Need temp HTPC fix...

[mcveigh]

my HTPC has finally died. It's almost 10 yrs old. I can't even boot from a USB stick. My hard drives 90% of the time aren't recognized.

I have one hard drive I want to get up and running ASAP. It has most of my kids DVD's ripped on it.

What I have:
FireTV stick
TP-link C9 router with USB3 port.


I was thinking of pulling the hard drive, putting it in an external enclosure and connecting it to the router. I don't know if Kodi running on the fire tv stick cold play the movies though.

My other thought is to get a raspberry pi (or similar) and doing the external drive to that.

Ideas????

 

[poofyhairguy]

The Fire stick should be able to play the movies unless they are all interlaced 480i stuff. A Pi 2 for sure could play them all.

In regards to hooking up an external to the router vs hooking up directly to the box, I vote the box. Many routers don't have good enough performance from USB drives for video content.

 

[mcveigh]

Thanks. It looks like Amazon may release an updated firetv. If I can hold out that may be ideal.

I may just order a raspberryPi today.