Ask Lemmy

Any computer with HDMI output?

Onn tv puck from Walmart $19.99

Connect it to your TV, go to Play store, download Kodi.

Share folder of movies/tvshows on your pc

In Kodi, add smb source from your PC (guides online for this if you need it)

Done.

Edit: Block this thing from going online once you have installed kodi.

You could burn a DVD?

There are tons of options. Chromecasts, Apple TVs, Amazon Fire TV, Nvidia Shield are all commercial options and I recommend none of them.

The traditional broke student choice for this is to just get a laptop that has a HDMI out or the ability to spit out HDMI over USB C and plug that straight to the TV. That I can recommend. Especially if your goal is not to stream the media but to instead play a bunch of locally downloaded files.

Beyond that you're going out of your way to set up bigger self-hosting stuff and if we're talking "upgrading from a VCR to playing offline videos on my TV" it sure sounds like we aren't there yet.

Get something like a Roku, to give it network connectivity.

Or you run a very long cable to connect the PC's output to the TV's input.

Look into one of the FireTV devices, but make sure you get one that can be hacked. That way you get network connectivity, but you also get the ability to easily play pirated content as well.

I have a few devices that serve this purpose. The one I'd recommend is Kodi. This is a non-commercial media center program that has one purpose in life: play media files on the TV.

IIRC you can buy some commercial devices that come with Kodi pre-installed, with a USB port. You could also set up a shared network folder. I haven't researched any of these.

What worked best for me was a raspberry pi with libreelec installed -- an operating system that makes it easy to run Kodi. You can even control it by default with the TV's remote control, just through the HDMI connection. Make sure you have a good quality power supply.

The other thing I've used is a steam link, but it is a little clunky to get it to play smoothly over the network.

Stream it with something like a Steam Link maybe?

I use an old core 2 duo that I paid 40€ for it 10 years ago.

I'm sure that now there are better and cheaper options in the second hand market, or in dumpsters.

AppleTV, but it requires an Apple device to have the files on so you can AirPlay it to the TV.

Actually, the tv has to have HDMI. If it does, you can do the AppleTV box or just use a simple HDMI cord that hooks up to your computer

If something like USB doesn't show your video, it may be too new of a codec (it may want mp4 or mpg or avi or wmv (mov or m4v?), not webm or mkv etc).

One thing to consider may be media-capable consoles (PS3/Xbox 360? and newer). Or an older computer, or maybe someone will be fine running it off of their laptop (or phone if you have a cord/casting).

You may want to use some sort of server (simple HTTP, perhaps even a media server) if you have a video-capable (+network-capable) device that does not have enough storage. You may need to do firewall/port stuff for that (fixed local address), though it might be more convenient in some cases.

Make/model of the TV would help. They often do support playing videos through USB, but are really limited in what movie file types it supports.

You could buy a cheap laptop or raspberry pi, connect that to the TV, and use VLC to play movies from your desktop (would have to make the folder with movies on your desktop network shareable).