Turning your laptop into a portable video/DVD player

Sometime back in 2005, when I was servicing a laptop, I notice that it can actually bootup as a portable DVD players without booting up the Microsoft Windows. I know that the laptop actually had two partition. The first being a Linux partition of around 80MB and the other the normal Windows partition.

I was very curious, unfortunately, although I manage to get hold of the setup disc, I was unable tochave it running own other brand of laptop. The drivers that the setup CD provided are restricted to that machine.

It was not only later that I come across a good software call GeeXboX that provides a linux live CD that make it so easy to customise for different machines. It has a customisable CD option where only necessary drivers are loaded into the CD. One can then transfer the CD image to the Harddisk on your laptop. The only problem is normally your laptop is 100% filled up with windows partition. You can use partition magic to reduce the partition to make way for your DVD/linux partition.

Normally I do that manually, I run a scandisk and optimisation to make sure that the last sectors are free from any data, then I simply used fdisk to reduce the partition without reformatting. CAUTIONS - possible data lost at your own risk. So far I have no problem with my laptop.
My laptop has bootup problem but is easily fix by twitching the GRUB bootup command.

Joost gave up its P2P player

I received an email from Joost
"..we have decided to discontinue our original Joost software application. As of Friday, Dec. 19th, you will no longer be able to watch videos in the Joost software application – but you will be able to find all of our videos, and more, on Joost.com."

Finally they give up on this fancy players of theirs and move to the browser. This is not surprising as the effort takes to maintain both platform is simply too much. I wonder will other video sites follow suit or have already done so.

3.5" Harddisk storage with media playback capability

I was strolling by an average IT shop and guess what I see. A 3.5" harddisk casing for S$89. This is not just a casing but one that can playback stuff directly onto your TV using Video cables and control via a remote control.

As mention I have saw this at various location, including Singapore Post by a brand call EMTEC Movie cube, which is package together with hardisk some time in April.

Most importantly, both this boxes support Divx movies and those photos you have taken.
Sure enough my DVD player can also play them if I burn it on a disc or connect my external USB harddisk to it.

But then for a price of $20-30 more I get direct playback capability. Not if only I have a LCD screen in my car I can play my kid's favourite cartoon.

HD-DVD vs Blu? no the downloading camp !

When the Blu-ray camp won the high-definition format war, there are many published aricles about what's will it be in the future. "Did Blu-ray camp actually win the war?" - was the question. Yes but ... The conclusion which I tend to also agree is "for how long". The days of physical storage media are numbered. More and more videos are be downloaded via the internet every day. Optical media may not be only choice for the current and next generation consumers.

Harddisk space are getting so much cheaper. A few years ago we are still paying $1 for 1MB of space, to day we are paying less than $1 for 1GB, in no time it will be 1TB. Just like the way the PC industries moved from 5 1/4 inches disc with 1.2MB space to 1.44 3.5inches magnetic diskette to 700MB CD-ROM to 4.2GB DVD to 25GB Blu-ray for portable storage. Non-removable disk space also increased at a very fast rate. Beside better compression has allowed more virtual data to be squeeze into less physical space.

Today a ripped DVD video can be squashed to 700MB CDROM thanks to Xvid avi format. Well as compared earlier, I really don't see that much difference between the actual compressed and uncompressed videos. Especially so if you are chasing a TV series. The best part about this technology is now downloading it from the internet is possible in a much shorter time.

When I was younger, I was using 9.6Kbps modem to connect to BBS bulletin boards. For simple x86 dos games to GIF picture files. With the same technology we advanced to 56Kbps dialup speed. Then the next switch I jumped to 1Mbps cable internet. I was given free upgrade year after year, 2,4,6Mbps. Now I planned to downgrade back to 1Mpbs, simply because I do not need such high speed.

Now if you take a Xvid 1.5hrs video at 700MB at 1Mbps it's going to take roughly700 x 10Mb / 60s = 117 minutes = 2hrs at best.However experience tells me that this will never be the case. I see that at best it will be 25KB/s = 466 minutes = 8hrs
So realistically, if you leave it to download overnight you will get your file tomorrow. However, if this is a more popular file, another technology call peer-to-peer is here to help. It's indeed possible to get up to 100 KB/s using P2P.

Here comes the question, will you download something from the internet and transfer this to your DVD player to watch or will you watch it on your computer. Again the answer is simple: people want to watch it on the TV if possible. Hence solution like DLNA, wireless, Media Centre PC comes about. The reason why these solutions are still not so popular is because they are too expensive and complicated. An average joe will not spend this amount of money if he knows of the solution in the first place.

Recently, I went down to Sim Lim square, I founded a 3.5" USB harddisk enclosure (IDE/SATA) with Video output (supporting Xvid) at only $80. I almost bought it but when I return the shop keeper was out for lunch. Although similar networking product are also avaible they are at a higher price right now. E.g. the DVICO media player, at least $300 without harddisk.

Some one predicted that finally the CE companies will win the consumers over, but until then the IT maker especially from Taiwan and Korea, will be pumping out more and more of such equipments.

Another from China - Blin.cn

Interestingly, found this while searching on website. It's a P2P streaming from China, call Blin (Be..Lin) as in "being your neighbour"




Able to play some movie
, like HERO etc

Joost competitor and a P2P direct to TV device

Interestingly, it has taken so long before another contenter is going against Joost.
Blinkx is proposing a client similar to Joost. Let me try it out and let you know later

http://www.blinkxbbtv.com/

MyKa is building a box similar to Apple's iTV but it uses the "legal" P2P technology Bittorrent for downloading.
Without a linkage to content provider(s), I'll not be surprised when the authority go after them. Having said that isn't there alot of routers and NAS providing P2P download already?

The difference is, this box allows you to download into a box that directly playback to the TV.
Let see if this goes on. I can't wait to get my hands onto one of this.