What Everybody Ought To Know About HDD Media Players

How would you like to have all of your DVDs, CDs, favorite TV shows and photos instantly accessible at the touch of a button?

How would you like to be able to connect your computer to your home entertainment system to be able to get the most out of your leisure time?

It sounds like something out of the Jetsons doesn’t it?

This reality is more than possible with the HDD Media Player. The hard drive made for your home theater, not your PC.

 

Just some of the fantastic HDD media drives available at Chinavasion, Click on the picture to learn more about each of the products

 

Ok, so that all sounds great but what exactly can a HDD media drive do?

It Keeps All Of Your Media Files In One Place

Your average HDD media drive is more than happy with any types of picture, movie, or even music file, just like the hard drive on your PC will handle many different types of files.

So this means that you could potentially load all your DVDs, all of your CDs, all of your photos, all of the digital media files you have ahem acquired and –with DVR capable HDD players– all of your favorite TV shows onto your HDD drive.

These can then be played on your big screen LCD TV, or through your home projector at the touch of a button.

Just picture it, you have an HDD media player that has a 500GB Hard Drive inside, filled with tons of music, videos and pictures that you can select with a remote and watch, all without leaving the comfort of your favorite recliner or sofa.

Even the most basic HDD media player, will play a variety of video and audio file formats including MP3, MPEG-4 (AVI), WAV, DIVX.

For any unbelievers here’s your average HDD media player with the full list of files it can handle

The Hard Drive Media Enclosure

 

• Video Formats
  • DAT
  • VOB
  • MPG
  • AVI
  • MPEG 1
  • MPEG 2
  • MPEG 4
  • DIVX
  • XVID

 

• Audio Formats
  • MP3
  • OGG
  • WMA
  • AAC

 

• Picture Formats
  • JPEG
  • MJPEG
  • Bitmap

 

 

The HDD media player comes with AV outputs along with 3.5mm stereo output which you can also connect to your surround sound system and television system easily, making it easy to switch from it, to your console of choice to the television for the complete home theater experience.

Some Models Can Do The Job Of The TV Tuner, DVD Player And VCR

HDD enclosure basically comes with a hard drive, or you add a hard drive to it. Though some differ in function, it all depends on how much you are willing to spend.

Some HDD media players have a built in DVR (Digital Video Recorder — think TiVo) while others have a DTV receiver and get free-view digital channels. Some have both and are able to record straight to the HDD within the media player.

The benefit of of HDD media players with DVR capabilities is that there are no lost tapes, no deterioration of picture and no wondering where your favorite episode of a particular program is.

It Can Communicate With Memory Storage Devices Really Easily

If you are a heavy laptop of PC user, then the HDD media player comes with an HDMI and USB ports, which enable you to also connect it to your PC or laptop.

The firmware installed on the HDD media players make it simple for your laptop to recognize the external drive which you can easily transfer all sorts of video, music and picture files.

The average HDD media enclosure also makes it easy for you to see pictures and movies from digital camcorders and cameras on the big screen.

The pictures and videos we take are usually stored on a SD or MMC card which can be easily read by the HDD media player.

After using your camcorder or digital camera, you can just take out the memory card and slot it in the HDD media player, and start viewing what you recorded within seconds.

So How Do You Set It Up?

Setting up a HDD media player is usually simplicity in itself but can be a little trickier if you need to install the hard drive yourself.

Many of the HDD media players at Chinavasion are Hard Disk Drive enclosures. This means they don’t come with the hard disk drive and you may need to get one, format it and install it yourself.

This allows you to get the hard disk drive which most suits your purpose and get it set up just as you like it.

Before fitting the hard disk drive make sure to format it.

This is really easy and can be done with your PC and we will talk you through how to forrmat a hard disk drive with windows XP OS in the very near future.

Most of the HDD enclosures on Chinavasion need to be formatted to the Fat32 system to work as a media player but it always pays to read the description.

So once you’ve got your hard disk installed you need to connect it to your entertainment system.

 

The back of the Hard Drive Media Enclosure and SATA HDD Media DVR Enclosure which won’t be too dissimilar to your average blueray player.

 

All you need to do is to plug a cable into the unit’s AV socket and then plug it into the TV, or, if you’ve got a High definition TV plug a cable into the two HDMI sockets.

To attach the HDD media center you just need to attach the 3.5mm stereo output to the surround sound system.

This is just an amazing piece of technology that is easy to use, simple to setup and have it situated right next to your TV unit.

So check out Chinavasion’s fantastic range of HDD media players and discover how you can bring your home theater system into the 21st century.