[//Nathan]

I just bought this for my mother. She's been complaining about the Playstation2, which we use exclusively for playing movies. Used to. I got an offer for $50 for the PS2, so I figured I'd take advantage and get my mom a "real" DVD player. I'll eat about $10 on the deal, but you know, you do stuff for your parents.

Philips slim Progressive Scan DVD/Divx 3/4/5 player

This thing plays just about everything I throw at it! Of course it plays DVDs, CDs, and burned versions of such... I started going through my CD/DVD archives, and it was playing television shows, music videos, video clips, all sorts of things. I don't think it can play ASF, WMV, MOV (Quicktime), Realmedia, Ogg video, or any of the obscure formats, but it appears to be able to play Xvid as well. Xvid may be based on Divx, I'm not sure.

Anyway, if you're thinking about how to play your digital video on your computer, on your TV, don't worry about converting to and burning DVDs. Just put it on a regular CD-R and pop it in this. $70 plus shipping on Newegg, but Walmart had it for like $57.96, and of course then you don't have to pay for shipping. $60 for a DVD player that plays digital video. Freakin nice!

You can get a cheaper DVD player; they had them as little as $37, but to be able to play Divx/Xvid for just $20 more, and it's a Phillips, which I figure is a good brand as any of the "big" ones.

[Wombat]

I have a Phillips DVD player. Didn't buy it for any other reason than it was cheap, and decent looking. It handles every media type (DVD+/-R(W), CD-R(W)) I've thrown at it, and it plays (X)(S)VCDs perfectly.

In contrast to my sister's Sony DVD player which refuses to play anything other than store-bought DVDs, Audio CDs, and, if it feels like it, MP3 CDs.

[//Nathan]

Well, when I move to NC, I'm going to save up and buy a widescreen HDTV (not flat panel, flat CRT or whatever) with S-Video in and hook my computer up to it. I use the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack, and it lets me play everything. If Divx 6 is newly out, I should be lookin for an update for that.

[VaBeachGuy]

Check out the CyberHome DVD player, it's $25 at Circuit City right now and plays DVD, VCD, SVCD, CD, CD-R/RW, MP3 and JPEG playback. I got it and it plays all of my DVD's with no problem.


http://www.circuitci...roductDetail.do

[//Nathan]

Ah, but the key is the Divx playback. Offtopic, I like your forum. I was actually looking for it when I started watching Voyager, as I had seen the link somewhere here. Way cool.

[Steve]

Thanks, going to pick one up today.

[//Nathan]

Another reason why this DVD player owns... I burned a DVD-ROM full of music videos, and this thing played them! It actually locked up on an ASF file, and there were some sync issues with a file (don't recall which, it was nothing major), but it played them all otherwise.

1 DVD-ROM (DVD+R) = ~4,480MB... Divide that by 700(MB)... Figures out to six 700MB Divx AVI's. Six! On one disc! Man, I remember back on VHS having 2-4 movies on one tape. But six on one DVD... :-"

@Steve - You won't regret it... I'm loving mine. Sadly I'll be leaving it in California, but in NC I'm going to save up and get a 29" wide HDTV with S-Video input, and hook my computer up to it. So I won't be buying another one (of these DVD players). But it's good for my mother, and hopefully when I sell the Ps2, I'll recover most of what I spent on this... I'll only eat $10 on the whole deal, and it's worth it for my mom to have a DVD player that just works and plays anything. I have yet to test videos from my digicam, but I'm not optimistic because they're 15 FPS. I may have to convert them somehow.

[VaBeachGuy]

Dark Reality, on Jun 22 2005, 08:56 AM, said:

Another reason why this DVD player owns... I burned a DVD-ROM full of music videos, and this thing played them! It actually locked up on an ASF file, and there were some sync issues with a file (don't recall which, it was nothing major), but it played them all otherwise.

1 DVD-ROM (DVD+R) = ~4,480MB... Divide that by 700(MB)... Figures out to six 700MB Divx AVI's. Six! On one disc! Man, I remember back on VHS having 2-4 movies on one tape. But six on one DVD... :-"

@Steve - You won't regret it... I'm loving mine. Sadly I'll be leaving it in California, but in NC I'm going to save up and get a 29" wide HDTV with S-Video input, and hook my computer up to it. So I won't be buying another one (of these DVD players). But it's good for my mother, and hopefully when I sell the Ps2, I'll recover most of what I spent on this... I'll only eat $10 on the whole deal, and it's worth it for my mom to have a DVD player that just works and plays anything. I have yet to test videos from my digicam, but I'm not optimistic because they're 15 FPS. I may have to convert them somehow.

How are you burning the discs? As data discs or are you making them into VOBs?

On the topic of the 29" monitor, I just got a 27" LCD HDTV with DVI, VGA and S-Video that I use as my monitor. It's an awesome thing to have your desktop on a monitor this large. It was $800 but I didn't pay for it, it was a gift from my neighbor.

Dark Reality, on Jun 18 2005, 06:04 AM, said:

Offtopic, I like your forum. I was actually looking for it when I started watching Voyager, as I had seen the link somewhere here. Way cool.

Thanks, if you stop by or join be sure to say hi.

[Rikki]

I bought Bec the UK 'edition' of that player and I agree, it's a great value player for what it's capable of doing

(I'll have to check if it can do divx, I don't remember it saying it could)

Wombat: I have a Sony DVD player and it plays everything I want it to. Is your one faulty perhaps?

[//Nathan]

VaBeachGuy, on Jun 22 2005, 09:55 PM, said:

How are you burning the discs? As data discs or are you making them into VOBs?

Just data discs. Divx refers to an AVI file, usually one that is designed to be just the size of a CD. Burning them is just a matter of making a dataCD project and adding the file. If you use a dataDVD, you can drop six of them in there and have a few hundred megabytes for video clips, or multimedia software if you think the disc will ever be used in a computer without such software.

Making Divx AVIs into DVDs (authoring VOB files) is a pain. And quite frankly not worth it... If you value your time, you'll probably find more value in a DVD player that can play Divx AVI files rather than spend time authoring. Even if you're a pro and you have it down pat, you're still looking at at least 5 hours of encoding. It takes me 6-7 hours to author with DVD Santa on an AMD64 3200+ with 1GB of Corsair PC3200 Dual Channel/DDR RAM (but only the 32bit WindowsXP). I bet those new dual core Intels could do it a little faster, but it's still hours of work.

[VaBeachGuy]

Dark Reality, on Jun 23 2005, 05:32 AM, said:

Just data discs. Divx refers to an AVI file, usually one that is designed to be just the size of a CD. Burning them is just a matter of making a dataCD project and adding the file. If you use a dataDVD, you can drop six of them in there and have a few hundred megabytes for video clips, or multimedia software if you think the disc will ever be used in a computer without such software.

Making Divx AVIs into DVDs (authoring VOB files) is a pain. And quite frankly not worth it... If you value your time, you'll probably find more value in a DVD player that can play Divx AVI files rather than spend time authoring. Even if you're a pro and you have it down pat, you're still looking at at least 5 hours of encoding. It takes me 6-7 hours to author with DVD Santa on an AMD64 3200+ with 1GB of Corsair PC3200 Dual Channel/DDR RAM (but only the 32bit WindowsXP). I bet those new dual core Intels could do it a little faster, but it's still hours of work.

Yeah, I remember back before DVD burners converting the VOB's into DiVx so I could make copies (only of DVD's I owned of course )

If you do find the need to convert something from DiVx to VOB though I'd suggest Ulead DVD Workshop 2, it still takes a lot of encoding time but it does seem to be faster.

Making Divx DVD's would be great but my problem would come with compatibality with other people's players. I frequently give DVD's to friedns and family and they all have different types of players.

[DonWilson]

I've got a $700 DVD player :\

[//Nathan]

VaBeachGuy, on Jun 23 2005, 06:00 PM, said:

Yeah, I remember back before DVD burners converting the VOB's into DiVx so I could make copies (only of DVD's I owned of course )

If you do find the need to convert something from DiVx to VOB though I'd suggest Ulead DVD Workshop 2, it still takes a lot of encoding time but it does seem to be faster.

Making Divx DVD's would be great but my problem would come with compatibality with other people's players. I frequently give DVD's to friedns and family and they all have different types of players.

Thanks for the tip. I encoded to Divx as well, Divx 3 "Fast Motion" or something like that, took about 10-12 hours on a 566MHz Celeron with 512MB RAM.

As for compatibility, I figure if you know someone who can get Divx movies, you should be getting yourself a Divx player. This one or one like it. My brother's modded Xbox can similarly play just about any type of media, but that costs a bit more. And a computer with S-video out can be hooked up to a TV (some video cards come with S-Video to RCA converters).

DonWilson, on Jun 23 2005, 08:22 PM, said:

I've got a $700 DVD player :\

Lemme guess, a computer? Before I sold my last computer, a 1.2GHz P3 with 1GB SDRAM, for $600 (hey, who says sellers can't get a good deal now and then), I was planning on turning it into a media center. It already had S-video out, the TV has S-video in, and I just figured I'd need a remote control and wireless keyboard/mouse, and I'd be set. I'm planning on doing something like that with this computer, when I move.

[DonWilson]

Dark Reality, on Jun 23 2005, 11:50 PM, said:

Lemme guess, a computer?

Lol, no it's a very high quality Panasonic that writes DVDs from my Tivo.

[Bondian]

Hi.

I've got the exact player, and I agree, it's pretty darn good.

However, the subtitles automatically appear even when they're turned off in the setup screen.

Besides that, it's a superb machine.

Cheers,


Ian

Dark Reality, on Jun 17 2005, 08:16 PM, said:

I just bought this for my mother. She's been complaining about the Playstation2, which we use exclusively for playing movies. Used to. I got an offer for $50 for the PS2, so I figured I'd take advantage and get my mom a "real" DVD player. I'll eat about $10 on the deal, but you know, you do stuff for your parents.

Philips slim Progressive Scan DVD/Divx 3/4/5 player

This thing plays just about everything I throw at it! Of course it plays DVDs, CDs, and burned versions of such... I started going through my CD/DVD archives, and it was playing television shows, music videos, video clips, all sorts of things. I don't think it can play ASF, WMV, MOV (Quicktime), Realmedia, Ogg video, or any of the obscure formats, but it appears to be able to play Xvid as well. Xvid may be based on Divx, I'm not sure.

Anyway, if you're thinking about how to play your digital video on your computer, on your TV, don't worry about converting to and burning DVDs. Just put it on a regular CD-R and pop it in this. $70 plus shipping on Newegg, but Walmart had it for like $57.96, and of course then you don't have to pay for shipping. $60 for a DVD player that plays digital video. Freakin nice!

You can get a cheaper DVD player; they had them as little as $37, but to be able to play Divx/Xvid for just $20 more, and it's a Phillips, which I figure is a good brand as any of the "big" ones.

[VaBeachGuy]

DonWilson, on Jun 23 2005, 10:13 PM, said:

Lol, no it's a very high quality Panasonic that writes DVDs from my Tivo.

$700? I can do that and I only paid $25. I have a DirecTV TiVo (actually have 3 of them). I upgraded my hard drives and activated the USB ports then networked them into my home network as well as networking them together. Now I can transfer any video to or from any of my TiVo's and can also transfer any TiVo video onto my PC for editing and burning to DVD.

The $25 that I paid was for the software that activated the USB ports which enabled the ability to network them.

My plan by September is to get 5 more TiVos, upgrade them and network them then record the entire NFL season to DVD.

[VaBeachGuy]

IAIHMB, on Jun 24 2005, 04:11 AM, said:

Just curious, was that a pain in the ass to do? I've always thought about doing something similar, i'm just wondering if the newer DirectTV TiVos have stopped similar things from working.

Not really, but it is a bit involved. There is a website with step by step instructions on how to do it though so even someone that knows nothing about computers can do it or there is a company that will do it for you (for a fee of course).

I myself enjoy that kind of thing so the challenge of doing it was great fun for me and the end result is very rewarding.

Here's a site with the instructions on how to do it:

DirecTV TiVo Hack

This may also be helpful:

Video Extraction

This is the company that will do it for you:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/

As for DirecTV stopping them from working, no. I have a series 2 DTV Tivo. You just have to be sure to keep the phone line disconnected and install the proper hacks to prevent phone calls from being made by the TiVo.

The TiVo software that I installed on my DirecTV box is actually the standalone software that is for non-DirecTV Tivos.