PS2 Gets A Working Divx Player

An anonymous reader writes "Over the weekend, the PS2reality team released the first working Divx player for the Playstation 2. Site is in spanish, so try using babel for translation. Works with Divx 3 and up. You can also swap your avi cd-roms if you have a modchip or you can use the other various swap techniques out there for the PS2. Divx player does require some way of booting the homebrew program, either no-swap modchip or modchip+bootdisc( e.g swap magic, gameshark, etc.) would work."

Comments

Hmmm

[jbmoll]

Well if we all have computers why go buy a ps2 and try and modifiy it when you can watch it on the computer. Seems like a risky way to blow up your ps2.

Re:Hmmm

[Lebannen]

On the other hand, location matters as well.

Personally, I live in a bedsit-type thing, so my living-room is also my computer room; easy to watch computery stuff from my sofa.

However, in your average house [hahaha], the computer tends to be in a different room from the sofa, sound system, and/or TV. Whereas the PS2 will be in the right spot. I know several people who have an old PC hidden in their living room for DVDs and divxs... but if there's a playstation 2 there, seems a lot less hassle to just install something nice like this.

Re:Hmmm

[droopus]

Because, other than geeks....people do not consume media in an unfamiliar paradigm. They want tunes in their car, their portable device or their stereo.

They want movies on their TV. Qcast allows both of these. I have a Cinema Display and I won't even watch a movie on that. Rather than lying on my couch looking at a 61" Toshiba? No contest.

As for "blowing up your PS2" using Qcast puts far less strain on the graphics chips in the PS2 than GTA: it merely becomes an interface device. IMO, Qcast (and Roomlink, eventually) are the PS2's killer apps.

Re:Get this

[91degrees]

I am not lugging my PC downstairs just to watch a movie thanks.

That said, it would probably be less hassle all round to buy a DVD player with VCD capability and reencode the DivXs to VCD.

Linux kit

[mtthws]

I know the linux kit for the ps2 has been out for a while, so I was wondering if anyone knows of any divx players for linux that have been ported to the ps2 yet? It seems like it would be a lot nicer to just boot it linux then watch your movie from mplayer instead of having to mod you ps2 and keep changing cds just to watch a divx movie.

Re:Linux kit

[yerricde]

I was wondering if anyone knows of any divx players for linux that have been ported to the ps2 yet

PS2 Linux can't read CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, or DVD+RW media. Its only storage devices are the 8 MB memory card and the network connector (and possibly the IEEE 1394 connector).

Sounds like a good idea, but...

[WookieOnTheRun]

Yah this sounds like a neat idea, but lets rethink this for a second... DVD > Computer (some loss of quality) > DivX (definite loss of quality to save space) > TV (loss of picture resolution now). Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me... I mean I guess its ok if you are all about ripping off movies and old tv shows, but seems like a very expensive round about way to do that.

Re:Sounds like a good idea, but...

[Jagen]

Please, explain to me how transferring the data from a DVD to the computer results in some loss of quality (considering that the divx encoding stage is yet to happen.) It exists as digital information on the DVD, it exists as the same digital information on my HD but somehow there was a magical degredation of the quality during the transfer?!

Re:Homebrew vs. pirated

[91degrees]

Do you know of a good way to distinguish homebrew software from pirated software?

No. This means that any mechanism that must be circumvented to allow home brew software must also circumvent the copy protection. The fact that they're doing it for a legitimate purpose does not neccesarily make the act itself legal.

It'll be difficult for the plaintiffs' counsel to argue that the DMCA trumps Sega.

But not impossible. Copyright law has changed since then. Also, they could still choose to prosecute in a different country.

Re:XBox

[gilesjuk]

That's hardly suprising, it's a familiar API. You have to commend the PS2 dev scene, they've created their own libraries for the PS2 hardware and built their own development suite.

Re:not removable

[joshsisk]

And if your PC is not in the same room as your PS2, and you can't pull CAT5 cable through your walls (either you don't own your home or bringing the rest of your wiring up to the current code is prohibitively expensive), then what do you do?

I dunno, get a wireless router? Run the cable along the hallway? Move the lightweight playstation?

Seriously, if you are geeky enough to have the Linux add-on for the PS2, you probably also have it connected to your home network.

Re:Get this - (now offtopic...)

[undie]

MAME is available for the Zaurus. Whether or not it's a decent platform for it - that's debatable. The controls are all there (it has diagonals on the D-pad and multiple button presses are supported). The issue right now is speed of emulation - last time I tried the Z version of MAME I was unable to play alot of games at full speed. I'm not sure if this is a processor-speed limitation, or if the code just needs more optimization.

On the other hand, the NES emu works perfectly. I've had quite a few excellent games of Bubble Bobble on the subway lately (while listening to MP3's via XMMS)