Access HDD from PC to BUZZTV

[DantesAID]

Hello,

I am trying to use my PC which is on the same network and connected to my U5 by the network cable. U5 has HDD attached to it, no problem seeing it and playing files off it. Now i am trying to access the same BuzzTV USB HDD but from my PC. Is it possible and if so what would be the easiest way to do that ? 

[Emporium]

Out of the box, NO it will not share the drive to the network.  The Buzz box acts as a host, and can access local and network drives, but will not share it's drive.   

In order for any android box to share any of its drives/directories, you need to find and use some 3rd party Samba sever.  I have not tested it on any buzz box.

Either way, not sure it would be of much use (other than to transfer files to it as a media library).  For accessing the files (like VOD/PVR recordings) it would be close to useless since the naming convention used for the files has no human meaningful pattern.  The filenames are "crtyptic" to the average user and pretty sure all the metadata (which matches up files with EPG or other info), is stored in some other xml or other file elsewhere on the device.

 

 

[DantesAID]

The reason why im asking. I have blueray library and watching large files over network doesnt always work even if its over wired connection. I have 8tb hdd connected directly to U5. I have jellyfin installed on windows PC. It used to be Nvidia Shield would share that drive and it would show up in windows. jellyfin Would have full access to it using my pc. The moment any movie shows up on that 8tb drive it would be accessed by nvidia shield and played directly off it.

[Emporium]

So you say that the unit can't stream well over network your bluray collection (which in my opinion tells me there is something wrong with your network setup).  I stream 25GB and 30GB files without issue from my Synology NAS (U5 and my Synology have Gigabit Link - and I'm wired).   But if the HDD is connected to the U5, how is anything going to appear on it ?  You want to use the HDD (assuming it is shareable) as a download location for Jellyfin ?  Or would you be manually transferring stuff to it from your windows PC ?  If you will be doing it manually, you can initiate the transfer from the buzz box, using something like solidexplorer which has access to windows shares.  And the split screen view also makes it very easy to transfer files from a network share, to a local drive.

Now I have seen cases where Jellyfin and even Plex are really dumb with some media played over network.  I run both Plex and Jellyfin servers in parallel on my synology NAS, and I find in some cases, Plex client will play funny with some media, and other times Jellyfin client will (neither one or the other is perfect).  In those cases, I just launch solidexplorer on my buzz, browse to my media directory on my NAS, and will click and launch the media either through VLC or MX Player, and they play perfectly fine without the plex/jellyfin overhead.  And I hate transcoding, so that is not even something I would consider.  

Bottom line, no, the buzz boxes do NOT have an SMB server included, since that was never the intention.  If you want to experiment with 3rd party SMB servers, you are welcome to do so obviously. Not sure however if they need any special kernel modules included (like on some linux distributions).  I have tried many different android boxes and other than the shield, I have not seen any of them that offer that option.

 

 

 

 

 

[DantesAID]

Thank you for your answers much appreciated it. 
 

One more question if thats okey. Its somewhat different. Im running Jellyfin and for some reason when i try to open any video file from the library it fails. Something about too many errors, that’s the message on the screen. I try to open an other and an other, same issue. In order to make it work i tried to get out of Jellyfin and then reopen it again. After that everything starts to work no problem, all videos that didnt play a minute ago start to work no problem 
 

any idea whats up with that?

Edited November 30, 2022 by DantesAID

[gherna1]

I’ve just read here, under USB-C topic, that this port is for accessing the HDD/SSD when attached to the U5. I haven’t had a chance to hook up my PC to this port to test that functionality. 
How true is that?

[Emporium]

51 minutes ago, gherna1 said:

I’ve just read here, under USB-C topic, that this port is for accessing the HDD/SSD when attached to the U5. I haven’t had a chance to hook up my PC to this port to test that functionality. 
How true is that?

That is 100% true.  I just double checked again and as long as the U5 is plugged in, as soon as you plug the USB-C to a PC, you will see it as an external drive.

 

[gherna1]

Thank you. I’ll try that next.