external hard drive to tv and android

[robbie71]

i have video in various formats on a usb hdd that I usually use to play on laptop .
I now want to play on android phone and tablet . I can accesss the files using ES Explorer and play some on MXPLAYER but not all formats.
This is where I get lost
Will a Media Server (such as UMS ) help convert formats for playback ?
Does the server run on my android device or laptop ?
If on laptop ,how does the android device access video through the server ?

 

[Titillating]

Media servers, to my knowledge, will not convert formats. That you'll need to do yourself. The server itself is usually run on whatever device has access to your files; if you are using an external HDD for it, your best bet would be to connect that to your laptop and install the media server program on that laptop. Your Android device should be able to access those videos if it is on the same WiFi network as your laptop, by using the companion app that many media server programs come with.

Note that all of that is based off my personal experiences. For reference, I use Plex.