"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 29/01/2012 00:02, brass monkey wrote:
I have a TV which can become a PVR if I attach a hard drive to its USB
port.
Is it possible (scuse my thickness) to use a wireless bridge to somehow
shunt the hard drive recordings to my NAS? Like some kind of dual-port
hard
drive? Or is there a better way and lose the hard drive altogether?
Hmm, that is an interesting one...
Well there is the possibility that you could take said hard drive / usb
memory device and copy stuff from it to the NAS on your computer. That
does depend on the device using a file system that you can persuade the
computer to read. (many will be Linux style systems, so its quite often
possible even under windows to gain access to them).
Some NAS devices also have the capability to automatically suck the
contents from external drives. For example, if you plug a flash drive into
the front USB port of mine, it will automatically copy the content to a
folder on the NAS drive.
Both of those amount to "sneaker net" solutions though. The better
solution would be some more "joined up" mechanism, but I can't immediately
think of one that I know for sure which would work...
Some things to consider... does the TV have ethernet or wifi? (or can you
plug a USB ethernet / wifi adaptor into the USB). If so, can either be
used either to save recordings directly via that route, or would they
allow access to the USB drive from a remote machine via that route?
You can get manual USB switches that would allow the drive to be switched
between the TV and another device (i.e. a computer or a router with mass
storage device capability)
I have not tried it, but some external drive enclosures support connecting
a drive by both USB and Firewire. You may be able to find one that is able
to use both at once[1]. Hence a TV can fill a drive via the USB, and
second "computer" could copy from it via firewire.
(an external drive with two USB interfaces would be ideal - but not sure I
have ever seen such a thing)
[1] IIUC the mass storage device transfer protocol used by most USB drives
is based on the SCSI command set. That at least allows for the possibility
of more than one controller sharing a peripheral. Alas I can't see that
being something the designers of the enclosures would readily support.
Cheers for the replies, folks.
TV doesn't have rj45 or wifi. I think what i'll do is copy the drive via pc
to the NAS.
To view NAS films i'll get a wireless media streamer.
This is the TV if anyone's interested -
http://www.ebuyer.com/340204-digimat...w-19-etv-1981w
(twas £99 last week). Clinkin' lil picture for the kitchen and runs off 12v
(36w) for the camper (that's yet more replication of films from NAS to
portable HD).