MPEG-4 (DivX) Playback Hardware available

[Dan East]

This is slightly off topic, as it doesn't directly pertain to Pocket PC.

I just read this on Slashdot. An MPEG-4 (DivX) decoder PCI card is now available for $99. Basically what this means is that you can take a piece of crap, ancient motherboard / processor, slap this card on it, add a CD-ROM drive and have an inexpensive dedicated DivX playback box to add to your entertainment center. If this is any indicator, we may see stand-alone DVD players support DivX in the near fiture.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/video/02q2 ... index.html

Dan East

[James S]

That seems quite pointless. I remember that hoax about a PCI card dedicated to processing SETI@Home data units. That was hilarious.

[EDIT] Alright, I take it back. It has some use, especially if they load those chips in set-top boxes, DVD players, and automobile dvd drives.

[BurningSheep]

[James S]

[jeffmd]

nope, its useless.

if your going to make a dedicated divx player box, might as well spend a little more and make it LOOK good.

behold the VIA EPIA mother board.



This is an ITX (smallest form pc mobo out now, its footprint is a tad bigger then a cd)form factor motherboard based on via's pro media 8601A chipset. it has a 800mhz c3 cpu hardwired in and comes with built in video (Includeing component and svideo out), audio, and ethernet as well as the usual connectors and usb ports. The cpu is the equivialnt of a p2 400 or so, the normal divx codec was used without problems, but I would get ffdshow at as it is better designed for low cpu usage playback.

Pricewatch has the 800mhz model listed for $129, all you need to do is find some cheap sdram, a HD and cdrom drive to stick in it, and a case. VIA's website list manufacturers of ITX cases (which btw look sweet, it looks like an old style external tape backup drive almost because the only external drive is a cdrom, the mobo does not support a floppy drive) but I have not been able to find a place that actually sells any online.

Im actually gona build one if I can find a place that sells the cases.

[T¹]

Thats exactly what i did about a week ago. Its incredibly cheap, completely quiet (no fan whatsoever), and consumes very little power. The whole thing is about the size of car stereo... although its currently in a normal pc case as i couldn't find any cases yet (it'd be possible to make one but i don't have the time or energy)

I came across it on Ebuyer.com and decided to try it - i hardly have time to watch tv but often record stuff with PowerVCR, so it seemed like a perfect solution. It works extremely well and its actually intended for OEMs to design set-top boxes, etc so its well suited to divx/video playback. Cheaper, smaller & quieter than the pci card solution imo.

[James S]

You could put the PCI card in that and have some double trouble goin' on. The line quality degredation from the loop cable would only make the DivX look better if it's a low quality one. But that ITX motherboard is very interesting. What kind of small footprint OS could you put on that just to watch DVD and DivX's from? DOS doesn't have anything for multimedia like that, and Win95 is too cumbersome. WinXP uses too much CPU and RAM or does it?

[EDIT] Nevermind, DivxOS

[jeffmd]

[James S]

I've got an extra stick of 256MB's SDRAM lying around, everything here uses DDR so it won't fit. I could get that little ITX motherboard and Dan's graphics card, put them together with my old 40GB hard drive and a DVD player. Whenever I'd want a movie I could plug it into my network and transfer them. Then I'd go put it in the trunk of my car and hook it up to a little LCD screen in my dash, that would kick ass... but first I need to actually have money

[Dan East]

That sounds like a good idea, except:

Divx: On default settings, all video is VERY jumpy and out of sync, with both Media Player and The Player 2.0. However, when I lowered the DIVX quality settings (Start-Programs-DivX-DivX Pro Codec-Decoder Configuration) to the minimum, all playback was perfect.

DVD Playback: This was tested with PowerDVD Deluxe 4.0 XP. Playback was tested with the movie “Armageddon”, which contains high action scenes and also low action scenes. When the movie was at a slow action scene, playback was perfect, until a high-action scene was hit. When a high-action scene (for example, the asteroids hitting New York scene) was on, slight skipping was noticeable, but minor.

For a dedicated playback system that is unacceptable. I don't know how the lowest DivX quality playback compares to normal, but on an widescreen HDTV it would have to be noticable.

Dan East

[jeffmd]

[Dan East]

[jeffmd]

[Jadam]

[James S]