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Or... I have an Antec NSK 2480 for my MythTV system. I painted the front panel black enamel and it looks like a home theater component. It's about $120 from Newegg / Amazon. Super quiet.

I put a blue Crystalfontz 20x2 LCD display I had laying around in the upper bay (edges and mount also painted black enamel) and the DVD reader (black front) in the lower. LED encircling the power button glows blue.

Very nice, if I say so myself.

I've been using Crystalfontz LCD displays in my projects for many years. http://www.crystalfontz.com/

Well, actually, yes it is. Please point me to somewhere where you can get a USB connected standalone 20x4 backlit display, with control buttons, for anywhere near that price.

For example, crystalfontz are one of the better/cheaper suppliers of this kind of thing typically and their closest equivalent is this which is $133!. Just the display, without any controls or a case is $70. MatrixOrbital, the other big supplier, cost even more.

So please stop comparing this to a monitor or a keyboard, it's not one of those, and if you want a standalone display with buttons which hooks up to USB and is LCDproc compatible, this is a steal.

Well, actually, yes it is. Please point me to somewhere where you can get a USB connected standalone 20x4 backlit display, with control buttons, for anywhere near that price.

For example, crystalfontz are one of the better/cheaper suppliers of this kind of thing typically and their closest equivalent is this which is $133!. Just the display, without any controls or a case is $70. MatrixOrbital, the other big supplier, cost even more.

So please stop comparing this to a monitor or a keyboard, it's not one of those, and if you want a standalone display with buttons which hooks up to USB and is LCDproc compatible, this is a steal.

There's also crystalfontz http://www.crystalfontz.com/

there's some more colours available but I think the price tag is a bit more

Why not use something from these people?

Mini-box make some neato little ITX boxes which you could hook up to any number of storage solutions. Past that, I've had good success with Mini-ITX boards. I get the cases from Web-tronics, as the MITX ones are very, very expensive -- they're meant to make your MITX look like a CD player, pretty much, and I can do more without having to worry about cosmetics. MiniBox (above) sells snap-in MITX power supplies ranging from 60w to 200w. For the extra cool factor, use a Xenarc display or use something 'headless', e.g., LCDProc and Crystalfontz. (As I remember, the MiniBoxes come with their own little displays.)

There are tons of resources on the web for doing just this. I did this with an old toshiba Libretto 100 (the one that's a P166 and about the size of a VCR tape, easily stashed under a seat). For driver-friendly control, use a parallel-port LCD display, like this, and a serial port IrMan with a credit card-sized universal remote. I built the whole thing for under $100, not counting laptop.

Just google for car mp3, or look at CAJUN to get started. If it helps I used ZipSlack as my linux distro, but any small distro will do.

Mini-box make some neato little ITX boxes which you could hook up to any number of storage solutions. Past that, I've had good success with Mini-ITX boards. I get the cases from Web-tronics, as the MITX ones are very, very expensive -- they're meant to make your MITX look like a CD player, pretty much, and I can do more without having to worry about cosmetics. MiniBox (above) sells snap-in MITX power supplies ranging from 60w to 200w. For the extra cool factor, use a Xenarc display or use something 'headless', e.g., LCDProc and Crystalfontz. (As I remember, the MiniBoxes come with their own little displays.)

I have a small LCDCrystalfontz screen (20x4 or something like that), that with LCDriver (I think that's the right one) you can use Winamp to display the titles onscreen and even do waveforms, along with a slew of other things. It's not as big or as potentially pretty as that might be, but.. It's sweet none-the-less.

Expensive LCDs???? CrystalFontz LCD pricing

$3.29 in bulk...

What if you want to scroll through that menu while you are listening to a song (like to choose the next one....)

the LCD display and a few buttons won't ever happen

Really? I've already done it, and so have many many others. Look here.

It's pretty much a no brainer to read keypresses off the serial port.

Likewise with most remote packages. The "devil in the details" is getting everything to work flawlessly together, with an intuitive Tivo-like interface, and all the process control - like making sure that the DVD player stops when you start a DivX and so on.

can do wonders with an extremely old computer with Red Hat. With a midrange PC I could pull of plenty of useful things. It may not fry your eggs but its more than just a midrange PC with Red Hat installed

No, it's still just a midrange PC with Red Hat installed. That's not a bad thing, but it's not a MediaPC (take a look at how Windows XP Media edition, or even the Xbox works and note the differences). Its still a PC, not a piece of AV equipment, until you can sit back on the couch, press the play button, and start a movie. There should be no mouse cursor, no CLI, nothing but a simple menu that you navigate with UP/DOWN/START.

Watch your system stats or that xmms playlist.

CrystalFontz has 2 line & 4 line displays that go into drive bays very nicely.

1. LCD Panel from CrystalFontz, Matrix Orbital, or make your own.
2. I/O panel such as a FrontX. These are great.

You can try any of the ones from the LCDProc hardware page. These include CrystalFontz, Matrix-Orbital, and CwLinux to name a few. The first two of these companies have a pretty good selection of LCDs in different colors and with different viewable areas.

I noticed it b0rks some shopping carts with a lot of java, namely crystalfontz's cart. Maybe this new build will solve that.

I use an LCD in my home entertainment PC... a black 4u rackmount Athlon that sits in my home stereo rack.

MP3s, DivX movies, DVDs, Shoutcast/Icecast streams, TV-out, 5.1 surround... all from a single black box. The LCD panel is mounted in a normal drive bay, and displays CPU load, Time, song being played, or about any system parameter you can imagine. It was also significantly cheaper than the one reviewed above, and came with all cables, and mounting hardware included. The software was a quick download.

The convenience alone makes it worth it. A quick glance at the CPU utilization meter keeps me from having to switch over on my KVM to see if my Divx or MP3s are done encoding...

• http://www.eio.com/lcdprodt.htm
• http://www.matrixorbital.com/serial-lcd.htm
• http://www.crystalfontz.com/ (A few pages here)
• http://www.cwlinux.com/eng/products/products_lcd.p hp
• http://www.usblcd.de/ (Hardware link)

I know you are after a component system but have you looked at building a CAJUN? Although it is designed for cars (Car Audio Jukebox for UNix), I use it as a home audio component (a HAJUN!).

I have it set up with an IR reciever on a serial port and the display is Crystalfontz 20x4 LCD panel. As for how it fits your requirements:

1. Ethernet connectivity: Runs linux, so can mount/share Samba/NFS or anything you like
2. Intuitive interface: You can program the remote any way you like, does take some getting used to though.
3. IR Remote: I use the IRMAN remote.
4. OGGs and MP3s: I don't think it can play OGGs yet, but I beieve that is being worked on
5. TV out: No, but the LCD panel is used for output
6. Digital Out: Depends on your soundcard (I have digital out on a Yamaha 744 based soundcard)
7. CDR Capabilities: You can mount removeable media on the CAJUN

I built one two years ago and an very happy with it. I am still using the v3 software, v4 may have more features that you requrire. Its worth checking out.

The Crystalfontz 633 may be exactly what you are looking for. I just received one in the mail a couple of days ago, and I'm using it for my car MP3 player interface. I haven't done much with it yet, but so far, it is *very* cool.

Have fun, and play safe.

Crystal Fontz sells LCD modules for fair prices. I just received the 632 module myself and am pleased with it.

I thought I'd chime in that the LCD looks a lot like the CrystalFontz 634 with PC Mounting Bracket, which sells for $92.20.

One advantage to the Pandora case that immediately comes to mind: two 5.25" bays at the front means one for a DVD/CD-ROM, and the other for an LCD insert from Matrix Orbital or Crystal Fontz (although, I doubt they make cool translucent inserts ... time to get a Dremel!).

Why they don't make an LCD insert for a 3.5" drive bay is beyond me ...

I've been trying to stop myself from wasting money on one of these for a while now. Maybe posting a link to Slash means they'll sell out before I make the wasteful decision... neat toy, but so are the other 1,001 things sitting about which I haven't found time for!

While they may not be the ideal thing you are looking for, maybe they can help: LCD modules. A number of places sell them:

Matrix Orbital and CrystalFontz both sell serial capable LCD modules in a variety of formats. I didn't see any true graphic modules, but they may be able to get them. Most all have the capability to be backlit (and the backlights are BRIGHT) - note to those making custom PCs: They both sell drive bay insert kits for the LCDs, too...

Scott Edward's Electronics sells small serial graphic LCD displays, and also sells text only VFD displays (VFDs are vacuum flourescent displays - extremely bright). He sells one bay enclosure for one of the VFDs. His largest serial LCD graphic display is 128x64 pixels, backlit, and measures 88 x 38.8 mm.

Finally, Micro Electronics (MEC) sells a variety of LCDs - ma ny are HD44780-based, or compatible, so they are easy to wire up. However, they seem to have a line of graphics modules as well - I don't know if they are bare or have controllers, but the largest (SG320240B) has a resolution of 320x240 (viewable area of 120 x 90 mm). Unfortunately their pages seem to be having problems or something - call them up though, and talk to them. They have a very friendly and helpful staff.

Another option you might try looking into would be small TVs, driving them with a VGA->TV converter. A good converter will give nice results (I have an Averkey iMicro that is excellent and cheap - $100), even on a cheesy small TV. For simple status displays, it might work out well.

Hope this helps somewhat...

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