TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Chill Out Room
-- A Little Project I Might Start Working On (Please Read And Help Me Out, DivX Related)
Pages (2): [1] 2 »

A Little Project I Might Start Working On (Please Read And Help Me Out, DivX Related)

Lately my DivX collection has been getting pretty big (about 200 movies and more coming in every day). Well I thought it would be great if I could just hook up my computer my television. My plan is to make a new computer, completely devoted for DivX. I'm prettyu knowledgeable about computers but I'm not quite sure exactly what I would need, bare bones. Computers can get quite expensive so basically I want a little system that will be completely for DivX that I can just hook up to my television and it'll stay there. All I know is that I'll need an average CPU, average amount of RAM, a video card with video out (maybe S-video out as well like my Radeon 8500), CD ROM drive, etc. Well I'm not sure what kind of CPU speed I'll need or how much RAM for it to run effectively.... Not only that but I'm not sure what video card I should be getting or if theres another option. I hooked up my Radeon 8500 to my TV and it looked like garbage so I'm not sure how easy or expensive this will be. Anyone else who's interested please post and help me out. Once I'm finished building it and everything I'll make a nice little tutorial/buyers guide for all this I just need some specs and maybe some possible prices too. I don't know how much of a good idea this is but it sounds like fun I just need some info on all this, might even add a DVD drive but not sure if I'd need a lot more CPU for that then just plain DivX, but who knows when I get greedy for more I can add MP3 playback, DVD, VCD and who knows what else . Needs just a tiny hard drive for programs like The Playa and DivxOS.

Here's what some of my dreams are looking like



Hey I can dream can't I.........

There are DVD players that play Divx CDs but they are hard to find. Try to find one of them, would be a lot better.

Looks like a sweet dream!
HTPC's are cool!
But you can get away with one at a cheaper price!

Here is a site for ya! http://www.mini-itx.com/

Only htpc's and how to build them?

If you want a divx DVD check this out...

divx DVD player in sweden

one of my7 friends has one of these and it totally roxx!
It has a pretty moderate price (about 350 bucks converted from swedish "kronor") and it supports DVD/DIVX/Mpeg4/MP3/Photo CD JPEG/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW
check out the link!

quote:

Originally posted by Xo|oX If you want a divx DVD check this out... divx DVD player in sweden one of my7 friends has one of these and it totally roxx! It has a pretty moderate price (about 350 bucks converted from swedish "kronor") and it supports DVD/DIVX/Mpeg4/MP3/Photo CD JPEG/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW check out the link!

It's also totally illegal!

quote:

Originally posted by Dj_ExOn It's also totally illegal!

It isnt illegal as long as you dont take profit from playing movies on it...

or perhaps that isnt what you meant ?

quote:

Originally posted by U121 If you want a divx DVD check this out... divx DVD player in sweden one of my7 friends has one of these and it totally roxx! It has a pretty moderate price (about 350 bucks converted from swedish "kronor") and it supports DVD/DIVX/Mpeg4/MP3/Photo CD JPEG/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW check out the link!

EDIT: OMG I must have made one of the biggest mistakes when writing this one... check it out to see if you can find it

i can tell you that my fingers slipped upwards a little when i wrote the worf "my"

Well DivX as a format isn't accepted like Mp3 is.
DivX is still an illegal file format.
And i think it's strange that a manufacturer would go head on with all the major film companys that really works hard to get rid of divx!

I see a major lawsuit coming up!
If it haven't allready happend?

oh well...
Theres always a small reason for it not to be illegal... for example in this case that all divx movies arent illegal copies of movies... since the codecs are free to download you can make your own divx files from your own movies......

If i had the dvd i would not spend 5 hours making a divx!

I don't think that DivX is yet considered illegal. I did see a DVD/DivxX player somewhere on e-bay yesterday and aparantly DivX is legal some places and the movies are available for rent. This is the info I got from the e-bay auction for the player. It's not really mainstream like DVD's but more like VCDs. Basically some places rent the movies for about 5 bucks and for one night you can watch it on your player but after that it won't play. If you pay more cash you can keep the movie but it will only play on 1 of the players, so you can't take it anywhere to watch it basically, must be programmed somehow to not allow you to do so. I'm sure there are ways to get around it but this format isn't really mainstream anyways so I doubt many people care, especially those with high-speed internet and a knowledge of how to use iMesh lol. Well thanks for the help so far. I might end up buying one of those players eventually but they are pretty expensive and it would be a lot mroe fun to build my own, that is if it will end up being just as efficient as the player. I'm gonna see which would end up being more expensive and its not much of a project if I just go buy it. Thanks for the input so far btw guys.

quote:

Originally posted by Dj_ExOn Well DivX as a format isn't accepted like Mp3 is. DivX is still an illegal file format. And i think it's strange that a manufacturer would go head on with all the major film companys that really works hard to get rid of divx! I see a major lawsuit coming up! If it haven't allready happend?

Sony were still making mp3 players while they were involved in the suit against Napster And all the major film companies filed a lawsuit to ban VHS video recorders/players. Now look how much money they make from home video (and even DVD, as it probably wouldn't have come about if home video hadn't become popular).

They'll never learn...closeminded til the end

quote:

Originally posted by Spad Sony were still making mp3 players while they were involved in the suit against Napster And all the major film companies filed a lawsuit to ban VHS video recorders/players. Now look how much money they make from home video (and even DVD, as it probably wouldn't have come about if home video hadn't become popular). They'll never learn...closeminded til the end

I agree. Now they have DVD recorders so now you can copy DVD's and they have DVD recorders for your television so that you can copy TV programs onto DVD. Seams piracy takes money from one group only to give it to another.

If you're interested in seing other peoples opinions on this and whatnot i started another thread athttp://www.arcadeathome.com/forums/...d=232223#232223

I'll get more replies at that web site but I still hope to get info from both forums

I think its a really good idea. I hope it works out 4 u.

No need to go and buy a special computer or whatever , all you need is a nice AGP Nvidia Graphics Card , You can wire a direct wire from your PC Card TV_OUT , into your Widescreen and Volla , you have cool movies. that what i do anyways.

Rozzer: That's not really the point..HTPC is short for
"Home Theater PC" it's like a dvd player only homemade and alot cooler.

quote:

Originally posted by Dj_ExOn Rozzer: That's not really the point..HTPC is short for "Home Theater PC" it's like a dvd player only homemade and alot cooler.

Not only that but the card I plan on getting directly outputs the video. I don't just see the windows screen with a divx player but I see what the player is outputing, it makes for better quality otherwise people would just buy a card with TV out like mine (s-video, monitor and RCA out).

Anyways everyone has been helpful but kind of missing the point. I'm not looking for a DivX player or a way to watch Divx movies on my TV, I'm looking for what I need to build my own HTPC (home theater PC). I need to know exactly what I need component wise and how fast the processor,RAM,etc. has to be so that it runs effectively but not overkill for power seeing as I want to build it as efficiently as possible. I'm building it regardless of my alternatives so I need someone to just basically tell me all the parts that I need.

motherboard I've found allready pretty much but suggestions are welcome
RAM, how much?
CPU, how fast?
power supply
fan
case
DVD-ROM drive
hard drive (from 2gigs-maybe 10)
the home theater card I was talking about to output the video to a TV or monitor

all I can think of ATM.

heres what i can tell you:

if you want this for divx and nothing else hereds what you may be looking at pricewise...

mobo (desc mobo with plenty of ide connections for more HDDs...) aroudn 70-100 bucks
CPU (maybe a 1000-2000 mhz processor, either amd or intel) - 100 bucks
RAM (ddr, 256 meg at least, 512=better) - 100 bucks
Drives (a 40 for "C:" and a 120 or 2 120s at 140 bucks each) - 180-320 depending on whether you have 2x120 or not.
Video card (DEFINATELY S-OUT!!!!!!!!!! its a must! ATI radeon or a gefdorece 4 card.. some tvs have monitor in which is nice .. i think rgb-s converters exist so maybe check on that) - ~100-200 bucks
sounds card (turtle beach santa cruz, nuff said. logarithms based on music output rather than game output) - 50 bucks
a case (make sure its got room for airflow) - 50-100 bucks


i guess youre lookin at around 500-700 depending on the deals you find and all that shit... you prbbaly could go cheaper as this would be a nice system by anyones standards.. i spose you dont NEED some of the ram and a real fast processor but who knows.. if you need any help i qould be happy to assist.. i do this for a living.. kinda.

-marc

quote:

Originally posted by SmellsExcellent mobo (desc mobo with plenty of ide connections for more HDDs...) aroudn 70-100 bucks CPU (maybe a 1000-2000 mhz processor, either amd or intel) - 100 bucks RAM (ddr, 256 meg at least, 512=better) - 100 bucks Drives (a 40 for "C:" and a 120 or 2 120s at 140 bucks each) - 180-320 depending on whether you have 2x120 or not. Video card (DEFINATELY S-OUT!!!!!!!!!! its a must! ATI radeon or a gefdorece 4 card.. some tvs have monitor in which is nice .. i think rgb-s converters exist so maybe check on that) - ~100-200 bucks sounds card (turtle beach santa cruz, nuff said. logarithms based on music output rather than game output) - 50 bucks a case (make sure its got room for airflow) - 50-100 bucks

1Ghz? I need that much to run a single program?
120GB for one program? I need a 2 gig hard drive or the lowest I can get pretty much. Video card can be shit and I don't need an output because I'm getting a card made specifically for DVD,DivX,etc and outputs to TV. Sound card is gonna probably be the integrated one in the motherboard or a nice soundblaster live.

not sure why u want to spend all that money...

WHY dont you just convert your movies to VCD or SVCD..then burn them , an watch them on your stand-alone DVD player for your TV...it would save u lots of money and hassles....

thats what i did with all my movies....i just burned them as VCD/SVCD and watch them on my TV....alot easier and cheaper...

quote:

Originally posted by tiesto14 not sure why u want to spend all that money... WHY dont you just convert your movies to VCD or SVCD..then burn them , an watch them on your stand-alone DVD player for your TV...it would save u lots of money and hassles.... thats what i did with all my movies....i just burned them as VCD/SVCD and watch them on my TV....alot easier and cheaper...

Well first of all I've allready burned my movies and I don't feel like burning them again (200 movies equals over 400 CD's in VCD and about 400 hours to convert them all). Converting them to VCD means that each CD can hold 80 minutes which means I nead 2 or even 3 CD's for each movie to burn it again (cost me more cash). Also it's time consuming to convert DivX movies to VCD. I let Nero do it for me and it took an hour per CD to convert and burn at 16X.

quote:

Originally posted by trance_n_dance Well first of all I've allready burned my movies and I don't feel like burning them again (200 movies equals over 400 CD's in VCD and about 400 hours to convert them all). Converting them to VCD means that each CD can hold 80 minutes which means I nead 2 or even 3 CD's for each movie to burn it again (cost me more cash). Also it's time consuming to convert DivX movies to VCD. I let Nero do it for me and it took an hour per CD to convert and burn at 16X.

ya good point.....u convinced me....now i wanna do it...LOL....

bumpity bump bump

quote:

Originally posted by El~ZaPo There are DVD players that play Divx CDs but they are hard to find. Try to find one of them, would be a lot better.

Whatever the hell you do, don't do that. Spoils the whole fun of doing something yourself anyway


I plan to do a similar project, so here we go with my recommendations:

Ideal spec:
* P3 800MHz or equivalent Athlon upwards.
* 512MB RAM (video processing takes a lot of effort, and if you're running Windows and not Linux then you'd be better off with more - it's cheap anyway)
* > 80GB HDD, try to get a serial ATA one if possible, the newest hdd technology. (you'll need a compliant motherboard)
* Don't worry about a separate sound card.. integrated sound is quite respectable these days, and it'll even come with Line In
* DVD-ROM drive, in case you plan on ever paying for movies Pioneer make some nifty slot-in 16x DVD drives.
* Network card .. so you can use another machine in your house to download and transfer to your shuttle system easily.

Graphics card gets its own section: I'd recommend either Geforce4 TiXXXX or Radeon 9500/9700..they're worth the money. Of course, make sure it has S-video out (you can also buy a S-video to SCART cable, which you can plug into the back of your tv).
One cool thing you may also want to look out for is TV-In capabilities. You can opt for this feature on your graphics card, or splash out on a video capture card. This will let you record movies from TV directly, even trance music videos (should any channel ever play them). This method of recording also circumvents the copright protection on most digiboxes that stops you from recording copy-protected programs. And we all know it'll be much better to record to HDD rather than a medium like VHS, which has a significantly lower quality compared to the capabilities of video capture cards...

Good luck mate

P.S. Apologies if I'm duplicating information - I typed all that in a hurry

Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.