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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."
If you don't want to deal with modchips and swapping you can get a Qcast for $50 (thinkgeek sells 'em too) and play MP3, OGG, MPEG and DivX files streamed from a Windows, Mac OS X or Linux system over the network.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
The XBox media player does most media including DIVX, SVCD, VCD, mp3, etc. The next version due any time has a great interface and even better media support. It would be a great system to make an XBox a good media server.
1) Spend several years researching Sony's Playstation 2 entertainment console
2) Enlist a few smart friends to help you build a mod chip that allows Divx movies to be decoded
3) Get some recognition for your hack by posting a story to the most popular geek news site in the world
4) Get phone call from Sony's lawyers
5) Get phone call from Web host's sysadmin
6) Learn that you're the defendant in a billion dollar lawsuit
7) Learn that your Web server's disk died, bringing all of your research from the past couple of years down with it
8) Shoot self.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
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.
J Moll - PC Load Letter - I know what it means!-
If you want to watch DivX's on your TV, get a video card with S-Video out. It's a lot easier to plug that into the video in on your television and put another cable from your sound card to your reciever than it is to mod a PS2.
And video cards are cheap. Just stick it in a PCI slot and set it as a second display. It's the cheapest solution.
I'll be impressed when somebody has a portable DivX players so I can watch TV episodes on the go.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I can get a walkman sized cd player which can play divX. I've seen one that can play VCD's.
I'd want divX, DVD, SVCD, MP3, VCD playback, etc. that can fit in my jacket pocket so I can take it around to another house/office and watch movies without having to lug a laptop.
Plus to complete the functionality, how about CD-R, CD-RW or DVD-R support. Make it connect up via a Firewire cable for high-speed data, recharging, cross platform support and interfacing with DV cameras.
Until then, playing around with consoles will have to do... evening though I only have a Dreamcast.. which can play divx, but only at lously bitrates.
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.
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." -- Mark Twain
I wonder how well will it perform. Although I'm aware these are two entirely different platforms, I'm kinda disappointed at how bad DivX plays in my P2/400.
My neighbor's
So clearly this should not even be on slashdot. Surely this way of using something that is designed to play ps2 games and dvd's to do something else is illegal! Sony might wanna bring a hardware divx player on the market in a later stage. By violating the PS2 in such a way you are effectively stealing money from them which you might have paid for their divx player when it will be released. I hope slashdot will quickly remove this newsitem and stops supporting theft!
PjotrP
Funny that it's all in spanish except "Make a Donation" :)
Yep, been using it for months and it's great. I've posted about it at least seven times and I tried submitting stories about Qcast twice: once in early September, once a month later, but they were rejected.
I have only two even slightly negative comments about Qcast: it won't play any movie in a nonstandard resolution (they are working on it) and since there are no VCR-like controls (FF/RW/Scan) you have to be REAL careful with the controller. My wife and I were watching a movie Saturday and my little girl came in and tripped over the controller. Bam! Back to the beginning, and no way to advance to the point where you were watching. That's my only real complaint, and a simple "are you sure?" dialog would fix that.
Other than that, it absolutely works as advertised. I have it installed on 2 PS2s, one at the TV and one at the stereo (both looking at the same machine in my office.) Streams pretty much anything you throw at it, cleanly, glitch-free and with an easy to use UI.
Buy it, it's well worth the cash.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
The website may be in spanish, but fortunately the zipped archive comes with a nice little english readme file. Very useful actualy. Now I can take my piracy one step further by watching them on my tv, the way dvd rips were never ment to be viewed! For the longest time i've been confined by this pussy 1600 x 1200 15" laptop monitor but now i can move into a 800 x 600 27 inch screen! muwahaha!
The Blade Itself
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.
I don't understand spanish, so I haven't read the article, but the DivX player for Dreamcast is extremely anal about bitrates. I have yet to play a DivX on my Dreamcast with acceptable quality.
Slagborr
the linux kit comes with a hard drive too.
But how do you get things on and off that hard drive? Let me rephrase that:
PS2 Linux can't read CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, or DVD+RW media. Its only removable storage device large enough to hold a feature-length DivX movie is the network connector (and possibly the IEEE 1394 connector).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Typically modchips also allow playing of pirated discs.
Do you know of a good way to distinguish homebrew software from pirated software?
Sony may also manage to convince the court that there are legal restrictions on allowing unlicenced software to use the software inside the PS2 ROMs.
That'll be somewhat difficult in light of the Sega v. Accolade decision. It'll be difficult for the plaintiffs' counsel to argue that the DMCA trumps Sega.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I mean, PS2 has all the hardware to be able to play divx files, so, it seems that making the mod chip would be hard, but not exceptionally hard. People should instead focus on getting divx players to run on PSX or Nintendo 64 (buy cartridge divxs, heh). Come on, make it harder and less usable, like the people that modify C64s...
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
hmm... but you need a modded box for this, so that would let you use broadQ afterall...
Some people just have too much spake time on their hands
Debido a la gran cantidad de visitantes que ha recibido la web sobre las 18:00 horas, el servidor se ha venido abajo sin permitirnos tan siquiera, dar un enlace de descarga del reproductor. Hasta hace escasos minutos no hemos podido volver a acceder a la web, lo que nos ha obligado a empezar a distribuir el reproductor por otros canales.
;)
Translation: thanks to those sob's from slashdot, now we cannot release our player due to severe slashdotting. Those goats!
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Debido a la gran cantidad de visitantes que ha recibido la web sobre las 18:00 horas, el servidor se ha venido abajo sin permitirnos tan siquiera, dar un enlace de descarga del reproductor.
Universal in any language: we've been Slashdotted.
Does it support the Sony DVD remote control? The dongle plugs into a controller port so I assume it sends the same signals as a regular controller, but that would be a biggie for me =).
May I ask, is MAME available for the Zaurus? And if so, would you consider it to be a decent platform for MAME (i.e. are there diagonals on the d-pad, does it handle multiple button-presses, etc.)?
Thanks!
May I ask, is MAME available for the Zaurus? And if so, would you consider it to be a decent platform for MAME (i.e. are there diagonals on the d-pad, does it handle multiple button-presses, etc.)?
Thanks in advance!
Licensing Divx.com's technology for inclusion in hardware is legally a pretty safe bet. Using a less proprietary, more versatile decoder (one based off ffmpeg/libavcodec, for instance) one would have to work out mpeg4 licensing with MPEG-LA, but $.25 per decoder shouldn't be much of a barrier for a hardware manufacturer.
It requires you install software on your host computer.
Why can't qcast mount a remote samba partition or win32 partition? Simplify the life of your customers, please....
---
I support spreading santorum
Sony explicitly expressed a desire that the DMCA would trump Sega vs. Accolade
The DMCA's circumvention ban doesn't seem written to trump USA antitrust law.
Section 1201(b) is directly tied to copyright infringement and the presence of substantial non-infringing use. The DeCSS case seemed to primarily involve 1201(b) because the way it was packaged (i.e. as a Windows executable) didn't fit the alleged intended use (i.e. playback of DVDs on BSD and Linux). On the other hand, if a mod chip is marketed as being designed for homebrew software development, and it comes with a CD containing a compiler toolchain and source code for example games, then it has a most obvious non-infringing use in line with its marketing, which is enough to satisfy 1201(b).
Only section 1201(a) of the DMCA seems to ban fair use in any way, and I'm not sure 1201(a) is even constitutional. It seems more of a trade secret issue than a copyright issue, and trade secret law is generally the states' job. Has the constitutionality of 1201(a) with respect to game console BIOS been tested in court?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Yes, with a caveat. At least for the betas, you couldn't configure the network settings using the DVD remote. But you can control the software with the remote once loaded. Haven't had to reconfigure the network since v1.0 came out, so I haven't checked if this has been fixed.
The QCast guys couldn't be bothered to make a CD filesystem so they stream the DIVX files from a PC. Ugly solution and it's commercial software. PS2Reality's player reads from any CD, is small enough to be included on the CD and works great with DIVX+MP3 audio AVIs. It's also free. Proof that commercial software isn't always better.
why do all of that work when you can just get a dreamcast that already has a Divx player out there and the player adn most of the games are self bootable?
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)
Giga congratulations to the PS2Reality team for this outstanding work of patience. The player works very nicely, picture looks good and audio is fine.
The PS2 hardware is quite complicated to develop for, it takes many times to understand how to properly use all the coprocessors, DMA and GPU. That's why this media player is such an achievement.
So once again, ignore the mockery, keep it going!
Finally a divx player yet still no VCD player oh well that will just have to do. Only MAJOR draw back of BroadQ is the point that you still have to have a PC. DiVX can be burnt anywhere and then used on the PS2 with the new util anywhere even in my car. THe whole point of coming out for mods for consoles is so there is no need for a PC except for burning games downloading and such and to use a home theater or for portability. Atleast thats my whole look at things. I don't want to carry my games in my car and afford them to be scratched or thrown on the floor for soemone to step on. They are safe at home, i need a modchop so i can have it in my car with my burnt games. w00t yet Sony nor any console company believe in such an idea.
9) ...
10) Profit!!
These are the places to download the player:
PS2Newz.net
PS2Ownz.com
elotrolado.net
crackmanworld.com
indicedivx.com
bandaancha.st
The makers of those lil portable USB hard drives that also play mp3s have a new product with an LCD that plays divx files.
s /mp3/5b44/
3 /020809/i ndex.html
It's called the Archos Multimedia Jukebox, and costs about $100 more than the mp3 players.
Thinkgeek:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronic
Tom's Review:
http://www17.tomshardware.com/mobile/02q
Sweet, yes?
VCD, SVCD, DVD; ok, Mpeg2 compresion... Mp3; ok, Mpeg layer 3 compresion... but DivX, How many version of DivX are now? Too fast changes for hardware descompresion...