Apr 18, 2014

Can I record straight from TV on a USB 3.0 instead of USB 2.0

I sometimes record a TV program using a USB 2.0 in spite of the obvious drawbacks, such as a 4GB USB will not fit much over an hour of Standard Definition, and Full HD is just not worth it unless you have a proper Hard Drive recorder, as  a movie wouldn't fit on a 16GB USB 2.0 if is inFull HD.

Anyway, I just saw a USB 3.0 in a 64 GB size, which is way bigger than any I have seen in USB 2.0. I thought I had better check if it will work before I buy one as I have only ever used different sizes in the 2.0.

I know I was told when I had only recently purchased this TV, which was pretty cheap so I grabbed for the bedroom, that  I could not, for example, use an external Hard Drive via the USB ports as the TV's computer would not be equipped to format something as large as that.

So...should I be able to format a USB 3.0 or might the TV only format USB 2.0? And if it can, will a 64 GB be too big??

Also, out of interest, will a USB 3.0 be exactly the same as the USB 2.0, in relation to how many minutes of recorded TV will fit on every 4 GB of either USB approximately?

These are simple questions for most of you, no doubt, but I am still a learner & would really appreciate anyones input if they can assist me. At $39.99 AUD the USB 3.0 in 64 GB size sounds like great value.


I hope I will get a response from  one of you awesome people who enjoys sharing their info with people like myself who still have so much to learn, but thanks to sites like this, I will get there alot sooner than would otherwise be possible.


Cheers all!!!


USB 2 vs USB 3 is a non-issue in your case. Your TV's USB port is almost certainly a USB 2 port and will treat a USB 3 device as a USB 2 device. Also USB versions don't place limits on device size, file sytem or file size, or the file system you can format the device with.


The real question is what file systems does your TV support? Since you're already using a 4 GB device then you're probably using FAT32. Unfortunately Microsoft OSs limit the creation of FAT32 file systems to a maximum size of 32 GB. The are many tools that will format a FAT32 file system larger than 32GB (and modern version of Windows will have no problem reading/writing them), but without knowing what TV you have there's no way to know if it is one of them.


So a 64 GB flash drive or even a larger hard drive (as long as it's not a bus power only device as most TVs don't supply enough current to power a hard drive) should work fine with your TV, but you may have to format it using something other than your TV. I can't say for sure since you didn't tell us what TV you have.


The more important limit you may face is that FAT32 files are limited to maximum size of 4 GB. if you want to watch files larger than 4 GB then your TV will have to support a file system like exFAT, NTFS or a Linux file system. But, again, there's no way of knowing what file systems you can use since you didn't tell us what TV you have.


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