I have a customer who wants to watch their grandchildren on TV and back up the video. Archiving the videos as the grandchildren grow older is also a priority. (Sorry...left that part out on my original post.) Their primary source is emailed MP4 video files from their daughter's iPhone. They have been using DVDs for years and are tired of them getting lost and scratched up. Their daughter (who lives 4 hours away) recommended an external hdd. She is also the mother of the customer's grandchildren. So...I had to go to Best Buy anyway and decided to shop around as I have never used a video server or an external hard drive on a TV. To my surprise, I found a Seagate Personal Cloud 3TB HDD. Model STCR3000101 (SRN21C). The box indicates it will stream to a Samsung TV if connected to the same network with a good wi-fi signal. (check!) I have not opened the box yet. However, I decided to learn as much as possible prior to installation day. During the process, I have learned that I must first download the Seagate Media app on the Samsung TV. I have a UN65JS9000FXZA Samsung TV in my home that is about 18 months old. The Seagate Media app does not exist, at least on my TV. I did more research and learned that not all Samsung TVs are compatible with the Seagate app. Of course, I researched the customer's UN50KU6300FXZA and it is not on the list of compatible devices, either. Very frustrating! I have not promised the customer anything, but I don't know if there is a better and easier approach I should be taking. I have considered connecting the HDD to their USB port, but that may be rather clunky. This is a very good customer who loves the smooth operation of the A/V equipment I have installed over the years. They are admittedly inept when it comes to technology. I am tempted to bail on this one, but I don't want to if there is a good solution. Ideally, Samsung would have a solution, but I didn't see one. I was anticipating a 1-2 hour setup for this. I am already 2 hours into the research and haven't even opened the carton! HELP!

She wants to play home movies made on an iphone?

plug an appleTV into the TV dude.

Why are you overthinking this. if your customer doesnt have an iphone, tell em to get an ipad.

The customer is also wanting to archive the videos are her grandchildren grow older.

televisions are good for displaying video. Anything beyond that, it is a real crapshoot. I believe you are setting yourself up for a ton of unbilled time. I would bail. How much time do you want to spend researching testing blogging testing some more and then hoping it does what they are expecting it to do?

ok, so save them to the hard drive for that then. Seems to me mom would be doing that anyway right? how many backups do they need?

I don't recall these specific models, but won't the Samsung's pull files from a DLNA server? If so, the hard drive can be anywhere on the network and the TV will find the drive and fetch files. And, as suggested, you could use AppleTV or similar -- even a Blu-ray player that can fetch files. A USB memory stick could be another option.

Majority of new TV's support DLNA (My 5 year old Panasonic does). The grand parents are obviously using a computer to burn the movies to so rather than burning the disc they save it onto a Networked HDD that supports DLNA.

Also with my 3 year old laptop I am able to access my media folders on my computer through DLNA on my TV, so depending on the age and OS of the grand parents computer a networked hard drive may not be needed.

Yes accessing the Media features on the Samsung TV may not be the easiest but as Buzz has said getting an AppleTV or Blu-Ray player to access this wouldn't be a big deal.

Another option would be for the mother to save the pictures and videos to the cloud. Get the grand parents an AppleTV and allow access to the cloud so they can access the photos and videos at anytime. This will allow easy access to the content as well as archive it for future.

I would wash my hands of being involved in this. When it stops working, they will be coming to you and will not want to pay for service calls.

Thanks to all who contributed! I have not attempted to use DLNA for a few years. I never had much need to...until now. I will pursue that option.
I also never gave the cloud option much thought. I will discuss with the customer.
Any more great ideas will be greatly appreciated, but these appear to be promising.

Be careful. If you provide the storage what happens if it fails? Is the only copy on the system you provided? Not being able to play something is a inconvenience, but losing it forever is another thing entirely.

If you are going to provide the storage make sure that it is a Raid storage device. You can find some small form factor units with hot swap hdd for a few hundred dollars

Wash hands. Do you want to be responsible for data storage. I back up all pics and movies including dvd from older video camera. I suggest backing up on a second that stays off property. Someone breaks in or worse and there goes the movies.

Yowza.

AppleTV + iOS mirroring.

In other words, put in an AppleTV and show them how to mirror, and tell them to go to an Apple Store and ask them how to get videos on/off of their phones and back them up to the cloud.

You don't want to be getting phone calls about this...

AppleTV also lets you stream from videos stored on a PC or Mac. (homesharing)

PC or Mac must be running iTunes at the time, load the videos into iTunes, watch whenever.

(New email, add video to iTunes library, Fireup the TV to AppleTV, navigate to MyComputer Icon, Videos, pick)

Sounds like it is right up there with homespun media servers and rooted Firetvs as far as stuff I will not support.