How to watch video file on TV without having to burn on DVD?

Well, I really don't like watching videos on computer (it hurts my eyes Blink

) so I normally burn them on DVD-R and watch it on my TV. BUT burning DVD can be a pain sometimes because you spend hours and hours converting & burning and sometimes the burned DVD doesnt work and you spend lots of money with DVD-Rs Glare

But sometimes I want to watch random episodes of diferent series and I think it's not worth losing time to burn them.

So... what I would like to ask is :

How can I watch video files (like avi, mpg, mp4 etc etc) on TV without needing to burn it on DVDs?

What's the easier and faster way?

I heard you can do that using 'iPOD Video' ... like you add videos on your IPod and then use a cable to connect your ipod to your tv and then you can watch it on TV. Have anyone tryied this?

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:27 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I always watched all my videos on TV. I have a laptop and it has an S-video plug so what I did was I bought an S-video cable and connect the laptop to the TV.

You need to change the channel to AV2 (that's what it is on my TV, don't know if it'll be the same for any other TV). On the laptop you just have to change the graphic properties to extended desktop. What happens is the TV becomes your extended desktop. When you have your player playing the video you just move it over to the TV. You can continue working on your laptop while watching the videos on TV.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:36 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

thanks for replying! thumright

Mmm... so doing that, can one person use the laptop (do whatever they want ...) while the other watch the videos on TV?

Does anyone knows any other solution? A cheaper one? Tongue

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:37 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

why not purchase a divx dvd player? they're readily available and cheaper than buying a video ipod. most can play avi files with divx codec 6 and below, no conversion needed so backup and play (but have yet to find a dvd player that will play mp4,mkv).

I have the philips dvp5960, philips dvp642, lgdvb418, pioneer 393s, magnavox mwd7006 all divx players and an old athlon pc hooked up to a plasma for additional drama watching. each have there pros n cons.

for samples of picture quality i've posted some here at this topic:
http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/viewtopic_49273.htm

good luck.
D

btw... what type of tv are you going to watch on? jus curious...

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:45 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:30 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

A second video card will work as well. Or if you have onboard video and a video card. Or a single video card that has both monitor and TV out that will work at the same time. I'm currently using onboard to an old CRT monitor for windows media player(music) and a low end video card with TV out to supply both my LCD monitor and my TV. All 3 work at the same time. The lag is retarded though. Surfing the internet while somebody is watching lags the video. But I only have 600 somethign MB of ram and a 1.8ghz CPU. Altho, for some reason playing music on WMP and watchign a video has zero lag.

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 3:31 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

before i responded, i should've asked:

1. how much are you willing to spend?

2. what type of tv are you using?

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 2:31 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I agree with itsukiD on this. If you just want something easy and am not too worried about quality or overscan, then get a divx player. This won't play any MP4s though. They will play most AVIs and probably MPGs if they are VCD or DVD format.

You can burn to a DVD RW as a data disc and just play the AVIs right off the disc. You can also erase the disc when you are done. I do this sometimes with Japanese entertainment shows that I only want to see 1 time.

Check here for a list of dvd players.

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:04 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Here's a device I'm looking into getting:

http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/divx-player-usb-hdd-enclosure-with-display/

I like the concept:

- Can host a built-in hard disk
- Plays most of the current codecs and formats
- Supports many of the soft subtitle formats

Only thing it doesn't have is HDMI or s-video output. But whoopie big deal! It is still much better than burning disks. I need to do more research...

--- groink

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:25 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Mmm, only nice if there's no overscan issues. Otherwise an old PC is probably better.

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:53 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:02 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:21 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:30 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Like Epi, I use an s-video cable to connect my laptop to the tv to watch all my videos. The only problem is sound, since the s-video cable only covers video input/output you'll be hearing the sound from the laptop instead of the tv. I got another cable that attaches to my audio system from my laptop, and voila, sound through big speakers =]

I'm sure there's a pretty big s-video cable available if you wanted to connect from your PC to your TV.

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:37 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Thanks everyone for the replies and suggestion.