be used for a usb keyboard to type in title names for recordings.

If there are dvd-hdd recorders out there that say they are divx compatible and have a usb slot, there is a good chance connecting an external drive that has divx encoded videos will work. I'd ask the sales person if you could test it out, if you found one.

I wasn't sold on the Xbox 360's DIVX compatibility, i worked out some time ago that the reason why they didn't play on my console was because i didn't encode the audio into a divx format the 360 recognised .

 

[Mancey]

I wasn't sold on the Xbox 360's DIVX compatibility, i worked out some time ago that the reason why they didn't play on my console was because i didn't encode the audio into a divx format the 360 recognised .

Have you tried it since the december 2007 update? "Some time ago", makes it sound like you haven't

It'll play anything encoded with post divx 5.0, which is pretty much anyting you'l download these days. I don't have any current (last 2 years) movies or TV shows that won't play on my 360

 

[Xtreme]

Yeah mate, i have... the issues i have with it are the videos i record via a digital tv capture card and then encode to divx format. I worked out what the problem was in the end though, when i encoded to divx format i'd get the video quality right.... but i left the audio format on the default value. If i choose another setting other than the default (eg: mp3) it works and plays on the 360.

But yeah, videos i've collected from the internet (eg: heroes) work no problems

 

[Mancey]

Cool mate, just checking

Few mates of mine never knew the update included divx support. All of them have been stoked to find out.

 

[TheGhostOfJohnBelushi]

Thanks guys

Pretty much all of them now are DivX compatible, but sales guys don't seem to think it plays from an external USB connected source.

It's not a major issue if it doesn't... I can just burn onto a RW... it's just more of a convenience thing.

Would be useful to whack music onto for parties, though.

 

[Dude Lebowski]

I bought a Conia MR2501HD-250Gb from catchoftheday for $240 with shipping a few months ago. Does pretty much the same job as the bigger brands, but just lacks some features. The menus etc are a bit plain and navigating previous recordings isn't overly smooth. But what do you expect I guess. Most big brands are up around $1000 for a 250gb.

It has a USB plugin which I us a MMC/SD card into a USB adapter. It can play DIVX, MP3, PICS etc, but there are some restrictions. You can't fast forward, only pause, skip, play. Some movies are a bit stuttery, I think this is down to the size and encoding or it may be down to the fact that I don't have a proper flash USB drive plugged in. It's fine for TV shows etc though, as I haven't noticed any stuttering. Haven't tried a portable USB HD to see if that works. You can only copy files from the USB drive to a blank CD/DVD, which is quite pointless. But I know there is a Wintal system which is about $70 more that can copy to your HD.

 

[Gilbo19]

Yeah I have one that I can hook my external up to and I still have all the file structures....
Can view almost all file types including DivX

 

[Caj]

What have you got Gilbo?