Playing movies from external hard drive

Both methods will work, but you will tend to have more control on the quality of the saved video if you "rip" the DVD yourself.  There are several methods to rip a DVD.  One, you can use the program SUPER, which is free, to rip to a single file.  Otherwise you will have to use several programs.  The second method is to use DVD Decrypter to rip the dvd. Then use VOB2MPG to combine the separate VOB files.  Finally, use SUPER to compress the DVD video to your liking.  In order to use your external hard drive to display to your TV, you have 2 choices.  One, move your computer to your living room and buy an aftermarket video card to output to the TV.  Two, buy a cheap computer which can run video w/o lagging and install an aftermarket video card to output to the TV.  I hope this helps in your DVD video adventures.

As both Western Digital and Iomega have not made much news about these two devices, I had not realized they existed. They would be the best solution for you. Just make sure you convert the video into the correct format.