Connecting External HD to TV?

I recently purchased an HD camcorder and want to download my vidoes on to an external HD. I would love to have the external HD semi-permanently connected to my TV so I can play video without too much fuss.

Is this possible? My TV has an extra HDMI in and a USB in, though the USB seems to have only certain functions. I also have a bluray player with a usb slot that I believe can play movies.

Will either of these work to be able to watch the videos I record in full HD?

Thanks Sammy. I should clarify that one can play video files (not DVD or Bluray movies) via the usb slot. I have tried it with a usb and it does work, though I am not certain what formats are compatible.

And I get you on the OS having to tell the HD what to do. Of course, one would think that the same would apply to the usb but maybe not?

After a bit more research on my bluray, here are what appear to be the relevent sections. Playable formats include mpg, avi, divx, mp4, wmv, and....avchd. So it looks like it should at least recognize the files.

Here is the other relevent piece of information:

The player can recognize Mass Storage Class (MSC) devices (such as flash memory or an HDD) that are FAT-compatible and nonpartitioned, Still Image Capture Device (SICD) class devices and 101 keyboard (front USB jack only)

Does this mean that it may actually recognize files off of an external HD? And what of the FAT compatible section? How is that relevant?

Thanks.

Well, after doing some research, I went ahead and purchased a hard drive and connected it to my bluray player. I formatted the drive into FAT32 and guess what? It works!

I am now able to load all of my HD videos (i.e., AVCHD), photos, and music and play them all on my TV. I still have to use my laptop to add new files but it isn't a huge deal since I already loaded somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000 files onto the drive. In other words, just about everything I have.

It is fairly seamless too. Turn on my bluray, access the usb drive, and off I go.

Now, if I could only figure out a way to shuffle my music? You'd think it would be an easy update for a manufacturer like Sony (which by the way, included this feature on my car stereo usb hub).