Adding a Hard Drive... To Your DVD Player?

El Puerco Loco writes "Area 450 has several guides to adding hardware to the Sampo DVE631CF DVD player. Even if you don't own this model, the firmware for it has been ported to many, many other models (with annoyances like macrovision and region locking removed). This player had built in support for an IDE device (a flash card reader) so a standard IDE drive can be slaved to the dvd drive and the player can read from a FAT32 formatted disk. The player decodes mp3s and VCD files, so it's possible to turn it into a cheap mp3 jukebox, or store movies in vcd format. I hope that when DiVX support becomes more common in DVD players one of them will be able to support a hack like this. It would be really cool to have 100+ movies built in to my dvd player."

Comments

What kind of business could come of this?

[Anonymous Custard]

Ok, so the RIAA/MPAA doesn't like when new technology takes away from their business, but over the decades most recording technologies actually turn out to be profitable for the music/movie industry.

What kind of business models might be derived from DVD+LargeHardDisk players? And not just for the geeks --- this has to be useful to your average joe-can't-set-his-vcr-clock. How can we utilize this technology, so customers get cooler services, the industry still makes money, and we all get a better movie experience?

Re:Makes you wonder ...

[dabadab]

"If this is so easy to do, why haven't the various consumer electronics manufacturers shipped DVD players with a hard drive on board?"
It might be easy to connect a hard drive as a piece of hardware but it may be troublesome to get it integrated into the system - and embedded systems are more costly to develop than applications because of the higher expectations of quality (releasing patches is not an option) and the limitations of the hardware.
The HDD itself is also expensive - I see DVD players that cost just as much as a 80GB HDD so adding a HDD would dramatically increase the player's price.
And in the end it is hard to justify these costs - average consumers just could not make any use of the HDD and the geeky kind (e.g. myself :) rather builds his own HTPC.

macrovision

[dizco]

Or is this just for the pirated movies? The fact that it blocks macrovision suggests this may be the case.

I'm glad you have all modern components. My TV has only a coax input. my dvd player has only composite and svideo out. If it weren't for the fact that i can disable macrovision in my dvd player, i would need to buy a new tv. instead, i disable macrovision and use my vcr to convert from composite to coax. why should i have to buy a new tv because the industry doesn't trust me?

Re:macrovision

[91degrees]

Who forced you to buy a DVD player in the first place?

I mean, after converting to composite, then converting to RF after being messed about by the video recorder, then playing it on an old TV, you're losing all the picture quality.

Re:macrovision

[Digitech]

Sigh, you are forgetting that most people don't care that much about quality. There are a lot of audio- and video-philes around Slashdot, but the common person just wants to watch a movie. He/she cares more about the story than about the quality of the video. I just recently bought a DVD player, and I was in the same boat with no Composite inputs on my TV. Since my VCR has composite, I tried to do the same thing as the person above, but failed when trying to play DVD's because of macrovision. It made me furious when I found out that the messed up picture was intentional. I don't care that much for quality, but the movie (StarWars Episode 1) was basically unwatchable. It kept going from light to dark and the sound was messed up too. I bought an RF modulator to solve the problem, but I should not have had to. I have warned all my friends and family about this and none had heard of such a thing and were as upset about it as I was.

My suggestion is to tell your friends and family about it, and have them tell THEIR friends. Once enough people understand these "features," maybe things will change.

Re:DivX Player

[Patersmith]

It is my beleif that we will see less and less of these players that have the capabilites of manipulation as DRM locks down in a deathgrip to hold onto its business model. Sad but true.

saying it doesn't make it so. Look at the great products out there right now, today. Just a couple of years ago you couldn't get a DVD player that would play discs from outside your region. Today you can get players that will do burned CDs, MP3s, burned VCDs, OGG...hell, there was a review on slashdot a few days ago of a device that has a hard drive and a DVD burner.

Consumers are telling big tech what they want, and big tech is going to build it no matter what Hollywood says unless the US enacts some strong legislation to the contrary. Want to make a difference? Write your politicians. And, above all, visit your local Sony Store (or other retailer) and tell them what features you want and tell them *why* you will never buy their regional-encoding-encumbered, macrovision-havin, no-burned-cd-playin, no-fast-forwarding-thru-the-intro player.

dvd player that plays divx encoded cd's

[ozzy_cow]

what about my collection of divx CD-Rs?

check this out: http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/021022/047810.html

i think ill be getting one of those :-)

Re:DivX Player

[Lumpy]

why not just have 10 movie ondemand on one disk. The entire series of Star Trek Movies that you can switch with a single press of a button.

because the movie studios will NEVER do that. right now you should be able to get 6-8 episodes of a tv series on a DVD instead we get 2... what the HELL is that? simple.... you get to pay more by buying more.. and that will never EVER change....

they have greater profit from selling 12 single movie discs at $12.95 each instead of selling 1 discs with 12 episodes for >$120.00

because they will never give you a deal just because it's on one disc and saved them $1.95 each movie... they want all that cash per episide/movie..

unless you are making them yourself.. (Hell DVD burning is unreliable and flaky right now,, this "blu-ray" will be as horrible for the first 3 years also.) you will never ever see your desired all movies on one disc from any legitimate company.

rpofits and how much money they can bilk out of you is important... why do you think SA-CD came about? another reason to make you spend all you money replacing all your audio CD's again for a small quality increase.

Re:DivX Player

[handorf]

IMHO, the true potential of Blu-Ray isn't 15+ hours of video... as others have said, there are economic reasons that won't happen.

But 2-4 hours of full 1080p HDTV resolution at 30 fps? THAT'S a decision I can live with!

Re:What he really means...

[MyHair]

"It would be really cool to have 100+ movies built in to my dvd player."

Translates to:

"I am cheap, and I would really like to borrow my friends movies and rip permanent copies without actually compensating the people who made the movie."

Do you use your remote control, or do you always go to the TV to adjust the channel and volume?

Do you own a CD changer? Isn't it nice to have your favorite CDs at the ready?

Have you used a DirectTV-style schedule/menu to watch TV?

Well, now with hard drives we can have even better convenience and menu selection with our movies and music. Plus it's cool to do it this way. Why do you assume this is about piracy?

Re:DivX Player

[merlin_jim]

I don't think we'll ever see a 10-album-on-one-disc release.

Why? Cause I currently see companies that try to make as many discs as possible for a series, because customers equate discs to value.

Example 1: Blue Sub No. 6. 4 22-minute episodes. It could've easily fit on 1 disc. But it was released as 4 discs, each only 22 minutes long. At $30/disc (I know you can get it cheaper; I was satisfying my impulse-shopping drive at the time) it was not cheap. As a matter of fact, I can't remember the last time I spent more than $1 / minute for any for of entertainment. Possible exception being on the phone last night. (j/k)

You see this kind of thing all the time in anime; a series that could be compressed and sold on less discs is instead spaced out as much as possible in order to increase revenue. While, for instance, all the star treks or all the Aliens on one disc (or even an entire season of B5) would be awesome, I don't think we'll see it...