   Mini-itx DVD/DIVX player
  So i''ve been looking at these little Mini-itx motherboards and have been contemplating getting one and building myself a set-top DVD and DIVX player.Take the 1Ghz ver, add a HD, PSU, DVD-drive, and you have a complete system. TV-Out and everything.I''ve been looking at reviews, and so far everything seems kinda mixed. For $200 i''m tempted to just check it out. If it doesn''t work well as a media center, then I can always use it as something else.However, being in a Home Theatre setup I want to completely eliminate any dependence on a keybd or mouse. Instead, the only means of input would be an IR remote and maybe some front panel buttons.Instead of having it pop up as a desktop, i''d like to have it run a custom app as a splash screen/menu/what-have-you. Then either spawn the appropriate playing software, or, write my own DVD and DIVX playing software so that it is wrapped up in one package.The individual software idea has one advantage, it''s easier to setup. On the other hand, the custom app has much more potential. For one I could have overlayed OSD stuff. Second I can easily have remote control support, no sending keypresses. Third, it would be more integrated and I think look better.With DirectShow I don''t think this would be too terrible to accomplish, would take some time, but could be done.For an OS, I''d ideally like to use linux, as it can be stripped down pretty well for fast boot times and small footprint. However, I lack skill in working with linux so it would be hard to do. That leaves some flavor of Windows.Windows takes up a huge amount of space (~1Gb), but it''s what I know how to use. I wonder how stripped down I could get it. On the up side with file sharing it would be easy to get it such that I could play DIVX''s over the network. Of course samba can do that as well.I dunno, these are some ramblings. What do people think? Would this be a worthy project?-Zims 
  You might want to check out this thread. You also might want to check out the Via forums. Linux support for the board is quite limited (although it may have improved slightly by now) but the hardware mpeg decoder only works with windows... so thats a bit of a major drawback...    MasterDepot;  A cheaper system would certainly be playback only. The reason all the Microsoft "Media Center" PCs are so expensive is because MS has a special licence for including that OS. Basically the machine has to meet certain specs to ensure it has the power to do stuff like live TV pausing without any occasional skips (basically they want to make a strong brand image, which requires that all the systems that use the OS be up to par). For play you won''t have too many problems, only some very high resolution+bitrate DivX 5 movies (i.e. 1000x540) will skip frames on a 1Ghz system. ;  Yea, I''ll most likely have to go with a windows box, prolly XP.I guess the real daunting part is the software. For the time being I could just have the appropriate software spawned when I want to play a specific media. But eventually I want to wrap it all into one nice interface.-Zims ;quote:Original post by Zimans  I guess the real daunting part is the software. For the time being I could just have the appropriate software spawned when I want to play a specific media. But eventually I want to wrap it all into one nice interface.You''re a programmer, aren''t you? For movie playback, BSPlayer does everything thing you wanted - OSD, IR control (through WinLIRC), and plenty more. On windows, anyway. For linux, MPlayer or Xine are pretty much your options. Both have all the same features though.Definetly get one of the faster EPIA-M boards. The old EPIAs can''t quite handle high bitrate movies; the audio tends to desync. It''s worth the extra money. And if you can, get a version of Win 9x. XP has too much overhead and can slow the playback too much. Linux is also an option I''m considering, probably after I rebuild the front of my case.Also, I''d recommend using a program called CD-Detect (google for it, there''s windows and linux versions). It allows you to run a program when a CD with a particular filetype is inserted. I use it for DivX movies, and it works great.And for filesharing, samba (smbmount in particular) would work fine. Also, with linux you can use SSH to completely control the machine, so you would never have to hook up a keyboard.It''s definetly worth the time. I had a blast building mine, even though I''m not quite happy with it. The case needs a little work, and I need to get rid of the audio desyncing; and yet with the one movie I have that uses AC3, it ran fine. I think the video bitrates are just too much for it too handle. "The sun is the same in a relative way,but you''re older"--Pink Floyd ;  Do you happen to have a web page of any sorts with what you are doing? I am curious to see.As far as OS and software..Ideally I''d like to use some kind of homebrew of my own. That way when the unit starts, my interface is the first thing that is seen. Then playing movies etc. will all just occur without lots of flickering here and there as stuff happens. I was thumbing through the DirextShow documentation and I think DirectShow would allow me to do this.However, in order to go this route, I need to use some flavor of Windows. 98se would probably have the lowest overhead. However, XP has better stability. Also, it seems VIA has better support for XP. Not sure what I would do here.Linux is another option, wich I like better then going with windows. However Integrating mplayer or xine and anything else I want together would be a challenge. I think i would want mplayer or whatever to use FB access instead of requiring X11 to be installed. Also a stripped linux install could be made really small. Might be able to get the entire thing to a reasonable size, maybe < 128mb. If thats the case and permanent storage is not wanted could replace the HD with a FLASH HD. Lower power consumption. As you said remote administration with linux would be easier. However, with 98se or XP VNC would work.I suppose that once I get the HW i''ll use a collection of software just so I can use it, with the intention of eventually doing something more combined.-Zims ;  You have to do a lot of playing around with software to decide what you like. It really depends on how you store your movies/music. For me, my music is on the machine (I used an old 8GB HDD, so I figured I might as well fill it) and will be updated over the network as soon as I move back to Edmonton. Right now it''s too far from my computer, and since I don''t have a 40ft CAT5 lying around, I can''t hook it up. My movies are all burned to CD, however, and they just autostart when inserted (which is something you get for free with XP, now that I remember). If you store yours on the machine or over the network, it gets more difficult. You would definetly need some sort of frontend. However, you can brew one up in about an hour, if you just let another program do the difficult work (playback). Between BSPlayer and Winamp, I don''t need anything else. I still have to see windows occasionally, but it''s not a big deal.A unified playback system would be nice. I''ve seen a couple of open-source projects that were started but none seemed to last for too long. It would be a huge, very complex project.And no, I don''t have a website up yet. It''s on my todo list, as soon as I rebuild the front plate for my case.   "The sun is the same in a relative way,but you''re older"--Pink Floyd ;  I''ve been rumaging through the DirectShow docs and I don''t think it will be too terrible to create a unified playing system. There are some fairly easy ways to get stuff started and playing. Could start with something very simple and then work up from there with real functionality.I''d like to use the limited 3d capabilities of the box to do a nice spiffy looking interface. I kinda want to do something similar to what the PS2 and GameCube do. Have some nice trippy stuff occuring in the background. Animated menus, etc. Honestly at my current skill level and expirince making the menus will be easy. The playing part is what will take time.Of course, this all requires a windows box. I''m torn. I like linux for it''s insane customizability. I''m certain I could make a very small linux install that would do all I wanted with little overhead. The problem is the multimedia stuff. It''d be alot more work to do my unified player like I want to. It''s not impossible, just much more difficult.Hmm, Still gotta wait for the HW to show up so I can start expirimenting.-Zims ;  I would love to see what you can do. Maybe a freeware mediabox system will finally exist for more than a week .Fow windows, check out 98lite. It allows you to strip a lot out of Win9x to make things run faster - but it caused conflicts with my autorun program. Give it a shot,  it works pretty good.If you want to work on linux, remember that MPlayer and Xine are open-source (I HOPE you already knew that ), so you could use them as a base and work from there.Also, the EPIA boards ''3D'' graphics suck. Hard. I think a Voodoo2 would be faster. The EPIA-M is probably better, but don''t count on too much beyond basic 3D - although something like the PS2 startup should be simple enough to achieve.Hmm, I''m starting to get a few schemes for my own system - but my first priority is fixing the audio desyncing. It''s hard to watch a movie when it turns into Godzilla after half an hour - pausing sometime brings it back up, but not always.Good luck. I''m gonna go read some NeHe to brush up on my OpenGL. I like that idea for a 3D menu system.   "The sun is the same in a relative way,but you''re older"--Pink Floyd ;  I''ve been doing some looking, and I don''t think a unified player would be that much more difficult under linux.My thoughts right now are to use SDL for the frontend (with OpenGL for 3d fx), FMOD for sound playback, and DirectShow (under windows) and mplayer (under linux/*BSD) for video. Each module (music, movies, whatever) is then a seperate program called from the frontend, with the frontend going into ''sleep'' mode while the other program runs. The only downside is that it looks like X will be required on the Unixes.For the most part it seems simple, but I have no experience with cross-platform development, so it''s probably a lot more complex than it looks, even with SDL.If you want to work together on the project, drop me a line and tell me what you think.   "The sun is the same in a relative way,but you''re older"--Pink Floyd 