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Linksys DVD player w/ WiFi and ethernet
An anonymous reader writes "Linksys has announced a progressive scan DVD player with 802.11g and ethernet. Users can stream MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, MP3, WMA, and other formats from their PC to the TV. Sure I can do this cobbling together other tools, but this is a self contained box even newbies can use. Think how many people could install and config a router and an AP, versus the number of people that can plug in one of the self-contained wireless routers? "
I can't wait to find out which kinds of porn my neighbors prefer...
here ya go. my boss has been eyeing one
and epson just came out with a whoopass hdtv. something like 72", built in photo printer, etc. $4k
vodka, straight up, thank you!
No HDCD playing, and no SACD playing. Blarg!
Do I get in trouble for watching pornography if the neighbor kid hijacks my wireless?
New meme: War Viewing
You heard it here first kids.
-Dave
Pilot: There's that movie playing on the HUD again.
Co Pilot: It's the *&%#$ Matrix: Revolutions, again.
Pilot: Let's do a barrel roll and see if we can lose that geeks DVD player, buckle up.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Now I can stream Ratchet and Clank from my PS2 through my Happauage BTTV card, grab it with Mplayer, out of my PC 'cross the network to my wireless access point and on to my TV!! Its the missing link I've been waiting for!
Think how many people could install and config a router and an AP, versus the number of people that can plug in one of the self-contained wireless routers? "
:-)
That sentence makes my head hurt. What does this have to do with the Press Release? Nobody configures these things anyhow. Is LinkSys still publishing a warning in their WAP docs not to change the default security settings? It's like if Schlage put a warning on their door locks not to lock the door, or you might not be able to get in your house. I bet it cuts down on the support calls.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm well aware that I'm in the minority, but I believe that convergence in the form which the megacorps are currently attempting to foist upon us is a dead horse which they are attempting to flog.
This on the other hand is my idea of the future. A single, well thought-out component of a larger, modular system. Having a PC with a nice screen instead of a telly is one thing. Having all the media files that are on your PC availible across a wireless network through this handy little gizmo is quite another. Where can I get one? When can I get one? This could cut down on just so of the many (frankly worrying) chunks of wire spaghetti that currently run between PC and TC/HiFi.
Sign the FSF's Anti-DMCA petit
Yeaaaaah, that's their market. I'm willing to bet that every penny lost by the RIAA/MPAA due to *piracy* has been made up tenfold by companies that make ripping movies and music even easier and more convenient. Just like Sony Music screaming about dropping cd sales while Sony Electronics cashes in on portable MP3 Players.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
There's a growing segment of the Joe Electronics Consumer population that's currently leapfrogging right over it. Most plasma TVs these days have an RGB input (standard VGA plug).
My 42" Samsung knockoff can do 1024x768, no problems. Even text looks great from the couch. The PC is tucked incospicuously out of the way. Although I have a regular progressive scan Sony DVD Player hooked directly to the TV, the PC of course has a DVD player, in addition to an 802.11g connection, an ATI AIW TV tuner card, and a giant hard drive.
Granted, the price point is a little higher, but the feature set is a LOT higher.
Will this thing do "region-free" with a few menu commands? That's a must for me. "Turn off macrovison" is nice, but less crucual.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
What would be much more useful would be a DVD player that hooks up to your TV, but can DIVX encode video (from DVD or any other video source) and stream over 802.11g to another TV, or to your computer for archiving and storage. That way, your TV gets a perfect picture from your DVD player, and your computer can receive and save streams of lower-quality video for any purpose.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
That looks like downloadable sourcecode .tar.gz-files to me...
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
As far as I can tell, this would save me exactly one S-Video cable, from my livingroom PC to the TV - And I'd just need to replace that with an ethernet cable.
Assuming they sell this at a price comparable to a typical standalone DVD player, it does nothing more than choose one box over another, with the added "bonus" of using quite a bit of your LAN's bandwidth while reducing overall flexibility of content (Can it play flash? My PC can, and dumps it out to the TV. Can it play "Fred's obscure and proprietary video encoding format"? If it exists, my PC can, and dumps it out to the TV.).
I suppose one could argue that this means you wouldn't need a livingroom PC at all - But I strongly suspect that such an argument automatically excludes 99% of the potential market for such a product.
Have I missed any cool features of this which might make it more useful? As I understand it, it does nothing I can't already do.
By my reading, this thing won't stream your DVDs out. It will only take incoming media and output it to your TV/Stereo.
Bleh. Too bad.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
but how many people would want to open up their xbox and mess around with even just the pogo pin stuff, let alone solder their own mod chip. and then to flash the chip!?! install the dashboard!?! :)
ok - you and I have obviously done this, but i don't know anyone in the general consumer market who would even think of doing this.
if they want to pay me to do it for them though... that's another issue
you could get the new unit from momitsu (the v880n) which does all that, and has DVI output for your HD set (so you can actually appreciate the progressive scan), and supports ogg.
While I was eyeing the recent flood of media players that hook up to the TV, I was also disappointed that just about every solution I find on the local shelves all require Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
Thinking that they just put that there because it required a Windows share to hook up to was overly optimisitc, it needs to run software on the PC as well.
That rules out OS X and Linux users. I would also hazard a guess that this one will do the same, since their other similar media product has these restrictions.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Or can I stream anything? I've got several fansubbed anime titles I'd like to watch stored on my PowerMac, and it would be nicer to see them on the TV than even on my laptop.
Is *any* OS supported via some sort of file share (http/ftp/samba), or will Linksys require some special streaming client?
I didn't see the details from the press release, but if it's just looking for a SMB fileshare you specify though a web interface (which would make the most sense in my mind), that would be the best and most open solution.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
They say it plays DVDs and VCDs. They say it will play Divx from your PC. But will it play a Divx CD (and if not, why the hell not?)? Will it play SVCD (from the media)? The press release is damn poor, leaving such obvious points unaddressed, does not reflect well on the product.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
So you can watch your zero day bittorrent mpegs on your home theater in the living room without having to use 30 feet of RCA cables to get the signal to your TV from your analog video/sound outs (or a wireless tranceiver if you can afford one). This is a good thing because doing it the analog way will make the quality suck, especially if you're using a long stretch of RCAs; whereas Linksys's product will achieve the same [somewhat] losslessly.
There's actually software mods now that do this after booting from a CD by using one of the 2 exploits (Audio CD and font files). Plus there's 3 games that have another exploit if you use a special corrupted save game with the executable code. Ta-da, no more need to open up the xbox/solder/pogo-pins.
Plus the xbox can play games and run a variety of other applications (web server etc..) Can this DVD player do that? Nope. (oh not to mention it supports every single possible video format out there that exists on Linux/mplayer/windows, including QT/RA/Ogg)
So, I can pop a DVD into the drive on my laptop, and stream the encrypted data directly out via the network to the player, which will then decrypt it and send it to the TV.
I wonder if the firmware on this thing can be flashed to play other formats...
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
It plays about 90% of the divx files I have.
It should cost you a little more than $100.
A. Rightmann
another product to infringe on multiple GPL'ed projects.
this is a troll
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
This seems like a product that utterly failed to go through any strategic analysis. Some pertinent questions might be:
1) Why would I want my DVD player somewhere other than by the Television that it plays on?
2) Why would I want to pay more for a streaming device like this when I can buy a DVD player for like $50?
3) Why would I want to play my music (MP3, WMA, etc.) through the speakers on my television, or route said signal through my television?
It seems to me the segment for this kind of home media player is already well served by more targeted products. Specifically I would point to the rise of Digital Media Receivers that stream audio and video from NAS or a PC. They come (generally) with LCDs for management, are network and even wireless ready, and are fully adaptable.
In the case of people who want the NAS and digital receiver together you have things like the Tivo, Digital Media Players, etc.
Just seems to me like someone at Linksys/Cisco decided to merge a buinch of products with little thought (read: frontal lobotomy victim) to how such a device would be used and whether there is even a market for this (read: alternate reality).
-Rick
I've been using Qcast on my PS2 todo this for years.
Plus Qcast will let me use a whole bunch of different formats this can't.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
It seems a scary inevitability that entertainment and your home computer network are going to merge one way or another. I first noticed it with TiVo (really, a HD that records TV for you). Ever since then, people have created their own version, as well as other PC->entertainment hookups with features that include streaming music from PC's over to entertainment systems.
You can even hook up your PS2 to your DSL line via a router to trash talk online. This new device would be just another step in that seemingly inevitable integration process.
The best part about this is that there are many players in this game. Thankfully, it's not just an MS Media Center PC dominating the category.
The DP500 is open source based (uCLinux) and works well with Linux hosts (there are several projects supporting it on SourceForge).
PS2: the BroadQ system requires the Network Adapter and installation of software on the PC. Allows streaming of music and DivX. Supposedly licensed to one of the myriad of PS2 third-party suppliers to also try to sell.
XBox: The Xbox Music Mixer (or the new "Media" thing mentioned above, requires software to be installed on the PC, but runs under WinXP only. Doesn't stream movies... yet. But the ability to do so is there, obviously.
TiVo: Home Media Option. Doesn't stream movies... yet, but handles music and slideshows. On the plus side, they say their streaming software works on Macs. Downside: currently limited to about 400 songs in the queue and you can't play the slideshow while listening to music - it's either one or the other. Hell, TiVo has enough problems convincing non-technical people that it's more than just a "glorified VCR", let alone explaining to non-believers the whole "streaming music" thing. (small disclaimer: I'd be lost without my TiVo.)
It's not like the idea is a bad one. I'm all for simplifying the Computer-to-HomeTheater process. How many of us have wanted to take our computer music libraries and play 'em through the stereo? For the most part, the easiest way to do so has been to get an MP3-capable DVD player and load a CD with hundreds of files, letting the player randomly take 'em. With the added bonus of being able to take the same CDs to the MP3-capable car stereo, it's a one-stop shop. Or we use an audio cable already setup to plug the iPod or Nomad Jukebox into the stereo and play that way.
Streaming music over the 'net implies that most homes are wired already, with network outlets near their TVs and/or stereos... or have gone wireless. I don't think the general buying audience is ready for this level of technology yet.
It's taken years for folks to get comfortable with digital cameras, and yet they still don't understand that you need to crop or resize that 2MB photo of little Sally before emailing it to the entire office.
We have all seen the reports of the various PC manufacturers trying to get a bigger piece of the home entertainment pie. Dell and Gateway being the most obvious.. Also Microsoft, with their weak XP Media Center, and more interesting X-Box tie-ins.
Now, we've got the dominant producer of Internet infrastructure jumping in with a networked DVD player. Interesting... I wonder if this was one of the major reasons for buying Linksys, and we me see more from them.
This sounds like it was created to stream movies designed for a comptuer screen onto a TV set. Can you imagine trying to play a 640x480 movie on a 60 inch plasma TV? Talk about looking like shit.
NTSC DV is usually 720 x 480: just because Plasmas are big, doesn't mean they're high resolution.
You do know VGA monitors are better than TVs, right?
I was considering buying one of those a few weeks ago, but Kiss technologies is apparently violatinn the GPL. Their player uses a verion (or at least parts) of MPlayer and they have ignored severel requests by the MPlayer team to release the source to their version. (follow the link for an email-by-email account of the whole story) I'm waiting to see how that gets resolved before I buy one. If they come clean and release the source I'll probably buy, but if they try to stonewall or litigate their way out of it, I won't.
0 1 - just my two bits
Neither the official DVD player (provided you've purchased the remote) or the stock DVDX2 (the foremost DVD player for the XBox for the uninitiated) support progressive scan playback of DVDs. There are hacked versions of DVDX2 floating around which do, but unless you've specifically found one of these chances are DVDX2 is using 480i for playback, if you're even using component output.
Also keep in mind that any XBEs you are using which are built with pirated versions of Microsoft's XDK are infringing on their copyright and are technically illegal.
>Open access (maybe a bit of WEP, but AirSnort will take care of that)
Its 802.11G using WPA. You can't crack it like WEP. Maybe you'll get lucky and your neighbor will use a passphrase like "password" or some other dictionary word.
54mbs in contention, in the air, and at 2.4ghz may (or probably) cause frame skipping and other problems when Johnny fires up the microwave, your other neighbor's b network starts doing massive file transers, Joan from upstairs talks on her cordless phone, etc. The press release mentions that you can use ordinary cat-5 cable instead of the wireless. Something tells me many people are going to go that route if they live in a 2.4ghz heavy trafficked area.
Look at it this way, you're getting around 20-15Mbps (probably closer to 15) of real world usable bandwidth with 802.11g. DVD quality movies use around 6-9 Mbps depending. Unless conditions are very good, you won't get DVD quality stuff without some problems.
I do wonder if the DVD drive will read data CDRs with divx files on them and play them. Can't see why it couldn't do this and if it does I'm totally buying this thing when it comes out.