[Webmonkey]

Hi guys!



I have been looking to buy my first mediaserver, but as far as I can see, they only support NTFS, FAT32 and the Dunes support also Linux formats.


Is there really no unit that reads Mac or vFAT/Ext FAT format for support of file greater than 4GB????




Thanks

 

[halfelite]

popcorn hour will read hfs+ from mac but will not write to it. and none support exfat. will you be using exfat and are you using usb drives? if you share the drive from your pc samba takes over and drive format does not matter.

 

[Webmonkey]



Quote:
Originally Posted by halfelite  /t/1414775/which-product-support-reading-mac-os-vfat-file-formats/0_100#post_22116181


popcorn hour will read hfs+ from mac but will not write to it. and none support exfat. will you be using exfat and are you using usb drives? if you share the drive from your pc samba takes over and drive format does not matter.

Thanks for the reply!


I do not own a PC anymore. I have an external portable USB HD that is formated with exfat, for being able to exchange files greater than 4GB between my mac and work PCs.


I also have some USB flash drives around.




- Will NAS drives work? I see that it is possible to buy them now with wifi buildt in and as thus, I assume it could be possible to use them to "host" files (??)

 

[Alx330]

The filesystem does not matter when using a NAS so that would be the way to go. Simply copy media from the exFAT USB drive attached to your Mac to the the NAS & any normal network media player like a WDTV Live will be able to access it.


Support for exFAT is rare because you have to pay Microsoft for a license to use it. The only vendor I know of that supports it is Panasonic, one of their new Blu-ray players like the DMP-BBT01 might be viable (all older Panasonic devices are terrible media players but the 2012 range are not bad) one problem is they say the only support exFAT on SDcards they don't say it's supported on USB drives one way or the other, you'd want to test that out somehow or ask Panasonic.

 

[Webmonkey]

NTFS is also a MS tech, so I wonder why this is included :-(



But thanks - it is cool that a NAS can help get around these problems.



I hope that it will also work with an Oppo

 

[Alx330]

The versions of NTFS used by NAS are reverse engineered open source versions so they don't have to pay a license. The situation around exFAT is more murky as Microsoft have not released the full specifications of the exFAT file-system so reverse engineering it isn't feasible as the devs needs to see that they are not infringing on Microsofts patents it holds on exFAT, MS has also brought to court many companies for violating it's patents on FAT.


Oppo's are not great network media players, typically they are limited to DLNA access. I think the newer models have better media support but something like a Dune or WDTV would be a better buy.