DVR for elderly, no stream and no record

[RSAofYAP]

I have searched and searched with no luck. I am an old fart, closing in on the 80's, who has very little to leave my lifetime Bride except family movies and old movies I have collected and converted to h264. Despite having 4 grown sons and 13 grandchildren I have no geeks to turn too for help. We have used Plex and Kodi and they work up to a point. I like the Plex interface, but when things go wrong there is no one who could help my wife. I am looking for a DVR type device that you could plug into a usb or HDMI port on the back of a tv. It would be strictly for playing our media on any tv she might purchase. I prefer it not to be on any network, just a local device for her. I do not need to record OTR or streaming. I just need her to be able to turn it on and scan through poster pictures (not a text list)to decide what she wants to watch. Ideally you could plug an external hard drive into it that it could read and display like the media on it. Shouldn't there be a market for this? Wouldn't your parents or grandparents want something like this so they would not be bombarded with all the garbage they don't want to see?? We have over 400 family videos, some vhs, even reel to reel and yes, very poor quality, but they are memories. If this animal exists please, please share a link.

 

[USAFRet]

Burn them all onto physical DVDs.

Playable in any DVD player. No Kodi/Plex/usb/whatever.

Once you have them one single playable format, then your heirs can, over the next few years, convert them to whatever they will use.

 

[dwd999]

I just need her to be able to turn it on and scan through poster pictures (not a text list)to decide what she wants to watch. Ideally you could plug an external hard drive into it that it could read and display like the media on it.

This is the most problematic. There are many types of external hard drives that can be connected to the usb port on many current TVs. It helps if they have they have their own power supply. But the issue is what is displayed on the TV screen when you search through the files. Many TVs will display a single frame from whatever media file you select but the size of and location of the frame within in the media file is determined by the TV manufacturer and that's something you can't know about until you actually select a TV and try it. The same goes for media software apps that the TV manufacturer can provide for installation on the TV's operating system. Its hard to find out what this is until after you have selected a TV. So you might have to stick with an external PC and whatever software you know you can run on that, automated to the highest point possible. If she can handle turning a computer on and logging in, you may be able to automate the process of Plex or whatever loading up and creating a display she can work with.

 

[USAFRet]

you may be able to automate the process of Plex or whatever loading up and creating a display she can work with.

Even as an ubergeek, I found Plex to be a problem.

It expects videos in certain formats.

For instance, an ISO of an entire movie DVD...no go.


For home vids, maybe.
But for my movie collection, it was not suitable.

 

[dwd999]

Even as an ubergeek, I found Plex to be a problem.

It expects videos in certain formats.

For instance, an ISO of an entire movie DVD...no go.


For home vids, maybe.
But for my movie collection, it was not suitable.

I certainly agree. I had a Samsung S90C TV and I had to go through all of my movies on my external backup HDD to identify which ones had some form of Dolby soundtrack that the TV didn't like (certain Dolby EX or other 6 channel Dolby formats that weren't generic enough) and then convert them to generic AC-3 so that I could be sure they would play if my HTPC and soundbar weren't available. I prefer my HTPC with plain old Windows Explorer List View to anything a TV has to offer.