another option

GP in Texas wrote: "My Samsung TV is only about two years old and has a USB input at the back. When in TV mode, not DVD mode or anything else, if I plug in a USB drive, a box pops up on the screen asking me to select a USB device, even though there's only one. Then I can choose videos or music. My remote control has a play, pause and stop button at the very bottom that are for these files. There's also a "MEDIA.P" button on the remote that brings the USB menu back up if I get out of it somehow."

I have a 7 year old Samsung and it has a USB input on the side, but it only plays photo's or music. So sometime between 2008 and 2013 they must have added a video feature. 

So there's another option for playing files with no disc player even needed. Simply copy the files from disc, create your own playlist and copy to USB, plug it into the TV and away you go. 
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Charlie in Bangkok writes that he has had very good success with Pioneer brand DivX / all-region players which can be had for about $40 there. 

Roger in New Zealand writes that he bought a Pioneer DV-2242 and has generally had good luck with it but sometimes it won't play a file yet finds his 8 year old Sony DVR will.

James in Texas says his newest disc player purchase, a Sony 3200, will only play about 70% of the files. I'm thinking that it may have a DivX and/or Xvid codec issue where it will recognize one, but not the other. In the future, send me a list of files you can't play and maybe I can figure out why. It could also be a mp3 and/or AAC or AC3 audio codec issue.