wpcoe Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 I'm in the market to replace the TV in my bedroom. I went shopping today in Pattaya at PowerBuy, Samsung, Carrefour and Tesco Lotus. I'm looking at 26" and 32" displays, and think either would suffice. I noticed that a generic brand "TCL" product line at Carrefour has USB ports on both its 26" & 32" models. I found a Thailand TCL product brochure online and it says: "Enables you to use multimedia player, enjoy JPEG ppicture viewing and save MP3/RM files." Do you think it would play .AVI files from a USB thumb drive? I'm not sure what they consider "multimedia player" to be. The only other TV with USB I saw that's in my price range is a Samsung 32" (LA32B550K1R) full-HD (1920x1080) which has a USB port for B19,900. The owners manual downloaded from the Samsung web site indicates that its USB port is only for JPG and MP3 files. The only use I would have for USB would be to play downloaded videos on the TV via a thumb drive. Other than that, a USB port for me would be nothing worth having. Other than having a USB port, the TCL brand is comparable, including pricewise, to Sony, Samsung, and LG models, and I'd probably opt for a better known brand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundman Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Maybe just update your DVD player for a new Philips that has all the latest codecs, USB, all the regular Video outs, HDMI & 5.1 sound out, for not much more than 2000B and be done with it! Note: Don't forget that the place that sells you the DVD player & LCD TV is usually the worst place (price wise) to buy a HDMI cable from. Another thing to keep in the back of your mind is that HDMI cables are quality graded and bandwidth sensative, or so I have been led to believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexpalex Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Maybe just update your DVD player for a new Philips that has all the latest codecs, USB, all the regular Video outs, HDMI & 5.1 sound out, for not much more than 2000B and be done with it! Note: Don't forget that the place that sells you the DVD player & LCD TV is usually the worst place (price wise) to buy a HDMI cable from. Another thing to keep in the back of your mind is that HDMI cables are quality graded and bandwidth sensative, or so I have been led to believe. Does this Philips do subtitles that go with avi files (sub or srt) and what is the model no? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wpcoe Posted August 26, 2009 Author Share Posted August 26, 2009 Cool. I had no idea that DVD players would have USB ports to play my downloaded .avi files! Okay, I'll bite. Where *should* I buy an HDMI cable? Surely you're not saying to buy the TV/DVD player at Carrefour and the cable at Tesco Lotus? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundman Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 Re: USB port - I haven't actually tried it. I'll get back to you on the model number. Re: HDMI cable - Amorn group have a good range of cables, at sensible prices. I recently bought a HDMI cable from BigC, only to find both NPE, and Amorn selling exactly the same thing at less than half the price. IT centres, with large retailers like Data IT, would also be a good bet. I still cannot understand why the manufacturer doesn't include one with the HDMI appliance though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astral Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 I got caught out here. You are right the Samsung only supports JPEG and MP3. Careful reading of specs shows that some brands support movie as well. PS I am not ready to replace my DVD player as well. When I do it will be BD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angiud Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 LG scarlet series has USB and I can play by thumb drive almost every kind of file (I guess not the MKV and H264 files). Just plug and play. Oh, also .srt subtitle files Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LivinLOS Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Any of them play MKV files yet ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjie Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Any of them play MKV files yet ?? The DLNA TV's will play any file if you are running TVersity or similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wpcoe Posted August 29, 2009 Author Share Posted August 29, 2009 As a follow-up from my opening post: I bought a 26" Samsung LCD TV (which has no USB) and a "sherman" brand DVD player which has USB. Plugging in a USB thumb drive with some .avi files works like a charm. Click a button on the remote to toggle between DVD and USB, and when on USB, it reads the thumb drive and presents a DOS-like directory of files (all filenames truncated to 8.3 filenames). Navigate to an .avi file, click on it, and voila -- it plays automatically! Many thanks to Soundman for pointing that (some) DVD players have native USB support. I couldn't find a Phillips brand around B2000 with USB, but I found this "sherman" brand with HDMI for B1990, and a Soken with USB (but no HDMI) for B1990, and decided to go for "sherman." Hope I don't regret it! One odd thing the sales fellow said about the USB on the sherman vs the Soken. Both are supposedly USB2.0, but the Soken said "HiSpeed" and the sherman didn't. The sales fellow said if I were using "large USB" (I don't know if that referred to capacity of the drive, or size of the individual file) that the sherman would be slow. I told him I'd be using an 8GB drive with individual files of around 350k, and he said the sherman "non-HiSpeed" would be adequate. It appears to be so. PS: I'm still using component video cable between the DVD player and TV, and wonder if it's worth the investment in an HDMI cable, as the image/sound seems fine already? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astral Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 PS: I'm still using component video cable between the DVD player and TV, and wonder if it's worth the investment in an HDMI cable, as the image/sound seems fine already? Probably not worth the change as you only have a 26" TV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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