Linux Video Player

[dc2447]

Anybody got any suggestions on what I should use to make a cheap linux video player? I want to build something that


Has a small form factor (so can sit by my TV)
Plugs into my TV
Has a remote
Possibly has wireless


I want to play Divx really - not keen on the whole Myth TV thing as I already have a PVR - just need to play Divx ripped from DVD's - and be simple enough for the whole family.

Anyone suggest a decent hardware/software combination?

[ajgreeny]

Not sure about hardware, but have a look at geexbox as a simple, small (6.8mb), mplayer based video player distro. It's usually used as a live CD, and I don't even know if it can be installed to hard disk, but it works well from CD.

[marcus2004]

What I ended up doing was getting a xbox (not the 360 the 1st gen ones) and modding it and putting on xbox media center. Then I just stream from my home theater PC to my xbox.
Check out:
http://www.xbox-linux.org
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com
You can use a mod chip with a linux based (cromwell I believe) bios in it so it is legal. And then put on xbmc.

[darkhatter]

What I ended up doing was getting a xbox (not the 360 the 1st gen ones) and modding it and putting on xbox media center. Then I just stream from my home theater PC to my xbox.
Check out:
http://www.xbox-linux.org
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com
You can use a mod chip with a linux based (cromwell I believe) bios in it so it is legal. And then put on xbmc.

thats what I do, for the remote part you could get a wireless xbox controler, I think the dvd remote for xbox may work in xbmc so you can try that out.

[nalmeth]

thats what I do, for the remote part you could get a wireless xbox controler, I think the dvd remote for xbox may work in xbmc so you can try that out.
Yep it does. Almost anything will, with a USB-controller adapter, you can plug a mouse and keyboard into it aswell.

Anyone used the latest XBMC? It's got a few new tricks, including youtube, all visualizations built in with install.

[dc2447]

I'm not keen on the xbox route - I want to get something like a elonex barebones - add a mid range celeron - 512mb of ram - a small disk - decent grpahics card with tv out and a wirless pci card.

The bit I'm not sure about is what software to run so the whole family can just pick up the remote and play a divx file off nfs