[MPlayer-users] MPlayer and WindowMaker; Linux Media Boxes

[Alex Shnitman]

On Thu, 2002-07-25 at 11:45, Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri wrote:

> There is anybody interested/engaged in a project of a
> "Linux Media Box"... I'm very interested in building a
> DVD/VCD/DivX/Mpeg/.../MP3/OGG/... player. Anyone knows
> a project that want to do this? What are people using
> to keep it physically small (motherboard, sound, video
> in/out...). There are any special distro? I really
> want to get into a project like this!

I've actually built something like this. I used a small form-factor
computer (the Shuttle Spacewalker SV24), put a DVD drive inside, did a
minimal Linux installation, and wrote a small GTK app that waits on the
DVD drive for a disc to be inserted, searches it for media and displays
it in a list box. The user then can select a file or DVD title to play,
and the app launches mplayer. The graphic chipset in the box has TV-out
already so it connects to the TV. I also connected an Irman
(http://www.evation.com/irman/) and made the whole thing
remote-controllable, so there's no keyboard or mouse. Kind of a
dedicated DVD/DivX player for the living room.

The only problem I'm having now is the shitty TV-out chip that this
thing has -- it requires you to use either 640x480 or 800x600 (can't use
720x576 directly), and the image is displayed with quite hefty black
borders. The image quality is nowhere near top-notch either. So if I
were building it now I'd use another computer. But thankfully these days
there are many choices for form-factors that would fit the living room.
You can use Cappuccino PC (http://www.cappuccinopc.com/) -- and it even
has IrDA built-in, so no need for an Irman.


-- 
Alex Shnitman <alexsh at hectic.net>
http://www.hectic.net/   UIN 188956
PGP 0xEC5D619D / E1 F2 7B 6C A0 31 80 28  63 B8 02 BA 65 C7 8B BA