Connect external drive to TV over network

[Rukmaj Chandavar]

Hi All,

 

I recently bought a LG Smart TV with WebOS (42LB6500) and would like to connect to my external hard disk connected over network. Here is how my home network and devices are setup.

 

• I have a high speed broadband that comes to my WiFi router (D-Link DSL 2750U) with USB support for External HDD.
• I have connected my Seagate Ex.HDD to this router and I am able to access the drive over WiFi on my smartphone and computer using the network path \\192.168.1.1\...
• Once connected I am able to use it similar to any mount location, i.e., read/write files, play media, etc.,
• I want to do similarly with my TV, I would like to use this connected Ex. HDD as any other location and would like to achieve following two things at the least without any additional hardware
  • Play media files on this HDD (very very important)
  • Use the HDD as recording device for timeshift/live pause feature (important)

 

Any help in this regard would be greatly appreciated.

 

Regards,

Rukmaj

[murastefano]

Hi,

on my experince timeshift/live pause feature works only on HDD on usb.

Some videos not play over network but play on HDD on usb, in my case usb 3.0

 

 

Stefano

[lemmerman]

Hi Rukmaj,

 

I am also looking to do something similar. My situation is a bit different though.

 

1. I connected an External USB 3.0 HDD to the LG webOS TV

2. My MacBook (no WiDi ) and the TV are connected on the same wireless network

3. I want to mount (with either samba/cifs) the HDD over to my Mac so I can copy files to the HDD and share them easily.

 

Does anyone know how I can Network connect (mount) my mac to the External Hard drive?

 

Thank you in advance,

--Dan

[Rukmaj Chandavar]

Hi Dan,

 

Your approach also seems good. Only thing here is we need a solution that can do this. If my HDD too can be connected to TV and can be accessed as a network drive on all other devices the deal is done. I believe we are looking for either of one option from below

 

1. Have a file generic explorer on WebOS that can allow access to network drives (Most preferred)

2. Expose storages connected to WebOS so that other devices can access the files over network.

 

Regards,

Rukmaj

[vasan_vasan]

You folks have been talking about exactly what I am looking for. Any luck with it friends?

 

Both options would be awesome. Option-1 was possible in older LG devices.  I have a very old LG-BluRay player that can access any NAS or any Windows Shares on my network, allow me to login with user-id/pwd and let me browse and play media; pretty much like the way you would access any Network Storage using a PC. But recent media players, including WebOS TV (I have LB7200) can access such media only via DLNA (and DLNA sucks. Why do I need DLNA, if I have great media player, like LG or WDLiveTV, that can play almost any media format). Why do they remove good features from newer devices?

 

I have a WDLiveTV media player. It can do both options. It can access any windows shares over local network, allow you to login with user-pwd and access media from it with-out DLNA. Also, if you connect an external HDD to WDLiveTV, it exposes that HDD as Network drive; meaning you can that drive as any Network Storage from any other PC. And it has two USB ports. Such a small device with price-tag less than $100 can do such awesome things. I have tried almost all popular smart-devices in the market and none could do that.

 

Please keep us posted if you find any pure-LG solution. It would be awesome, if I can cut one device (old LG BluRay player and WDLiveTV) from my setup.

 

 

Regards,

 

Vasan

[Jozsef Enisz]

I have a solution to this, but it has some limitations.
I have a TP-LINK 1043ND router with OpenWRT (suste@[email protected] Barrier Breaker 14.07)
This openwrt build has miniDLNA included, and can - of course - mount external harddrive. 
Through DLNA you can see your content from your external HDD. 
Now my problem is that I am using the router quite a lot and it stops with OOM Kill errors the DLNA daemon. The biggest number of videos it would able to present to the TV was 67 - although there are tons of pictures, music, and videos on the drive.

Any suggestion is more then welcome.
ps: I am thinking about a standalone NAS with DLNA instead of putting all the load on the router which has only 400Hz processor and 32MB RAM

[Alon Shaltiel]

I have the same problem (trying to connect my lg webos3 tv to a Network Hard Drive).

has this problem got any progress so far?

[PeterV]

There is a native app for Plex that works great or you can use the build in DNLA player with servers like Serviio

[GJC]

I have a 2017 model LG OLED TV with WebOS.   I've tried using DLNA, which technically works, but practically is no use to me.  I load captions and titles onto my photos when I edit them.  DLNA only serves out these titles, not the filenames.  So I can't view my photos in order.  I'm not going to go back over thousands of photos and add 001, 002, 003, etc to each title.  There is no sort by filename functionality that I can find on the WebOS app when viewing by DLNA.  So my networked Smart TV isn't so smart after-all.  To view my files in order, I have to copy them onto a USB stick and carry it to the TV, then pull the TV away from the wall so I can plug it in.  NOT HAPPY!.  I like the suggestion of allowing a file manager style app that can view files on NAS, NFS, or Windows Shares.  This would be a SMART thing to do.

 

[Henry Guest]

Hello Folks,

I am currently running an asus RT-N600, admittedly it isn't the best, but it does the job. I have a 2.5" Hard Drive plugged in via USB. I simply opened my router settings and configured that port for 'Media Server'. Now I can open the Photos and Videos app on my LG Smart TV and see all my movies and tv shows. Sadly, you can't record or pause using this method, but a small hard drive or a large usb would do the trick for this. Hope this helps a few of you!

-Henry

[Johanvdv]

I want this too:

Quote

 

1. Have a file generic explorer on WebOS that can allow access to network drives (Most preferred)

2. Expose storages connected to WebOS so that other devices can access the files over network.

 

or anything else in similar  functionality. Even only an ftp transfer would be acceptable (like my Humax set top box has)   .

is there any LG  location (URL, please) where  we can let  LG know this feature request?? For my  OLED C8  tv...

JohanvdV

[Luis Edgardo Rodriguez]

Is thre any solution? I just found my linksys mr8300 does not have DNLA server...made a mistake...but I can access my USB drive via an ip add...just need an app that can look it up...haven't found any...

 

Too many dissapointments in one week, first alexa, then this and now, cant install VLC or ES file explorer...I really made some big mistakes...