External Hard Drive with universal compatibility?

[Dotol]

I want to buy an external hard drive to store movies 1-3TB on this upcoming black friday. I've been carrying around this huge DVD case with me for too long and want to make the transition to an HDD. Basically I'll be using it when I go on trips, I would want it to work on TV's (through USB?) at hotels, laptops and DVD players. I honestly don't know how they work, would any external HDD play movies while connected to any TV via USB? Are there any restrictions or things I should look out for when buying one? Can I browse through the folders or movies in my HDD in a TV or will it play them in order? Any recommendations will be very helpful!

Also, what happens if I connect an external HDD to a Mac laptop, will I be able to use it on a Windows computer later? Won't it need to be reformatted?

 

[Dotol]

Well a quick look at a TV that does USB video play back and the drive need's to be formatted to FAT or NTFS. I know FAT32 only supports files <4GB's so I guess NTFS is the way to go... you may need to add software for the apple to read that not sure.

Oh I see, but in general any external HDD will do? I just wanted to make sure if there's a specific type or something like that. As for formatting the drive, how do I do it? I can't just plug it into my computer and start transferring files to it? And yeah I guess all movies will be under 4GB

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Dotol,

Yes, basically any external HDD will do. Formatting it to NTFS(if you are using Windows) may be a good idea too.
Here is a link on how to partition and format a drive: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3865

Cheers,
D_Know_WD