Stream movies from hard drive to TV

[ColchesterFC]

I have a load of movies (.avi and .mp4 format) stored on 2 500GB hard drives and am looking for a way to be able to watch them on my TV. Haven't got the most up to date TV and when I plug in to it via USB it will let me play music or view photos but not watch films. I can save 1 or 2 films onto a memory stick that can then be played through my XBox360 but that will only play the .avi files not .mp4.

My question for the technologically gifted out there is this, is there some kind of box with internal storage that I could copy all the films on to and then be able to play them on my TV via an HDMi cable or similar? Or any other way of doing this that I don't know about? Would prefer to avoid using a laptop in the process if possible as want to be able to leave the kids movies at home for them to watch while I'm away.

 

[GreiginFife]

I have a load of movies (.avi and .mp4 format) stored on 2 500GB hard drives and am looking for a way to be able to watch them on my TV. Haven't got the most up to date TV and when I plug in to it via USB it will let me play music or view photos but not watch films. I can save 1 or 2 films onto a memory stick that can then be played through my XBox360 but that will only play the .avi files not .mp4.

My question for the technologically gifted out there is this, is there some kind of box with internal storage that I could copy all the films on to and then be able to play them on my TV via an HDMi cable or similar? Or any other way of doing this that I don't know about? Would prefer to avoid using a laptop in the process if possible as want to be able to leave the kids movies at home for them to watch while I'm away.

Sure you can get mini NAS type systems with HDMI outputs these days. Maybe check ebuyer or similar. Sure QNap do one but its pricey.
Personally, I have a 2TB NAS running on an ethernet network to an Onkyo TX-NR636 network enabled receiver that is then connected to the TV via HDMI and does a grand job of 4k upscaling. Means from the amp's NET menu I can directly access and browse the NAS contents both Audio and Video. Also get the benefit of full Dolby or THX when playing suitable media.