Connect an External Hard Drive to Bravia-40HX750 via USB

[jioann]

I recently bought a Seagate External Portable Hard Drive 500GB, I downloaded some MKV movies and I Connected it to my Sony Bravia-40HX750. The Unit was recognized as an external Drive, but I couldn't play the MKV files.

Searching the Sony menu, a message displayed that in order to read the External Seagate drive, it should be re-formatted(I suppose so) and the Data should be lost.

I accepted it, the disk was re-formatted and  now I can programme to write programs from Sony Tv to the External Disk and I also can play them. So it works fine with the Sony TV.

The problem is that the so re-formatted Seagate is not recognized from my Desktop PC, using Win7 or from my Play Station 3. Is there any idea on how can I play the unit on both environments, or how can I format it to play in my Desktop ??

Thanks  

[Bravia55HX]

Hi,

this catches many people out and unfortunately the drive cannot be used for both, once formatted and registered for use on the tv it will only work on said tv, on the other hand once de registered and re formatted by the pc it will work on the pc, however i dont know why HDD 's fail to find movies stored on it from another soarce ( namely films loaded from the pc ) there is something to do with the fact that the drive has to be formatted in FAT32 but as i understand it theres a limit on file size ( 4gb chunks ) which is not really helpful, thank god i dont use one!

[rahulchauhan]

I was too hurt by the fact that the ntfs formatted HDD are not recognized. But you can format it and change the filesystem to extFS and then it should allow you to store files bigger than 4GB. The only issue is that the mkv files are not recognized and you would have to convert the mkv's to mp4 or avi or m2ts formats. Please let me know if you need more information as I had spent 2 weeks over this and have found a few work-able options.

[Bravia55HX]

you can play mkv files on your tv if you use Homestream, perhaps you have heard of this?, thats why i dont bother with HDD, my movie files on my laptop can be streamed straight to the tv, you can find what you need in the link below.

http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/1237485339460

[jioann]

Thanks for your prompt reply.

I will keep this external drive connected to Sony TV and I will buy another one connected to my local network.

[jioann]

In my own Home I have solved the problem of seeing videos from anyroom, because I have installed a local network with 2 PC's(Wind.8) 1 laptop(Win.7), 3 WD External Storage devices and 1 htpc(Win.7) in the Lounge with my Sony KDL-47X3000 connected to the HTPC. I can see any kind of Video File fromanywhere.

The problem arrises when I tried to Send to to my daughter's house, far from my own, some videos to see on her Sony 40HX750 TV.

I downloaded for her some MKV videos to the Seagare external portable device, but it is not recognized by her Sony 40HX750 TV.

I tried to connect her to my local network, using the TeamViewer app. It works but it is very slow.

So, any ideas are well accepted. Thanks

[Nielsen]

Forget about USB and establish a home network at your daughter's place. Use a desktop/laptop as server and HD storage at her place. You are probably already deploying this given your home network experience.:smileyhappy:

[Mattyla666]

I use free software like Any Video Convertor or handbrake to create mp4 files that are 720p and have a frame rate of 29fps. So far they have all worked on my Bravia TV straight from a 8gb USB stick.

[Dhep123]

Hi i bought seagate hard drive for my Sony bravia kdl 40cx520 an it won't play what do I do to get it to play when I plug the device in it says something about register for recording but it will wipe all of my hard drive??? Need help!!

[Anonymous]

Hi Dhep123

Dont register the HDD - this is for TV recording ONLY.  It will wipe all the files. 

Firstly, the HDD must be formatted using the FAT32 Filesystem.  More than likely it was setup for NTFS.  This is probably why its not working.  Need to do that first.

The following webpage is what files can be played:

http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/iManuals/eng/CX52x_o32/nt_usb_europe.html

Cheers