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[Offlinex]

I set up a simple external hard drive containing videos and pictures connected to my Wi-Fi router's (Linksys) usb. I can access the videos and pictures through my two tv's (LG and TCL) but I can't seem to figure out how to access it through my phone, do I need a certain app on the phone (its an google pixel 4a)?

Also I can find the file on my pc and it comes up with a bare bones display of whats on the drive like 30 videos and 150 pictures but I cant access them, except through windows media player (yuck) does vlc work?

 

[lantis3]

You need a DLNA (~UPNP) client on your smartphone I suppose.

Regarding VLC
https://superuser.com/questions/191736/how-do-i-connect-vlc-to-a-known-dlna-server

If you want to read/write those files on Dlink router from PC, you should turn on Samba server or file sharing feature of the router.

You router probably has Secure Folder Access
https://store.linksys.com/support-article?articleNum=48884

Router model?

 

[js2]

I set up a simple external hard drive containing videos and pictures connected to my Wi-Fi router's (Linksys) usb. I can access the videos and pictures through my two tv's (LG and TCL) but I can't seem to figure out how to access it through my phone, do I need a certain app on the phone (its an google pixel 4a)?

Also I can find the file on my pc and it comes up with a bare bones display of whats on the drive like 30 videos and 150 pictures but I cant access them, except through windows media player (yuck) does vlc work?

Never go the simple route, its often insecure. Cisco own Linksys, so you can use their media hub server software if you don't want to use Plex. The Linksys app should do the trick with your phone.

But it's best to not just "turn on everything" and share everything to everyone on the network.