Fun and Games with DVD players and AVI files

[andrewducker]

So, I had a DVD player, and a Hauppage MediaMVP player, which allowed me to play MPEG files on my TV.

What it _didn't_ do was allow me to play AVI files, which was pretty sucky, as most things you download off of the internet are actually DivX or XVID based AVI files.

So I bought a Kiss DP-1500 DVD player with ethernet connection.  It not only plays DVDs with DivX files on them, it plays them streamed off of a PC as well.  Which is _perfect_.

The only thing it doesn't do is multiregion stuff.  For that you need to put on a hack, which stops you having a warranty.  I'd like to hang onto my warranty for the first year, at least, so I'm not willing to delve into the guts of the beast to play US DVDs.  Especially when I only have about 6 of them anyway.

Instead, for the watching of Don McKellar's marvellous Last Night which Padmini, Fergus, Suze and Erin are coming round for tonight, we planned to sit on Ed's bed and watch it on his monitor.  Less than perfect, I'm sure you'd agree, especially as the TV is both larger _and_ hooked up to a surround sound system.

Fortunately, I was hit by a brainwave last night, and so this morning I looked up the method of converting DVDs to XVID files, set it going and (5 and a half hours later) a perfect AVI file was spat out the other end, and plays perfectly through the DVD player on the TV.  Hallelujah!

So far I have no issues with the player at all - the only thing I haven't played with much is the MP3 streaming, which I shall get round to over the weekend.

Comments

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

I considered streaming DVD play from PC but of course, that a/v out, not IP out. Bah.

[andrewducker]

There _might_ be a way of doing IP streaming - I'll have to see!

Of course, that would require resizing on the go - with the computer upsampling to 1280x1024 and the TV then downsampling again to 720x576.

Still, worth checking out!

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

I can stream DVDs from my PC to my modded xbox using XBMC. Entirely useless since my PC and my xbox are within 5 feet of each other, but it kept me occupied for a couple of hours :-)

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

z0mg d00d! r u 4 l33t h4xxx0r w/m4d sk1llz???!11

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

I am a guy with ethernet cables and too much free time, is that the same thing?

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Possibly.

[azalemeth.livejournal.com]

Ethernet? Pfft. Real men either wire their cat-5's directly with needles they found in their clothing (none of that "crimping" and "RJ-45" crud) directly, or, alternatively, do it all over bluetooth/wifi/whatever-next-gen-product-will-allow-you-to-live-a-wireless-life-with-associated-jingle :P.

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

You could just buy a Playstation 2 and Action Replay Max which will:

- convert the Playstation (which already plays DVDs) into a *multi-region* DVD player
- allow you to play various video file formats and MP3s off a USB stick (possibly via an ethernet connection also - not sure)
- also run as a Sega Megadrive emulator running cartidge images off a USB stick.

All off your playstation.

:-P

[andrewducker]

It would allow me to play DivX files off of a CD, but then I'd be back to burning things rather than streaming them.

Nice idea though.