Linking external HD to TV via R Pi B

[chris83s]

Hi, im really new to all this, all i want to use the Raspberry Pi B for is to link my external HD to my television to watch films.

Please can anyone advise the simplest way to do this?

Thanks in advance.

[bgirardot]

I am not quite clear on how you want to link the external hd to your tv.

If you mean you want to plug the external hd into your rpi and then plug your rpi into your tv the best way to do that is install one of the XBMC distros for the RPi.

I personally use OpenElec and have found it to be great. But I generally hear good things about all of the XBMC distros

[chris83s]

I am not quite clear on how you want to link the external hd to your tv.

If you mean you want to plug the external hd into your rpi and then plug your rpi into your tv the best way to do that is install one of the XBMC distros for the RPi.

I personally use OpenElec and have found it to be great. But I generally hear good things about all of the XBMC distros

Hi,

Thanks!

Yeah i want to hook an external hd up to the rpi and then hook the rpi to the TV via USB or HDMI i presume and play the content of the hd.

So I download Open Elec to my macbook, then put it onto the rpi and that should work?

Thanks for your help

[bgirardot]

Yes that should do it. Once openelec is installed, just plug in your usb drive and it should play most of your movies no problem. I used HDMI to connect to my tv.

I do not know how to use os x to install openElec, but I am sure you can find a guide on how to do it.

[bgirardot]

You know, thinking about this a little more something occurs to me.

I have an external HD but it has its own power supply.

I never even thought of trying to power it off the RPi's USB ports, which can be a little bit flaky with power.

So, I should revise my comment: Plug in your external drive but if it is a true hard drive, like with spinning disks, it will probably need to be externally powered.

I do use a 32G USB stick drive (thumb drive) and that works fine in my RPi.