Media Players.
You have your movie or TV show files, how can you now view them on your new HD TV?
1. The easiest way to play your newly acquired video files back is via your laptop itself. Nowadays laptops usually always have an HDMI port so it is just a matter of connecting your laptop to an empty HDMI port on your TV set, select the appropriate Source HDMI port on your remote then use your wireless mouse from your comfortable chair to select the file to play and playback with your new copy of VLC Media Player recently downloaded and installed from Sourceforge. Just search "VLC Player"
There are more and more of these devices becoming available nowadays, for example Roku, Apple TV etc. There are now paid for services such as Stan, Netflix, etc.
2. Then there is the Android TV Box and Kodi. I won't go into the benefits of Kodi here but let your Google Search skills help you find out about it.
There are many different models available on the market nowadays, with many from China. Backup Support is the prime indicator of whether your money should be spent on one model or another.
Android TV Boxes can gather their files for playback from across your wireless network and not necessarily from an attached USB Hard Drive. A reasonable home wireless network would be required to do this effectively. Otherwise a powerlink/ethernet setup would be advised.
Costs can vary from $60 up to $350 per Android TV Box unit. Some firmware upgrades by some Chinese companies may be few and far between. So if your unit has a firmware problem, that problem can remain for the life of the unit.At one end you have the MX111 available for around $100 which gets reasonably good reviews.
Make the effort and Google Search "MX111 reviews" and see what people who have bought this model say. I think you will find that generally they will be happy enough with it.
Of the available Chinese brands of Android TV boxes, this one tends to get quite good reviews.
As with many of these units, the supplied and frequently very basic remote control does not make the operation of the box easy, so many resort to a wireless keyboard or a better 'air mouse' which is an added expense.
The top shelf of Android TV boxes is the Nvidia Shield. These have various configurations and are purchased from the USA, some models well in excess of $300.Needless to say they will perform magnificently (and at that price they would want to!)
If you wish to enjoy your Android TV box via a Tuner/Amplifier and access top quality audio, there is a strong likelihood the cheaper versions of Android TV Boxes won't do this for you.
