What is the easiest way to play my videos on my TV?

[SamIchi]

While I work, I like to have background noise, and I usually just play my library of tv shows on random via VLC player on an external monitor. I would like to free up some resources on my machine, and have them play on my TV.

What's the best device for this? I've used Apple TV at my parents and it seems a bit limiting, and the one time I tried streaming, it took a long time to buffer. Also I'm not sure how to put my video files into it. Can I transfer my videos to Apple TV? Or is it just streaming?

Is there something I can just fill an external HD, or SD card and connect it to my tv to play? I have an iPad and connected it via HDMI adapter, and played a video through Dropbox, and it was cropped all weird. Does it do the same thing when synced via iTunes?

I can't be the only one, let me know what you guys think is the easiest way to accomplish this. Thanks.

 

[Dave Braine]

Is there something I can just fill an external HD, or SD card and connect it to my tv to play?

Depends on your TV. Some TVs have a USB socket, but they require a specific movie format, often mp4, in order to play them.

 

[SamIchi]

Depends on your TV. Some TVs have a USB socket, but they require a specific movie format, often mp4, in order to play them.

Hmm just looked it up. It says there is video playback via USB. That's really convenient. It's been a while since I've actually had use of a TV. I didn't know it could do that. Thanks man, I've kind of just ruled out TV's being technologically advanced