[Britishlad252]

Im new to all this and not sure if this is possible but ill thought ill ask the question and see if anyone can help.

I have a Sony KDL-40 EX-503 TV with a Panasonic BTT270 Blu Ray Home Cinema system. Is there a way of purchasing a external hard drive, store all my (purchased) dvds on and then watch them on the television with the surround sound (without having the computer running aswell as the TV on?

(1) Also if its possible, what DVD burning/converting software is best? I dont mind paying, just would want something easy to use.

(2) What are the best external hard drives?

Thanks in advance

[Britishlad252]

Ive been doing abit more research and ive found that my blu ray player is DLNA certified, am I right in thinking this would allow me to stream via a wireless network dongle from an compatible external hard drive?

[mcspongy]

Originally Posted by Britishlad252

Ive been doing abit more research and ive found that my blu ray player is DLNA certified, am I right in thinking this would allow me to stream via a wireless network dongle from an compatible external hard drive?

Hi

Best to have a look at the Home Entertainment Players/ network and media players section for more info on this - there is a sticky thread for advice on ripping DVDs and blu rays.

To answer your questions as much as I can:

You could connect your external drive directly to your BD player if it can play relevant file types which you have ripped via your PC onto the external drive.

I dont think you could stream something wirelessly from the drive unless it was attached to your PC running some media server software at the same time, or instead use a dedicated media player possibly in conjunction with a NAS. Besides which streaming wirelessly is prone to stuttering so better to use a wired connection or home plugs.

If you did connect drive directly to your BD you might hear the HDD spinning so another reason to potentially want to use a NAS (but main purpose of NAS is so you can access files from different locations, whatever's connected to your network, which it doesn't sound like you need).

There is plenty of free downloadable software that can rip DVDs, e.g. MakeMKV, AnyDvd.

[mcspongy]

I've just looked at a review of the panny all-in-one system. It says it can play MKVs so I would say MakeMKV could well be the best choice of software to rip your DVDs. It is free to use as still in beta.

Be careful though (check the Panny's manual) - I have a slightly older Sony BD player which I can stream MKVs to and it has built in wireless but it stutters (when I've used Servio to stream from my laptop). It also has a USB port for attaching an external drive, but it cannot read MKVs from this connection, but hopefully yours can.