Hi all,
I have a TV that accepts MP4 content from usb thumb drives. Instead of a thumb drive I want to plug it into one of my box's usb ports that would look to it like a thumb drive.
Is this doable? Solutions?
With all the cable cutters out there this could be awesome...
On 12/07/2013 05:54 PM, Mike Wright wrote:
Hi all,
I have a TV that accepts MP4 content from usb thumb drives. Instead of a thumb drive I want to plug it into one of my box's usb ports that would look to it like a thumb drive.
Is this doable? Solutions?
No. With the exception of USB On-The-Go devices with a Micro-AB receptacle, the "host" and "target" roles are strictly defined by the connector type, type A connectors on hosts and type B connectors on targets. Those roles cannot be changed. A direct host-to-host connection is not possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usb#Usability_and_.22upside-down.22_connectors
Allegedly, on or about 07 December 2013, Mike Wright sent:
I have a TV that accepts MP4 content from usb thumb drives. Instead of a thumb drive I want to plug it into one of my box's usb ports that would look to it like a thumb drive.
There are devices that act as a hub between two USB ports, but they're probably only going to work between two computers. Dedicated hardware, such as TVs, probably are not going to be versatile to do something beyond the product designer's intentions. And are highly unlikely to give you a way to install drivers to do anything else.
It is dangerous to the equipment to try connecting two USB hosts *directly* together (i.e. with a non-standard USB cable). Don't attempt this.
You could see if you can plug a USB hard drive into the TV. That might give you a relatively easy to play from a large library of files. But then, on the other hand, the TV's interface mayn't be convenient to use with a storage device that might have thousands of files.
It is possible with the right kind of arduino chip and the right firmware for it to make something that looks like a USB drive. (At least I think I figured out that was possible once).
I keep hoping someone will combine that with a network interface so I can make a NFS or CIFS filesystem appear to be a thumb drive to a stoopid TV that refuses to read file shares, but can play anything from a thumb drive.
So far, I haven't seen such a gadget. (I wonder what the response would be on kickstarter, but I'm not gonna implement it :-).
12/07/2013 08:16 PM, Tom Horsley wrote:
It is possible with the right kind of arduino chip and the right firmware for it to make something that looks like a USB drive. (At least I think I figured out that was possible once).
I keep hoping someone will combine that with a network interface so I can make a NFS or CIFS filesystem appear to be a thumb drive to a stoopid TV that refuses to read file shares, but can play anything from a thumb drive.
So far, I haven't seen such a gadget. (I wonder what the response would be on kickstarter, but I'm not gonna implement it :-).
Thanks Tom,
I was hoping for a *free* solution, but I really like the Arduino concept. Those are already guest USB. There are ethernet and wifi shields available. Throw in a SD/μSD shield and it could be wired or stand-alone. Now where did I put the Altoids???
kickstarter sounds like a *great* idea.
On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 1:06 AM, Tim ignored_mailbox@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Dedicated hardware, such as TVs, probably are not going to be versatile to do something beyond the product designer's intentions. And are highly unlikely to give you a way to install drivers to do anything else.
Think outside the box for a second. What the OP asks is *in theory* entirely doable. Some USB controller chipsets allow switching between host and client modes. Of course, the standard drivers do not allow this. But some do, ie the Nokia N800 internet tablet running Linux could be switched between USB host mode and USB client modes.
What is needed is for the PC to emulate a "mass storage device" and mount a FAT32 filesystem. That's what the TV side will get, and it'll be completely happy with it. The TV doesn't know if it's a real usb mass storage device, emulated in software, or with every bit represented by a physical abacus....
Of course, like everything in software, what is required is for someone to code it... FC
On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 9:45 PM, Fernando Cassia fcassia@gmail.com wrote:
What is needed is for the PC to emulate a "mass storage device" and mount a FAT32 filesystem.
I guess this could be used as a starting point... https://mbed.org/handbook/USBMSD
FC
On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 9:50 PM, Fernando Cassia fcassia@gmail.com wrote:
I guess this could be used as a starting point... https://mbed.org/handbook/USBMSD
...And this chipset supports USB OTG.... http://www.asix.com.tw/products.php?op=pItemdetail&PItemID=124;74;110&am...
Try to find a PCIe USB controller card with it...
But then, again, you'll need a lot of low-level coding for it to work :)
FC
On Dec 8, 2013, at 5:45 PM, Fernando Cassia fcassia@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 1:06 AM, Tim ignored_mailbox@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Dedicated hardware, such as TVs, probably are not going to be versatile to do something beyond the product designer's intentions. And are highly unlikely to give you a way to install drivers to do anything else.
Think outside the box for a second. What the OP asks is *in theory* entirely doable. Some USB controller chipsets allow switching between host and client modes. Of course, the standard drivers do not allow this. But some do, ie the Nokia N800 internet tablet running Linux could be switched between USB host mode and USB client modes.
What is needed is for the PC to emulate a "mass storage device" and mount a FAT32 filesystem.
FAT32 isn't useful for mass storage of video files because of its 4GB file size limit. And exFAT/FAT64 is not only patent encumbered, but it also uses only one FAT so it's actually less resilient in the face of any kind of corruption, and isn't intended for this use case.
They should probably use NTFS instead.
Chris Murphy
On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 10:00 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
FAT32 isn't useful for mass storage of video files because of its 4GB file size limit. And exFAT/FAT64 is not only patent encumbered, but it also uses only one FAT so it's actually less resilient in the face of any kind of corruption, and isn't intended for this use case.
They should probably use NTFS instead.
Oh really? I must have imagined then my 8GB and 16GB flash drives formatted as FAT32. And my TDT STB recording to it and splitting the recording into several 4GB files seamlessly. ;-)
None of the TVs I have with USB ports support NTFS, one does exFAT, the other doesn't, only supports FAT32.
Samsung releases its ExFAT driver under the GPLv2 http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1khncp/samsung_releases_exfat_under_t...
FC
On Dec 8, 2013, at 6:07 PM, Fernando Cassia fcassia@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 10:00 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
FAT32 isn't useful for mass storage of video files because of its 4GB file size limit. And exFAT/FAT64 is not only patent encumbered, but it also uses only one FAT so it's actually less resilient in the face of any kind of corruption, and isn't intended for this use case.
They should probably use NTFS instead.
Oh really? I must have imagined then my 8GB and 16GB flash drives formatted as FAT32.
I'm uncertain why you think you've imagined it. FAT32 supports 2TB volume sizes for 512byte sector media. Repairing them is fairly straightforward, although it takes longer than with a journaled file system. While not yet cross platform like FAT32, f2fs is shaping up to be a better alternative for SD and USB flash media.
And my TDT STB recording to it and splitting the recording into several 4GB files seamlessly. ;-)
Great, you have something that's able to work around the file size limitation, in which case use FAT32.
None of the TVs I have with USB ports support NTFS, one does exFAT, the other doesn't, only supports FAT32.
Right, your user choice is being limited by what is essentially proprietary hardware - the TVs. But also unfortunate timing, in that there haven't been significantly better alternatives to FAT32 that address resilience, volume size, and file size limitations.
If the TVs mount either filesystem read-only, I'd be more tolerant of their use for this use case. And maybe they do this already. Offhand I'm not thinking why a TV would need mount media as read-write.
Samsung releases its ExFAT driver under the GPLv2 http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1khncp/samsung_releases_exfat_under_t...
There are still open questions on its legal status as indicated in your own link.
Chris Murphy
On Dec 8, 2013, at 7:20 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
But also unfortunate timing, in that there haven't been significantly better alternatives to FAT32 that address resilience, volume size, and file size limitations.
Oops, other than NTFS.
I don't know what the licensing terms are for NTFS vs exFAT, maybe there's some meaningful difference. But I wonder why so many media devices fall for paying for exFAT, which has significantly less resilience than FAT32, when NTFS is a viable cross platform option.
Chris Murphy
On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 11:26 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
, when NTFS is a viable cross platform option.
You want journaling on "dumb" flash media without TRIM support, really? Think about it...
FAT32 is the only filesystem that can currently be read by the vast majority of devices (cameras, music players, smartphones, TVs, Smart-TVs, TV Media Players, set top boxes...)
FC
On Dec 8, 2013, at 8:20 PM, Fernando Cassia fcassia@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 11:26 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
, when NTFS is a viable cross platform option.
You want journaling on "dumb" flash media without TRIM support, really? Think about it…
The FTL is the opposite of dumb, therein lies a good part of the problem with SC and USB flash media. Since the journal is constantly writing over the same LBAs, the FTL knows underlying pages can be marked for discard. TRIM isn't necessary because a fs is journaled. The FTL will map the LBA's as the journal writes to already erased pages, marking the former pages for discard. It doesn't need TRIM to do that.
In any case, for flash media there isn't much benefit for the journal, because flash is either fast enough to not benefit from obviating fsck, or the media is small also obviating speed benefit over fsck. But NTFS is more resilient than exFAT, and it supports large files and volume sizes.
FAT32 is the only filesystem that can currently be read by the vast majority of devices (cameras, music players, smartphones, TVs, Smart-TVs, TV Media Players, set top boxes…)
Yes, I agree it's remarkably unfortunate that we users lack sufficient choice in this area. Samsung thankfully agrees and has open sourced f2fs. Hopefully the work for a Windows and OS X driver moves along quickly, and any needed commercial license incentivizes a long overdue purging of FAT32 and stops exFAT adoption.
Chris Murphy
On 08.12.2013 00:54, Mike Wright wrote:
Hi all,
I have a TV that accepts MP4 content from usb thumb drives. Instead of a thumb drive I want to plug it into one of my box's usb ports that would look to it like a thumb drive.
Is this doable? Solutions?
With all the cable cutters out there this could be awesome...
Only 'MiniDLNA' & Wi-Fi is cableless. USB, only if you have a so-called USB-NoGo port.
poma
On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 2:20 AM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.comwrote:
Offhand I'm not thinking why a TV would need mount media as read-write.
In principle, it would allow the TV to flag shows that have already been seen, or even delete shows under user command. Not that I know of any that actually do this of course.
poc
Chris Murphy:
Offhand I'm not thinking why a TV would need mount media as read-write.
Patrick O'Callaghan:
In principle, it would allow the TV to flag shows that have already been seen, or even delete shows under user command. Not that I know of any that actually do this of course.
Or remember the user-corrected rotation of photos that have been viewed.
On Dec 9, 2013, at 3:08 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 2:20 AM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote: Offhand I'm not thinking why a TV would need mount media as read-write.
In principle, it would allow the TV to flag shows that have already been seen, or even delete shows under user command. Not that I know of any that actually do this of course.
I think if TV manufacturers want to get into this space, with this kind of functionality, they need a real OS, and modern file systems instead of what they have, which is… well honestly, crap. It is a well known problem using the delete feature on cameras, whether they're consumer or professional, cards end up corrupted routinely and end up losing every file on the card. So in the professional realm, most know not to delete files from the camera, and to have the camera do the reformatting when reusing media.
I think it's a reasonable feature. I just think how it's being implemented is just ugly right now.
Chris Murphy
On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Tim ignored_mailbox@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Chris Murphy:
Offhand I'm not thinking why a TV would need mount media as read-write.
Patrick O'Callaghan:
In principle, it would allow the TV to flag shows that have already been seen, or even delete shows under user command. Not that I know of any that actually do this of course.
Or remember the user-corrected rotation of photos that have been viewed.
Indeed, and no doubt other features would come to mind, e.g. remember current position in video so the user can pick it up on another viewing device, reorganize videos into folders, configure per-folder sorting criteria, etc. etc. We could make TVs as complicated as phones (remember when phones were simple?)
poc
On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 11:46 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.comwrote:
I think if TV manufacturers want to get into this space, with this kind of functionality, they need a real OS, and modern file systems instead of what they have, which is… well honestly, crap. It is a well known problem using the delete feature on cameras, whether they're consumer or professional, cards end up corrupted routinely and end up losing every file on the card. So in the professional realm, most know not to delete files from the camera, and to have the camera do the reformatting when reusing media.
I think it's a reasonable feature. I just think how it's being implemented is just ugly right now.
The irony is that many of these devices already run Linux under the covers, you just can't get to it.
poc
On 10.12.2013 11:56, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
The irony is that many of these devices already run Linux under the covers, you just can't get to it.
Maybe you can't, however http://www.samygo.tv
poma
Allegedly, on or about 10 December 2013, Patrick O'Callaghan sent:
We could make TVs as complicated as phones (remember when phones were simple?)
Mine still is, I deliberately chose a simple one. ;-)
There's an old joke going around about someone wishing that their Windows computer was as easy to use as their phone. And now their wish has been granted, but in an "evil genie" style - now their phone is as hard to use as their computer.
On Dec 10, 2013, at 3:54 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Tim ignored_mailbox@yahoo.com.au wrote: Chris Murphy:
Offhand I'm not thinking why a TV would need mount media as read-write.
Patrick O'Callaghan:
In principle, it would allow the TV to flag shows that have already been seen, or even delete shows under user command. Not that I know of any that actually do this of course.
Or remember the user-corrected rotation of photos that have been viewed.
Indeed, and no doubt other features would come to mind, e.g. remember current position in video so the user can pick it up on another viewing device, reorganize videos into folders, configure per-folder sorting criteria, etc. etc. We could make TVs as complicated as phones (remember when phones were simple?)
Yes, I agree all of those features are good ideas. I'd just expect, due to the present state of affairs and past experience with embedded firmware modifying FAT16/FAT32/exFAT media, that the device will eventually corrupt the file system. And if that happens with exFAT, you're almost certainly SOL. If it happens with FAT32, there's a better chance of repairing the file system but it also depends how aggressively the device updates both FATs.
Granted, if they're implementing a simple file system this poorly, perhaps they'd implement a more sophisticated file system poorly also. But that just means the manufacturers are essentially incompetent in this particular area, which is my main argument.
The irony is that many of these devices already run Linux under the covers, you just can't get to it.
That's interesting. In which case I'd like to think they're using the linux kernel's FAT implementation, which shouldn't induce the corruption problems I've mentioned. It could become corrupt by removing media while writes are still occurring, which is normally in the category of user error. But in the context of a consumer device like a TV, in my view it's actually a design flaw that a user could induce such corruption. Losing the data that's unwritten is understandable, but corrupting the ability to access what was long ago successfully written, isn't.
I wonder if any of these linux running products happen to have a kernel with other file system support. Documentation might not mention it but maybe ext3 or ext4 formatted media would also work (even if not officially supported).
Chris Murphy
On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 1:27 PM, Tim ignored_mailbox@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Allegedly, on or about 10 December 2013, Patrick O'Callaghan sent:
We could make TVs as complicated as phones (remember when phones were simple?)
Mine still is, I deliberately chose a simple one. ;-)
There's an old joke going around about someone wishing that their Windows computer was as easy to use as their phone. And now their wish has been granted, but in an "evil genie" style - now their phone is as hard to use as their computer.
I once heard Tony Hoare say that in the early days the computer was the size of a room and the documentation would fit in your pocket, but now it's the other way round. And that was a good 30 years ago.
But I digress ...
poc
On 12/10/2013 11:34 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I once heard Tony Hoare say that in the early days the computer was the size of a room and the documentation would fit in your pocket, but now it's the other way round. And that was a good 30 years ago.
Except that all of the paper documentation you have is a few pages that tell you how to turn it on and set it up. The rest is either on-disk or on-line where you can't get to it when you need it the most.
On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 7:52 PM, Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
On 12/10/2013 11:34 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I once heard Tony Hoare say that in the early days the computer was the size of a room and the documentation would fit in your pocket, but now it's the other way round. And that was a good 30 years ago.
Except that all of the paper documentation you have is a few pages that tell you how to turn it on and set it up. The rest is either on-disk or on-line where you can't get to it when you need it the most.
Point taken, but as I say, it was 30 years ago.
poc
On Tue, 10 Dec 2013 11:52:59 -0800 Joe Zeff wrote:
Except that all of the paper documentation you have is a few pages that tell you how to turn it on and set it up. The rest is either on-disk or on-line where you can't get to it when you need it the most.
And for linux, any documentation you can find is obviously obsolete and misleading, or you wouldn't have been able to find it :-).
On 10 December 2013 19:52, Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
On 12/10/2013 11:34 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I once heard Tony Hoare say that in the early days the computer was the size of a room and the documentation would fit in your pocket, but now it's the other way round. And that was a good 30 years ago.
Except that all of the paper documentation you have is a few pages that tell you how to turn it on and set it up. The rest is either on-disk or on-line where you can't get to it when you need it the most.
What documentation? (And no, it's not just a dig at FOSS.)
On Dec 10, 2013, at 1:50 PM, Ian Malone ibmalone@gmail.com wrote:
On 10 December 2013 19:52, Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
On 12/10/2013 11:34 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I once heard Tony Hoare say that in the early days the computer was the size of a room and the documentation would fit in your pocket, but now it's the other way round. And that was a good 30 years ago.
Except that all of the paper documentation you have is a few pages that tell you how to turn it on and set it up. The rest is either on-disk or on-line where you can't get to it when you need it the most.
What documentation? (And no, it's not just a dig at FOSS.)
Are people really free to make choices if they're not only not informed, but can't be informed? Among other things, this comes up with free markets, which require perfect information to be perfectly free. Therefore it's understood there is no such thing as a completely free market because there isn't perfect information (and often there are explicit attempts to avoid and even obfuscate information). So you can argue that the lack of documentation, or existence of bad documentation, limits the freedom of OSS.
Chris Murphy
On Tue, 2013-12-10 at 11:52 -0800, Joe Zeff wrote:
all of the paper documentation you have is a few pages that tell you how to turn it on and set it up. The rest is either on-disk or on-line where you can't get to it when you need it the most.
Many years ago I came to the conclusion that it was next to impossible to do anything with computers without having more than one of them.
Sure, if they're working well and not failing, you don't need two. But the moment one goes up the creek, you need another to do the research, or someone else to look at your computer.
They're a horrible consumer product.
On 12/10/2013 11:11 AM, Chris Murphy wrote:
On Dec 10, 2013, at 3:54 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Tim ignored_mailbox@yahoo.com.au wrote: Chris Murphy:
Offhand I'm not thinking why a TV would need mount media as read-write.
Patrick O'Callaghan:
In principle, it would allow the TV to flag shows that have already been seen, or even delete shows under user command. Not that I know of any that actually do this of course.
Or remember the user-corrected rotation of photos that have been viewed.
Indeed, and no doubt other features would come to mind, e.g. remember current position in video so the user can pick it up on another viewing device, reorganize videos into folders, configure per-folder sorting criteria, etc. etc. We could make TVs as complicated as phones (remember when phones were simple?)
Yes, I agree all of those features are good ideas. I'd just expect, due to the present state of affairs and past experience with embedded firmware modifying FAT16/FAT32/exFAT media, that the device will eventually corrupt the file system. And if that happens with exFAT, you're almost certainly SOL. If it happens with FAT32, there's a better chance of repairing the file system but it also depends how aggressively the device updates both FATs.
Granted, if they're implementing a simple file system this poorly, perhaps they'd implement a more sophisticated file system poorly also. But that just means the manufacturers are essentially incompetent in this particular area, which is my main argument.
The irony is that many of these devices already run Linux under the covers, you just can't get to it.
That's interesting. In which case I'd like to think they're using the linux kernel's FAT implementation, which shouldn't induce the corruption problems I've mentioned. It could become corrupt by removing media while writes are still occurring, which is normally in the category of user error. But in the context of a consumer device like a TV, in my view it's actually a design flaw that a user could induce such corruption. Losing the data that's unwritten is understandable, but corrupting the ability to access what was long ago successfully written, isn't.
I wonder if any of these linux running products happen to have a kernel with other file system support. Documentation might not mention it but maybe ext3 or ext4 formatted media would also work (even if not officially supported).
Chris Murphy
My Western Digital Media box exports a CIFS filesystem that I mount on my Fedora box, works great, faster than a locally connected USB disk. It will also mount a USB disk with ext3 formatted filesystem. I believe some people have figured out how to get root on the WD as well (but why bother). I like it a lot, it plays almost every video I have.
For reference, here's my F19 box fstab entry for the WD box
//192.168.1.105/WDTVLiveHub /home/jwendel/TVBOX cifs user,noauto,credentials=/home/jwendel/bin/samba/credentials,sec=ntlm,uid=1000,file_mode=0644 0 0
John
On Dec 10, 2013, at 8:27 PM, John Wendel jwendel10@comcast.net wrote:
My Western Digital Media box exports a CIFS filesystem that I mount on my Fedora box, works great, faster than a locally connected USB disk.
Neat. The chances of a consumer product hosing the file system of the storage media is far reduced with a network file sharing protocol as a buffer. And ext3 is definitely better than FAT32 or exFAT when it comes to repairability. Yeah we should have backups, so we're told. But realistically, people often don't do this, and the penalty is disproportionate when a contraption that ought to be a good citizen ends up face planting and taking our data with it.
I do sorta have a bone to pick with the camera vendors who have ignored this problem. I know way too many people who have lost photos because of this. A whole legion of recovery tools has been created to mitigate it. It's to the point that media vendors use the availability of recovery tools in their marketing info to get consumers to buy their brand of storage media!
Chris Murphy
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 3:27 AM, John Wendel jwendel10@comcast.net wrote:
My Western Digital Media box exports a CIFS filesystem that I mount on my Fedora box, works great, faster than a locally connected USB disk. It will also mount a USB disk with ext3 formatted filesystem. I believe some people have figured out how to get root on the WD as well (but why bother). I like it a lot, it plays almost every video I have.
I have one of those (in fact I'm on my second one) and in general I'm very happy with it, but I use it the other way round, i.e. most of the content comes via DNLA from my NAS (Iomega though I wouldn't recommend it).
poc
12/07/2013 08:16 PM, Tom Horsley wrote:
It is possible with the right kind of arduino chip and the right firmware for it to make something that looks like a USB drive. (At least I think I figured out that was possible once).
Ask and ye shall recieve.
http://arduino.cc/en/ArduinoCertified/IntelGalileo
Sports both host and client USB.
Heard it becomes available on December 14 at $69 US.
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Chris Murphy -
Fernando Cassia -
Ian Malone -
Joe Zeff -
John Wendel -
Mike Wright -
Patrick O'Callaghan -
poma -
Robert Nichols -
Tim -
Tom Horsley