Very cool!

[Jugernot]

I've taken some of the spare parts I had sitting around and made a MAVW (Multiformat Audio Video Workstation) out of it.... at least that is what I call it! I already have a DVD player in my home theater, but this machine is mainly to be used for DIVX playback through the TV Output of my Vid card (with occasional use of the a Dxr2 DVD decoder card to remove Macrovision on DVDs). Which btw, looks fantastic on my 32" Toshiba!

Anyone else setup a machine like this? What do you use to control Windows Media Player... or whatever program you use for DIVX playback? I've heard wireless mice and keyboards work nice, which I can definitely imagine!

Here is the setup:
Duron 600@750MHz (Will do 900MHz, but I'm taking it easy)
64megs PC133
Epox EP-8KTA3 KT133a mobo
SIS 6236 AGP Video card using SVideo output
Creative Labs Dxr2 DVD Decoder card
5X Creative Labs DVDROM

Old components, but works great!

Please post your experience and ideas!

 

[snow patrol]

I may well be doing something similar when I upgrade my PC, as I should have a load of spare parts lying around. Btw - why not get a little more RAM, seeing as it's so cheap...

 

[dman]

I setup a machine to do this a couple years ago using the DRX2 decoder for DVD's. The problem is that the Creative Labs DRX2 overlay does not work correctly with TV Out. So, trying to select menus in MOST DVD movies was a crapshoot! (You can't tell which item is being selected!!!). It did, however, work fine on a PC Monitor. I used a wireless keyboard / mouse combo (used infrared and it has a built in trackpoint like mouse).

The TV Output of the main video card (ATI RagePro) was acceptable, but, only in SVHS. It was NOT good for surfing the web as the fonts were difficult to read (you could do it but it wasn't fun).

I ended up getting an APEX DVD player for watching movies. I'm much happier with that. It also plays MP3's... so it did/does what I want.

I'm not into the DIVX Scene, the picture quality USUALLY sucks, the sound quality USUALLY sucks (Depending on what the source was and who encoded it), and it doesn't have the DVD "extra"s that I've really grown to enjoy. I love deleted scenes and there's been a few commentarys that were as good as or better than the movie. Throw in the fact that you have to spend days searching and hours downloading and it's just not worth it -- TO ME!!!

So, that's my opinion. I'm sure you'll enjoy the novelty of it--at least for a while, it just wore off quick for me.

 

[Jugernot]

Heh, unfortunately I live in Alaska and shipping kills many deals... can you say $60 for UPS 2day (cheapest we can get is 2day air) for a $30 stick o' ram? Yes... we get screwed that much! Like I said, these were just components I had sitting around.. I'll get more ram eventually and better vid card too.

Watched three movies so far... works great!

 

[RSI]

<< I've taken some of the spare parts I had sitting around and made a MAVW (Multiformat Audio Video Workstation) out of it.... at least that is what I call it! I already have a DVD player in my home theater, but this machine is mainly to be used for DIVX playback through the TV Output of my Vid card (with occasional use of the a Dxr2 DVD decoder card to remove Macrovision on DVDs). Which btw, looks fantastic on my 32" Toshiba!

Anyone else setup a machine like this? What do you use to control Windows Media Player... or whatever program you use for DIVX playback? I've heard wireless mice and keyboards work nice, which I can definitely imagine!

Here is the setup:
Duron 600@750MHz (Will do 900MHz, but I'm taking it easy)
64megs PC133
Epox
SIS 6236 AGP Video card using SVideo output
Creative Labs Dxr2 DVD Decoder card
5X Creative Labs DVDROM

Old components, but works great!

Please post your experience and ideas! >>

Are you from the US? Cause I don't know about there, but here in Canada ram is bloody dirt cheap. 64MB is absolutely stupid. Buy at the very least 256MB! At the VERY FREAKIN LEAST! Don't mean to sound like a lunatic, but 64 these days is just sick. 256 costs what.. $40?

-RSI

 

[RSI]

<< Heh, unfortunately I live in Alaska and shipping kills many deals... can you say $60 (cheapest we can get is 2day air) for a $30 stick o' ram? Yes... we get screwed that much! Like I said, these were just components I had sitting around.. I'll get more ram eventually and better vid card too.

Watched three movies so far... works great! >>

You have absolutely no local stores? Wow you live in Alaska. So there are no computer stores in Alaska?

-RSI

 

[MichaelD]

Congrats on successfully building an interesting little machine. Application-specific kinda deal. Very cool. I hope you get lotsa enjoyment out of it. (Definitely get more RAM in the future though) Good job.

 

[Jugernot]

Sure we got little mom and pop shops here that markup their stuff by 50% over their cost after shipping ($30 stick of ram=$60+$15 shipping). I used to run a computer business with a reseller account and could get a resonable deal on shipping, by now that I don't have a business license...

Anyway, I'll get some more ram (probably 512M and a smaller case soon)... will post pics later.

Edit: DUHHH, I completely forgot to mention that the only reason I dont have more than 64megs o' ram is the system will lockup if I stick any other ram into it! I've tried 3 different 128megs sticks and two different 256megs sticks... It usually locks up right after the network login in Win98. I think I'm gonna install Win2k or XP tonight and see if that resolves my issues.... will update later.