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Unsupported video format hard drive on TV

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Huntershake -  
AluMinioume Posted messages 3107 Registration date   Status Membre Last intervention   -
Hello,

I gave a Toshiba hard drive (all the info below) to a friend two months ago so that he could watch the shows he wants on his little TV (Oceanic, a regular TV with USB and HDMI ports, it's not a smart TV).

However, some formats won't play (more often the video than the audio). So, I bought him a media player (all the info below) to serve as a bridge between the hard drive and the TV, but the problem persists. Ultimately, the media player only allows for "multi" video files to choose the audio language.

From my place, the hard drive works very well; on my PC or my (new) TV, I can play all the files contained on the hard drive without any issues and without the media player.

Example of a video with a video format that is not supported:

https://www.zupimages.net/up/20/09/x0hj.jpg

The hard drive is formatted in NTFS. It is this one:

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B07997KKSK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The media player is as follows:

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B017GZJNM2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So I suspect that the formatting type has nothing to do with it (since it works perfectly on my TV), but I really want to find a solution because I feel like I've given an unnecessary gift and I don't necessarily have the means to buy a smart TV for my friend ^^
Should I buy a better media player? If so, which one?

If you need more information, feel free to ask.

Thank you

2 réponses

Réponse 1 / 2
AluMinioume Posted messages 3107 Registration date   Status Membre Last intervention   582
 
Hello,
There's nothing abnormal about this issue.
Many TVs with built-in players suffer from compatibility problems, often even with formats that are not that exotic. It's well-known because it's often the common ailment of these built-in players.

Indeed, the file system used on the HDD partition doesn't change anything (as long as it's properly detected, as TVs can be picky about that too...).

For your media player, it seems to be a generic model (at least I couldn't pin it down to a specific model from a brand).

The video you provided as an example is encoded in HEVC, which doesn't make things easier, as it's a relatively new format and often not supported by TVs. (I’m not surprised the media player doesn't support it either).

What solutions are available?
First, start by checking if there's a firmware update available for both the TV (provide its model) and the media player.
But that’s very unlikely.

It's also possible to use another device capable of doing the same job as this media player, but better. Any game console, TV decoder, or PC, for instance, a recent DVD player would probably work just fine.
In short, any multimedia device with a USB port could function.

It would also be possible to re-encode the videos into a format supported by the TV or the media player, but that would take time. After, you need to consider where the videos are coming from to possibly facilitate that process.

And finally, if none of this is possible, the remaining solution would be to invest in a media player, or any device that can do the equivalent but supports all formats.
2
Huntershake
 
First of all, thank you for this quick response.
For the TV update, I'll have to wait to get the precise reference (plus, this person doesn’t have internet at home, so I’ll need to do the update via USB if it works).
As for the multimedia player update, the manufacturer seems to say that it’s unfortunately impossible with this model. (By the way, I’m going to return it to Amazon tomorrow).
So indeed, I think I will invest in a better multimedia player, but I can find very few on Amazon; let's say it's often the same brand as the one I already have.

I hadn't thought at all about classic TV decoders (or consoles). But since this person doesn’t have internet, they don't have a box or a decoder. So we’ll see what would be the best option between a better multimedia player and a decoder.

Thank you for your response!!
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AluMinioume Posted messages 3107 Registration date   Status Membre Last intervention   582 > Huntershake
 
For the multimedia player update, the manufacturer seems to say that it's impossible with this model
Often, these small machines run on an ARM processor and almost always on Linux.
And these processors are rather low-powered, sometimes not enough to decode HEVC properly.

So it's no longer just a simple matter of software implementation. Moreover, generally, HEVC has hardware decoding, so it could be that the processor is just not compatible (and software decoding would require too much performance).

As for the TV, even if an update is available, it's very rare that it adds functions. Firmware is often produced with the idea of being used on several TV models, and is just slightly modified for each model, which reduces development costs. Therefore, generally, updates only aim to fix bugs, not to add compatibility. But despite all that, it is possible.

For multimedia players, there are some very good options available but unfortunately a bit expensive for what you want to do. Usually, these are devices that allow more than just reading files via USB, making their appeal somewhat limited, so they have more features and cost more.

Otherwise, indeed, there are the decoders, I've looked at a few inexpensive ones, but when it's specified that they can read files via USB, there are usually no more details on supported codecs, etc... so it's hard to know.

There are kinds of multimedia boxes that run on Android TV, in this case all imaginable formats can be read.
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