Sharing media from Windows 7 to blu-ray player

[wonkey_monkey]

I'm trying - as all my USB sticks keep dying on me - to simplify the process of watching stuff by streaming direct from my laptop to my connected Blu-ray player so I can watch on the TV.

When I go to Devices on the Blu-ray player, it shows my laptop name and my username, but when I click on it and select Videos, it tells me there aren't any. This, as far as I can tell is a lie, because there are loads.

When I try the same thing from my phone, it again shows my laptop name and username, but says "Contents location is not available" and "No videos."

What little I can find on the internet suggests making sure sharing is enabled via Windows Media Player, which it does seem to be. WMP itself shows me the videos in my My Videos folder and I've also added another folder to the Videos Library.

Anyone got any hints? Not sure what to do next.

[wonkey_monkey]

Rebooting the Blu-ray player seems to have "fixed" it... but of course I can't see .mkv files. I tried Plex, but it doesn't have the right profile for my Blu-ray player or something, so everything's unplayable. So much for plug-n-play. I think I'll just go back to USB sticks.

[StainlessS]

Something like this any good ? :- https://www.amazon.co.uk/SSK-Portable-Wireless-Personal-Auto-Backup/dp/B07TV2B561/ref=pd_sbs_147_1/260-5535725-6801643?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07TV2B561&pd_rd_r=4505e332-cc65-466c-a27e-0202123fdf39&pd_rd_w=QGoVC&pd_rd_wg=r6Pe2&pf_rd_p=96cae456-8d7a-4bc1-91c7-9b20b4dfd7c9&pf_rd_r=3ZWQRPH4VWY0RZNYXPVB&psc=1&refRID=3ZWQRPH4VWY0RZNYXPVB

SSK Portable NAS Wireless Hard Drive 1TB Personal Cloud Smart Storage, External Hard Disk with Personal Wi-Fi Hotspot, Support Auto-Backup, Phone/Tablet PC/Laptop Wireless Remote Access

[wonkey_monkey]

Interesting device - I could leave it connected to the blu-ray player and access it wirelessly, perhaps - but I'm about to buy a whole new laptop so don't want to do too many spends at the mo. SanDisk are probably going to replace my two broken USBs so I can hopefully go back to using those.

[StainlessS]

Sandisk are my preferred USB and SD cards, never occurred to me to find out if their lifetime guarantee is worth a damn. [I think it is lifetime]
I've never tried one of these, but they look interesting:- https://uk.webuy.com/search?stext=sandisk%20connect&view=list&inStock=1

You may be able to get them new on Amazon for about the same price [CEX sometime charges more for 2nd User USB/SD card than if new on Amazon].

There are currently loads of rip off Chinese SD cards on Amazon, say they are eg 256 GB but are only 32GB, or similar[real cheap, but see reviews].
To see the rip-offs, on Amazon, sort price ascending, and see loads of names that you aint ever heard of.

[wonkey_monkey]

I bought both direct from Amazon (not a third-party seller). One was fine until it suddenly went read-only (fault mode). The other has always been annoyingly slow, but definitely has full capacity. Not sure what's up with that one. They both have 5-year warranty, apparently, so I'll get one replaced and then the other.

[foxyshadis]

Streaming is unfortunately pretty dependent on the receiver cooperating, and set-top players notoriously don't do it well. Switching to a Fire stick was night & day for me, and substantially more responsive to boot. I'm sure any of the big brands would do just as well.