Playing movies from a external hard drive through macbook on tv

[zimops]

Hi everyone,

I just have one quick question before I buy an external hard drive. My hard drive is getting quite packed with media so I was wondering if it's possible to play movies (mostly 720p if that matters) through my mac on my tv?

Thanks in advance

 

[8CoreWhore]

We need to know which Mac you have = what ports? Mini-display port? And What inputs on TV - HDMI?

If you have those two, you can get a mini-displayport to HDMI adapter and watch videos on your TV. I got my adapter from: http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10428

Way cheaper than anywhere, based in CA, good quality.

I'd get whatever other cables you need there as well. If you go the HDMI route, it carries both video and audio.

I'd also install XBMC on your Mac. It's free and works great, and you can control it with your Apple Remote or iPhone with the XBMC remote app. 🙂

http://xbmc.org/about/

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xbmc-remote/id289316916?mt=8 ($2.99) There's an HD one for iPad.

Maybe someone else can chime in about HDCP on iTunes bought movies...??

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As long as the ext HDD is mounted on your Mac, you can play content from it as well as your Mac's internal HDD and DVD player.

==

Can we get this thread moved to the home theater forum? Guys there know a ton.

 

[johnnyturbouk]

do you own a ps3? - problem solved

or you could store movies on external hdd; then stream to apple tv/ps3

 

[jvmxtra]

It seems like wasting a good resource by using mbp to play it on tv screen.
I suggest just buying apple tv to hook it up to your tv and free your mbp.

 

[8CoreWhore]

Personally, I use AppleTV2 JB'd with XBMC on it, plugged into my AEBS through CAT5 Ethernet (you could use WiFi), and I have a USB Ext. HDD plugged into my AEBS... it's awesome. Love it. Plays AVI, MKV, etc. 😉 $99 bucks.

 

[s.hasan546]

Personally, I use AppleTV2 JB'd with XBMC on it, plugged into my AEBS through CAT5 Ethernet (you could use WiFi), and I have a USB Ext. HDD plugged into my AEBS... it's awesome. Love it. Plays AVI, MKV, etc. 😉 $99 bucks.

I do the same thing except with out XBMC. ill give XBMC a try later on i just got the apple tv.

For now i have a 1 tb HDD connected to the AEBS and have it synced to my Macbook pro and pc desktop itunes and all that streams to Tv. Just make sure you don't have it set to "copy media into itunes folder" or else its kinda pointless.

Also you can use handbrake or i use dvd cat on PC. DVD cat is amazing. I convert 720p blurays to mp4 formats and it retains quality well. I wouldn't decode on your mbp tho. I use my 16gb ram + i7 quad core PC for that. decoding on the mbp makes it slow and loud.

 

[jvmxtra]

What I ultimately want is apple tv(preferably at 3 so that it's more powerful) that can read right off air video server so that I can play everything from my bedroom off of my living server without any other setup.

 

[aznguyen316]

Personally, I use AppleTV2 JB'd with XBMC on it, plugged into my AEBS through CAT5 Ethernet (you could use WiFi), and I have a USB Ext. HDD plugged into my AEBS... it's awesome. Love it. Plays AVI, MKV, etc. 😉 $99 bucks.

I couldn't get it to find my Airport extreme on XBMC.. harmm got any info on getting this set up? I googled it at the time I JB'd and found nothing so I said screw it. I looked up at the settings and it just didn't "see" my HDD. Have no issues file sharing on it though between PC/Mac via airport utility etc. Thanks in advance.