External Hard Drive Player

[Glendora Spink]

WindowsMedia Player doesn't recognize my USB external hard drive as a syncable device. If I plug in any USB flash drive, it shows up as a device, but I can't seem to get it to recognize my external hard drive.

It's double-handling, I know, but it's the only way to get exactly what you want out of WMP. Personally I just wanted my 'Top Rated' songs on the harddrive to listen to while playing Xbox, but I also wanted them to remain in their Artist/Album folders for easy selection. This workaround did that for me.

In the thread Windows Media Player 12 and USB Drives, some people have reported successafter reformatting their external drives in NTFS, others rather with FAT32.I have reproduced the problem with my own large external disk, but have no intention of reformatting it.

Some people have tried to solve this problem by keeping their music only on the external drive, since WMP will happily import music files from it.This introduces more problems when the driveis to be turned off, as treated in this article.

In conclusion: You could try to reformat the drive as NTFS or as FAT32 and it might work or not,or some other weird problems might follow this first success. All in all, I think WMP syncfeature is too full of bugs to be called reliable. I really suggest using some other and less problematic sync product.

I spent about 2 days trying to get media player music transferred to my usb stick to play music in my car. Media Player would not recognise usb as a syncable device. The only way I could find to do this is probably a round-a-bout way but at least it worked. I have Windows 7

Since the 11.0.0 update my external USB drive, which had been working perfectly for years, wasn't recognized by my Roku 3. I tried a brand new USB drive of similar type - same result. Both drives are NTFS file systems, both work perfectly when connected to a computer.

I posted a very similar issue to this Support over two weeks ago. It is title "Roku 3 no longer recognizes Seagate external USB". Unfortunately I do not know how to send you a link to this in a reply.

It seems clear that NTFS is broken, though the error message when the connection attempt is made still lists it as one of the acceptable file systems. I would love to know if they intend to fix the technical problem (or correct the error message).

I'm now having the same issue with my Roku 2 4210x. I'll post my device info here in case it helps. serial 5F461E092326, software: 11.0.0 build 4180-04. I've had this external hdd for years along with this roku 2 and no real issues until now. It is no longer recognized by roku media player, yet it was working perfectly a couple of days ago.

This is very upsetting, I have all of my family videos on that hdd ntfs and the family is coming this weekend. Had recently gone through vids of last get together, sliced and diced best clips, came out great and now I can't show them on big screen.

Please, please tech people, put a roll back update button for when these things happen. Tbh, I'd like to have a no update button since everything was working perfectly before. At least we would have an option(s) until you can figure out what went wrong and you wouldn't have to deal with so many people upset, angry or frustrated. I certainly hope this isn't one of those planned obsolescence deals.

Recent firmware update rendered my WD External 2TB Hard drive unavailable. Using Roku Media Player app shows my Server's media center thru WiFi, but no longer shows my USB drive connection. Drive is formatted as NTFS, and has multiple media formats. While I don't get an error code, or anything related to a problem, I cannot get it to recognize the drive. Happened immediately after update to 11.

It would be tremendously helpful to have a "rollback" or "downrev" option to go back to last version of firmware until this issue can be resolved.

I had the same problem on 2 different TVs with both Roku 3 and Roku 4. Kleinzeit's post pointed me in the right direction for a workaround. The only USB input into my Rokus is via 128GB USB sticks which were formatted NTFS. I copied the sticks to my PC, reformatted as FAT32 (NOT exFAT32!), reloaded, and was back in business. I suspect the problem is either sloppy testing or planned obsolescence.

I was told I can connect an external hard drive through the ethernet port but there is no information on the Sonos website on how to do this. I put all my MP3s and MP4s on a Sandisk solid state hard drive and and hoped to play them directly from this.

I have multiple DVDs I created years ago with home videos on them - id like to transfer them all to on external hard drive to store them more easily and to be able to replay them on my MacBook if I want to. the videos on the dvds are stored in UDF format

I bought a superdrive to "play them" on my Mac and they do play. I used disk utility to copy them to my MacBook reformatting them to dvd/cd master format - I then copied them to the external hard drive. I have only done 3 dvds so far but when I go back to see if they can play from the external hard drive using the DVD player on my MacBook -- only one plays no matter which one I select. what have I done wrong? thank you for any help!!

You will then be able to play your videos on your computer, tablet, phone or TV (if they are stored on a USB stick or hard drive). You will also be able to upload them to the cloud so that your friends and relatives will be able to download or view them from anywhere in the world . . . all completely free of charge.

Have a ROKU device. I wish to hook up my external hard drive and view videos directly from USB onto ROKU. However, their media player really sucks. Is the Emby app a good app for this? The hard drive is a Mac OS Extended format or HFS. All vids are MP4s. The regular Roku media player works but is limited and really sucks. I want something with better options for fast forward and rewinds and slow motion forward and slow motion rewind at variable speeds if such an app on the ROKU exists. Is the Emby app a good selection for this, or should I choose a different app. Thanks.

I do not believe it is because Emby requires a server and its server must run on a PC of some sort and I believe that computers on the network cannot access storage connected to the Roku's USB port. That means that the Emby server cannot serve the content.

I just looked and it seem the only survivor in the Streaming apps section is ;

"Shelby Usb Media Player"

I have absolutely no idea if the quality of the app is any good or really if it will do what you want.

Maybe I should just use the Zune player instead? Unfortunately, by default, Zune relies on the Windows Media Player library settings, so to break the dependency I have to go into Zune settings and unlink the Zune folders from the windows libraries.

Now I can add the Music folder from the external USB drive and Zune will automatically index the folder and pick up changes to the contents, just as I wanted. And it does it without keeping the drive locked when I exit the program.

You can connect an external hard disk drive (USB storage) to the EXT port on the rear panel of the HDD AUDIO PLAYER. The music files transferred from your computer to the external hard disk drive can be played in the same way as music files stored in the internal hard disk drive of the HDD AUDIO PLAYER.

You should see a therapist. The point is not being locked into your TV and the device that recorded it (like my Channel Master that died). The point is being able to play the shows on your Laptop with a standard media player program, for example.

The idea is that if you were concerned about recordings on a USB drive that is spinning away, why would you wait until now before thinking about saving them. Ths USB HDD could have crashed at any point in the last 3 years. And if it had all those important recordings would have been lost since they had no backup.

Apparently Channel Masters stores the data for playback on on that specific DVR, puts a lock on the files. I researched it. Apparently a Linux machine running a program to strip the lock and convert it to a format most media players will handle is out there. I wonder of VLC would work.

I do not have Linux running on any of my machine but might try it. At this point it is more for the challenge and learning. Good excuse to spool up on Linux. I used it long ago but only causally. I would like to experiment.

Tablo going to free schedule is a winner. The Channel Master also has (#had#) free schedule and why I used them. The first one I had was CM DVR+. Great unit but it died after a fwe years. The one I have now is the CM CM-7600 Media Player. The software is not as good as the DVR+ but gets the job done. It has built in WiFi for schedule and streaming content, but is HDMI wired to one TV.

The Tablo WiFi to TV / Tablet / Phone, running Tablo App and free schedule, and price is why I bought it. Into it about almost 2 weeks of a a rough honeymoon but getting better. Besides the $100 Tablo I had to add $110, for a 2TB HDD and two Roku 4K sticks (thankfully on sale). The Roku Express I tried first would not stream properly. The Roku 4K sticks are better.

I still occasionally have a recorded show screen and audio get out of sync. Not all shows just one channel and not all shows. It is a sub channel on (ION). I have pretty good antenna and the signal seems strong. Not sure what the deal is, but does not love the standard definition SD show. Not all shows on this channel have playback issues. Not sure but all the other principle channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS) seem to be OK.

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