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? TIA.
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.
Might not help you much. I can plug a USB drive into our Panasonic telly and for PVR/pause live telly functions but it isn't very easy to get at any recordings made to the disc. It's certainly more than a "sneaker net" and file copy. Just a heads up, I've not really tried very hard to get at stuff on that disc.
You often have to get a proprietry dongle from the TV manufacturer to use WiFi. Certainly true for LG TV's.
rusty
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 -
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