Linux machine, 1tb ext. hd, xbox 360 and sony bravia pc

[Soulsource]

Hi, I have all of the above items and would like to stream my media from the ext. hd to the TV.
I had planned on plugging the hd in through usb port of my Sony bravia tv and playing through the built in media player but mpeg2 avi or mkv don't even show up in the menu (strange because I have played both mp4 and avi before through usb).
So that isn't working.
I think my options are to either -
a) leave a laptop running with Windows media player running and connect it to my xbox (I don't really want to do this as I have happily been windows free for a while now)
b) create some kind of server (I have no experience here)
c) Convert them to mpeg1 somehow (but I have read that this lowers visual quality more than I would be happy with)
d) Change the folder type so the TV thinks that it is mpeg1, something like remux I think I read (this sounds good to me as quality is retained due to the folder type being changed but the data is not converted)

Do you have any other ideas and have you any guidance as to what I should do please?

 

[LNCPapa]

I'm betting your external drive is formatted NTFS or EXT3/4 and your TV can't read that filesystem. You could try using an out-of-spec FAT32 filesystem that uses up your entire drive (you'll have to format with something other than Windows - gparted should be fine). You could also try setting up some sort of DLNA server that I think your TV can access easily. There are many options for that so I'd google "setting up a DLNA server". Remember also that if you go FAT32 that your file sizes will be limited to 4GB or smaller.