Reading exFAT formatted USB storage devices

[mcored 2]

Yesterday, I connected my 2 TB external HDD formatted as exFAT to my 55" webOS TV to realise that it was not reading - turns out that the TV does not support exFAT. 

[vkomitov 6]

Supports only FAT32 and NTFS.

[quarkme 0]

Most devices support FAT32 and exFAT as the major OSes( Windows,Linux,MacOSX) support them  almost as their native filesystem. Its strange to see LG TV support a proprietary and which is badly/not fully supported on all OSes: NTFS. This filesystem  (NTFS) should be the last to support on any other device thats not a Windows machine.

 My problem: I use a macos and can not write on NTFS devices. If I wish to view a 4K movie (64GB) , I have to pay an additional 20-30$ for a software that allows my mac to write/format NTFS files to a usb stick. The free-open-source software ntfs-3g its not good enough because it takes about 3hours to write a 4k movie (64GB) on a USB3.0 (UltraFit).

Great TV LG, but thanks a lot (sarcastically) for  taking from me more money and time to write my wedding on a USB3.0 so that I can view it on the TV.

 

 

[voidnothings 1]

+1 I hope LG can license exFAT from MS

[Alessio1989 1]

+1 for exFat: better support then NTFS (which is not meant for external storage devices!) from Os-X and modern Linux based OS.

[Morten Vinding Svendsen 7]

I too came here because I wan't to access some large file on a USB drive from my LG WebOS TV, and I use Mac so I can't use NTFS.
But I must clear up some misunderstandings:

exFAT IS NOT STANDARD on most Linux distributions!
Actually it dosen't even have a kernel module (only Fuse userland module) because exFAT is a licensed, close source and closed protocol.
It's not difficult to find this information, just look at wikipedia:
"exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) is a Microsoft file system introduced in 2006 optimized for flash memory such as USB flash drives and SD cards.[5] It is proprietary and Microsoft owns patents on several elements of its design"

It was meant to replace FAT32 because of the filesize limitations. NTFS was doomed not feasible for small removable devices. But the biggest problem with NTFS is actually that it is closed source and support in other OS'es than windows is either made by:
a. buying and signing an NDA with Microsoft or
b. reversed engineered. Which is the solution Linux and Mac has chosen, and the reason Mac (and earlier Linux) defaulted to mount readonly. They didn't want to risk destroying anything.

So while I do agree with Microsoft that we need a new filesystem. I don't think a proprietary filesystem is the solution, for storage that is meant to be used in a lot of different devices based on different OS'es.

Could it be a solution to split the MKV's to multipart? I haven't tried but maybe WebOS will play them seamlessly.

[Thana Yan 0]

I also have the Same problem here. LG should read all format FAT, ExFAT and NTFS.

[Vietxitin 0]

I have same problem. Please add exFat to support in webOS

[caign 1]

If you can't format as FAT32 or NTFS on your computer, format using the TV.

 

[Vietxitin 0]

On 1/24/2019 at 6:05 AM, caign said:

If you can't format as FAT32 or NTFS on your computer, format using the TV.

 

Thank for share, we use macOS and it doesn't support NTFS.

Kind regards

[caign 1]

27 minutes ago, Vietxitin said:

Thank for share, we use macOS and it doesn't support NTFS.

True, if you're wanting to write data to the NTFS volume using macOS, you need to install non-standard drivers.

But if you're wanting to pause live TV or record using the TV, you can get the TV to format the volume. Your mac can then *read* the NTFS volume without special drivers, although not sure what format the TV writes.

Good luck!

[PeterV 39]

What I did was connect the external harddisk to the Mac and install Plex on the Mac. After installing the Plex player on the LG TV I can watch movies using the Plex server on the Mac.

Works like a dream.

[Mejriou 0]

On 2/23/2019 at 10:43 PM, PeterV said:

What I did was connect the external harddisk to the Mac and install Plex on the Mac. After installing the Plex player on the LG TV I can watch movies using the Plex server on the Mac.

Works like a dream.

how fast is your internet speed? Do you connect through wifi or cable? What kind of movie files do you stream? 

[PeterV 39]

11 minutes ago, Mejriou said:

how fast is your internet speed? Do you connect through wifi or cable? What kind of movie files do you stream? 

My internet up/downloadspeed is 100Mbit but all the computer and the LG TV are connected by wired network (100 Mbit or 1Gbit (don't really know)).

Normaly I stream 720p movies (because of the discspace) but it works without problems with a 1280p movie file. The filetypes you can stream can be found on the Plex website.

[mroweczka 0]

with new linux kernel 5.2 it should be possible to include exFat drivers into webOS.

It would be great for us. Thanks!

[Sergio112 0]

On 28 August 2019, Microsoft published the exFAT specification for the first time^[7], and new driver was included in Linux kernel version 5.4.

LG please do something, it's now free. exFAT is better than NTFS, move on...

[Oliver88 1]

exFat fs +1

[LeftCoastBoomer 1]

100% Mac household  - I needed an NTFS format for my external file saves on my Evolve HDMI capture device. This software does everything I need.

Microsoft NTS for Mac by Paragon costs just under $20 and will make it absolutely seamless to format NTFS or mount NTFS devices.

NTFS for Mac - the latest is Catalina ready.

 

Edited January 4 by LeftCoastBoomer
clarity

[Laurent Vaills 0]

+1 for the support of exFAT on LG webOS .  I was so deceived when I plugged my disk on my LG TV. 

exFAT is meant for removable devices.  FAT32 is no use because of the file size limit, NTFS is such a pain to use when using macOS or Linux. 

 

 

[Péter Fehér 0]

+1 for exFAT, hard to believe that its 2020 and interconnectivity is still an issue.

UPDATE: 
After some searching, found a good workaround. DNLA server can be installed rather painlessly and available from the LG TV with one-click! 
The good thing it does not matter how your drive is formatted. (I can open my films from ext4 formatted disk on my TV).

https://thornelabs.net/posts/install-configure-and-use-minidlna-on-os-x-yosemite.html
https://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Media-Server-MiniDLNA/