You bought a TV that played media from a USB port, but isn’t high-tech enough to come with WiFi. So you diligently copy encoded movies onto a USB stick, which you then take to the TV and plug in for playback. Not bad.
Brando’s USB to 1080p HDTV Share Cable spares you from the back and forth between devices, offering a cable that you can stick onto both the TV and the computer for immediate access to your hard drive contents. That means no more hassle when you copy an entire season of Entourage and decide you actually want to watch Gossip Girl instead – all the media files you want to access are immediately within reach.
What it does is turn your PC into a de facto USB hard disk, with all shared files (you need to set individual files and folders to public) automatically on tap for your HDTV to ransack. Of course, they’ll all need to be in whatever format the TV supports (no special player), so if your appliance requires some DRM crap, your torrent downloads are still toast.
The USB to 1080p HDTV Share Cable can connect to different types of playback devices, including HDTVs, BD players and, possibly, some set-top boxes. No full list is available, so you’ll have to run your own plug-and-see. Since all it does is allow the hardware access to a PC’s files, it uses up very little CPU resources, allowing you to play movies on the connected TV, while enjoying Command and Conquer 4 on your computer.
Cable is kind of short, though, at less than four inches, so you’ll likely be sitting close to your TV the whole time. Hopefully, it can work with an extension. Brando has the USB to 1080p HDTV Share Cable now for only $24.
[Brando]