PlayStation 4 Movie Streaming Solution: How to Play Movies on PS4 from USB Drive

First of all, you must choose a proper USB drive so as to transfer movies from your computer local drive to PS4 correctly. Apart from the obvious fact that it should have a large storage space for carrying movies, it should also fit the specific USB format standard of PS4.

When formatting a USB drive, Windows gives three options: NTFS, FAT32, and exFAT (these are file system formats for internal drive, external drive, USB flash drive, or SD card), PS4 only supports FAT32 and exFAT USB. And as the successor of FAT32, exFAT tends to carry larger files, making itself an ideal choice here, for playing movies on PS4.

*Check the file system of your USB drive: On windows, connect your USB drive with your PC, right-click on it from your root directory > click “Properties”.

To watch movies, we use PS4 Media Player. It’s a media player app on PS4 that enables PlayStation 4 users to easily access and play personal photos, music and video files on their TVs that are connected to a PlayStation 4 system.

It’s worth mentioning that not all videos are supported, unsupported video formats can’t be recognized by PS4 and will lead to weird display, black screen, error messages, etc. during playback.

Here’s the media format & codec specification of PS4 Media Player.

From the assigned destination path at Part 2 - Step 1, you can locate the converted, PS4-friendly movies. Copy them to your USB drive. It’s not hard of course, but note that if you put the movies right under the root directory, PS4 Media Player won’t read them. Instead, put them in a folder. For example, you could put your video in a folder named “Videos" or create separate folders for different types of videos. If you also want to stream music on PS4 Media Player, your audio files must be located in a folder called “Music” on the drive for the PS4 to detect them correctly.

When it’s done, safely remove your USB from your computer.

1. Now, make sure the TV you want to enjoy movies with is well hooked-up with your PS4, learn how to set up PS4 for your TV if not, plug your USB into one of the PS4 USB ports.

2. Turn on your PS4, there should be an app named “Media Player” appears on the main screen. If it’s isn’t there, you can find it at Purchased category to download and install it.

3. Start PS4 “Media Player” (it’ll lead first-time users to PlayStation Store to free download and install), and you should see your plugged USB drive shown as an option, open it with the game controller, reach your media contents, and enjoy your movies!

Q1. Why is my PS4 not reading movies on USB?

If your PS4 cannot read movies on UBS, the possible reasons are:

The USB format: The PlayStation 4 supports FAT and exFAT formats for USB storage. Ensure that your USB drive is formatted in one of these compatible formats.

USB drive compatibility: Some USB drives may be incompatible with the PlayStation 4. Try using a different USB drive to see if the issue persists.

File format compatibility: Ensure the movies you are trying to access are in a format supported by the PlayStation 4. Otherwise, convert it with WonderFox HD Video Converter Factory Pro.

System software update: Make sure that your PlayStation 4 has the latest system software update installed, as this can sometimes resolve compatibility issues.

Q2. Can PS4 play MKV from USB?

Yes and no. As stated previously, the MKV container format is supported by PS4. However, if your MKV files are encoded with H265 video codec or other incompatible codecs, you will fail to play them on PS4. Then you need to transcode your MKV files to be supported by PS4.