M: I have an LG portable Blu-ray slash DVD writer, model number BP50NB40. Would anything positive come out of my connecting it via USB to an LG television?
G: TL;DR:
Almost certainly nothing useful will happen. LG TVs generally do
not support external USB optical drives like your
BP50NB40. It won’t function as a Blu-ray player when plugged directly
into the TV.
Your entity["product","LG BP50NB40","portable Blu-ray DVD writer external drive"] is:
It is not a standalone player.
Smart TVs (including LG) only understand:
They don’t have drivers to talk to optical drives.
Blu-ray playback requires:
TVs don’t implement this for external drives. That logic lives in:
TV USB ports are meant for:
Not for:
The BP50NB40 is the wrong layer in the stack.
It needs a computer in between to translate “disc →
video,” and the TV only understands the final result, not the raw disc
hardware.
If you want a direct-to-TV solution, you need a standalone Blu-ray player, not an external drive.
M: I didn't think so, but figured I would check. Just to make sure, go online and do a search. Someone has to have tried this out. I mean, I just was thinking about the connection as a general thing, but when it turned out it was an LG, I figured someone must have tried doing something like this before, if just to see if it would work.
G: TL;DR (confirmed by
actual people trying it):
Yeah—people have tried this exact idea, and the consistent
result is: it doesn’t work for playback.
On a forum discussing your exact model (LG BP50NB40):
“Can it plug into a TV via USB and play Blu-rays?”
“no it wont work connected to a tv for movie playback” citeturn0search4
That’s the blunt, real-world outcome.
There is a weird, misleading detail floating around:
This is the part that trips people up:
So in practice:
Even outside LG:
You basically tested:
“Same brand + USB = maybe hidden compatibility?”
That’s a reasonable instinct—but the stack breaks here:
You weren’t missing anything—it’s just one of those dead-end compatibility edges that feels like it should work but doesn’t.
M: Yeah, I'm kind of surprised there isn't some form of functionality like that. Okay, maybe not surprised, but It seems like it would be the kind of incestuous interaction that you would think they would hype up just to make sure that people started thinking, hey, everything will work with everything in some form or other, if not through direct hardware interaction, through some sort of downloadable app on the TV. I mean, hell, they've got jellyfin on there. You'd think they would be looking to corner some of that market.
G: TL;DR:
It sounds like a missed opportunity, but it’s actually a
deliberate non-feature. The blockers aren’t technical—they’re
legal, licensing, and business incentives. LG (or
anyone) would take on a pile of cost and liability to support something
that barely sells.
Your model is basically:
“Same company + USB + smart TV + apps = why not just add a disc reader layer?”
And yeah—at a pure engineering level, that’s doable.
A TV could:
That’s not the hard part.
To play a commercial Blu-ray, you need:
That stack is tightly controlled by the entity["organization","Blu-ray Disc Association","Blu-ray standards body"].
So manufacturers avoid it entirely.
A dedicated player is:
That’s why:
Physical media is declining.
Most users:
Adding support:
If LG allowed this, they’d inherit:
That becomes endless.
From their perspective:
They’ve segmented the problem instead of merging it.
You’re imagining something like:
LG TV + LG drive = seamless ecosystem feature
That model works in:
But TVs are:
So LG doesn’t gain much by building that ecosystem.
What does exist:
Or:
That’s basically the “modular version” of your idea.
You’re not wrong about the concept.
You’re just running into a case where:
The thing that should be a clean ecosystem feature
is blocked by DRM + declining demand + zero incentive.
So instead of “everything works with everything,” you get:
M: Mm. TVs are open, but the smart TVs are a lot more proprietary. And at the very least, I'm surprised there isn't any DVD functionality, even if the Blu-ray stuff is the nightmare you say.
G: TL;DR:
DVD seems like it should be easy—but even that runs into
licensing cost + zero demand + UX headaches. It’s not
blocked like Blu-ray, it’s just… not worth it to manufacturers.
Smart TVs are pretty proprietary now.
They absolutely could support:
So your instinct isn’t off—it’s just that the barriers shift from “can’t” → “why bother.”
DVD playback requires licensing through the entity["organization","DVD Forum","DVD standard licensing body"] and related patent pools.
Even though it’s old tech:
For a feature almost nobody uses anymore, that’s dead weight.
To support even DVDs, the TV would need:
That’s already more complex than:
And TVs are aggressively simplified in firmware.
DVD menus are:
TV OS would need to:
That’s a support nightmare for a dying format.
This is the big one.
From LG’s perspective:
So adding support:
It’s just engineering + licensing cost for almost no upside.
You’re thinking in terms of feature completeness:
“If you already read files over USB, reading discs feels like the next logical step.”
But TV manufacturers think in terms of:
“What reduces friction for the average user right now?”
And discs are now seen as legacy friction, not value.
What you’re describing did briefly exist—in a different form:
So this isn’t something they never thought of—it’s something they let die on purpose.
DVD support isn’t missing because it’s hard.
It’s missing because:
It solves a problem manufacturers no longer believe exists.
And that’s why even the “easy version” never got built.