Why can't I watch a movie?

Submitted: Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 17:24

ThreadID: 78874 Views:2884 Replies:4 FollowUps:2

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Linda B

Hi all,

I'm frustrated as anything and would love some help.

Have a Strong 4664 box in the van, bought an external USB hard drive to put some movies on in MP4 format and trying to watch them on the tv through the strong box, but it doesn't recognise anything on the hard drive. i see in the instruction book that the format of the drive should be FAT 16 or FAT32 preferred (sounds double dutch to me), but I'm wondering whether I should have formatted the hard drive from the strong box before putting the movie on.

Just to further test, I tried to put a movie on a 2gb memory stick without formatting it first and the Strong box recognises the folder on the memory stick, but not the one file inside the folder (the movie).

So with both methods, no success.

Last resort was to purchase a media player for about $80 which connects the external hard drive to the Strong box, from JBs but I thought we didn't need to do that.

Anybody have any ideas what I need to do?

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Reply By: mikehzz - Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 18:14

Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 18:14

It looks from the specs that the unit doesn't play movies-

• USB 2.0 Host for MP3
Playback, JPEG Viewing
and Firmware Update

That means it will only play a picture slide show or mp3 sound files. To play most movie formats a unit has to be labelled Divx compatible. I could be wrong but it doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere?

Mike

AnswerID: 418677

Follow Up By: Linda B - Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 19:03

Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 19:03

Thanks Mike, that clears that up. I mis-read the notes that it says it will allow you to watch videos - now I understand that means videos from a video camera and not real movies.

Linda.

FollowupID: 688813

Follow Up By: Member - Graham H (QLD) - Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 11:30

Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 11:30

Fat 16 and Fat 32 ar the file systems used by Windows

Later versions are NTFS which evolved from Windows NT and Windows 2000

NTFS allows smaller block sizes which gets more on a drive relative to Fat 32 as a block is a block regardless of it being full or not.

Still no clearer I guess but thats what it is

FollowupID: 688885

Reply By: lizard - Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 21:55

Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 21:55

A lot of flash drive readers on boxes won't play a hard drive - they are only for flash drives

AnswerID: 418711

Reply By: landseka - Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 12:08

Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 12:08

If your tv has a USB port, try plugging your memory stick directly into the tv and watch the movie that way, works for us.

The movie probably needs to be in AVI format to work.

Cheers Neil

AnswerID: 418762