a great device for you divx/media heads

[ralp99]

I heard about this thing last month on retrogaming radio and did a double-take when I heard him mention it.. it sounded too good to be true, but I spent the $$ and I can strongly recommend it!

Basically, this kit (gameshark media player) - it's a CD you stick into your PS2, you need a network adaptor on the back of your PS2 and hook that up through your ethernet to your PC. Then you can stream movies (divx, mpg, avi etc.) off your PC and through your PS2 to watch on your TV! It works wonderfully - everything looks so much better than watching them on the PC monitor. At first I was intrigued by the concept of the Dreamcast Divx player but apparently it's rather limited - and then I was going to get myself a chipped xbox just for this purpose alone (watching divx movies on the TV) but this method is way cheaper, plus you don't have to keep burning discs - it just reads them off your HD, seemingly without a big hit on your PC performance (the PS2 is doing all the work).

the interface is simple, pretty damn easy to setup + you can control the movie playback with the PS2 controller or remote. also plays MP3/OGG/still images.

The media player is $50 (it's just a pair of CD's, one to install software on your PC and one to stick in the PS2) and you gotta shell out for an official sony network adaptor as well ($40) - I tried using a 3rd party USB network hookup but it's not strong enough. So yeah, basically you need $100 + a PS2 (and whatever ethernet cables/hub crap you need to buy, that stuff is pretty inexpensive though) but it's a great setup if you are into the divx. let me tell you, a 700 Mb file looks JUST LIKE a DVD on my television (well, close enough for me! A little artifact-y, cause its divx, but you know - it doesn't show up as blatantly on TV resolution as compared to PC monitor resolution) and sounds perfect piped through the stereo also. Whoever thought of that thing is a genius--

 

[extremegamer]

why would you download a 700mb file with dvd quality to play something that already plays dvds. Just buy the dvd. I really don't see the point to this thing your talking about, mainly because i don't pirate movies off the internet. But if there are other uses for it, can you list them? Is it mainly for just clips and streaming video? Like when you go to a web site and stream a video without actually downloading it. Or do you have to have the video on the computer hard drive for it to work. If you have to download and have it on the pc's hard drive, i don't really see the point. I'm not a movie buff and I don't see the point in having something to xfer dvd movies from a computer to ps2 when it already plays dvds, but i think its a great idea for streaming a video or clip right from a web site, however, how good would the resolution be on a 28"+ tv?

 

[ralp99]

i don't think you can stream stuff off the web directly through this thing.

btw I wish I could buy(or rent) movies as just files instead of having to go to the store and to do it, it would be a great way to get things (of course I mean, paying for it) if you don't feel like browsing through the aisles and hoping that they have a copy of the title you want - waiting in long lines saturday night, etc - I suspect things will go that way eventually. maybe you'll "rent" a movie for a couple of days and then the file will auto-delete after the time period passes, unless of course you "bought" it.

though there's something to be said for being able to physically going into a store and being able to look through things and finding something interesting that you otherwise might not have heard of, but I guess there's plenty of websites where you can browse things with cross-references (amazon, etc) already.

 

[rcx21000]

Theres already something like that... I saw about it in PC World (a mag) Only prob is that it's pay-per-view, so you can't stream to PS2/whatever unless you decrypt the file, which would take a few hours (decrypt + decompress + recompress) andyou'd also have to add the time it takes to dl a 300-400MB file...

 

[extremegamer]

btw I wish I could buy(or rent) movies as just files instead of having to go to the store and to do it, it would be a great way to get things (of course I mean, paying for it) if you don't feel like browsing through the aisles and hoping that they have a copy of the title you want - waiting in long lines saturday night, etc - I suspect things will go that way eventually. maybe you'll "rent" a movie for a couple of days and then the file will auto-delete after the time period passes, unless of course you "bought" it.

though there's something to be said for being able to physically going into a store and being able to look through things and finding something interesting that you otherwise might not have heard of, but I guess there's plenty of websites where you can browse things with cross-references (amazon, etc) already.

I think that is a good idea myself, especially if i had DSL or cable instead of dial up so it wouldn't take forever to download the movie, then that thingie would be useful, just to bad that there wouldn't be any way around pirating, all based on trust. Still good idea.

 

[ralp99]

well - there'll always be piracy. I mean I can see them coming up with whatever copy protection scheme but there's always people who're gonna try to hack it.

and I guess this whole idea (downloading hi-quality movies) isn't terribly feasible until bandwidth and memory are no longer an issue. It's getting there, anyway.

 

[bringoutthegimp]

how about you just buy a pc-tv wire or whatever its called. ive got one (graphics cards a bit fucked so it plays in black and white :huh: ) but it just does the exact same thing and you can play pc games etc on your tv