cheapie portable DVD players. Hacking potential?

[Cory Seligman]

hi all,

has anyone out there had a play with those $300ish portable dvd
players?

I'm interested in the hacking potential, mainly, and also to use for
playing dvds and so on.

For instance, could the dvd drive be removed and replaced with a hard
drive full of ripped dvds?

video inputs? can it be used as an affordable lcd screen for a video
camera?

perhaps some curious geek has taken the guts out of one. What's
inside? some kind of ARM processor, or an embedded PC system? IDE
interface to the dvd drive?

maybe the LCD and video part of it can run independently of the dvd
playing part?

I'm just fishing for potential alternative uses here, nothing
particular in mind.

cheers,
Cory

 

[cc]

hi all,

has anyone out there had a play with those $300ish portable dvd
players?

I'm interested in the hacking potential, mainly, and also to use for
playing dvds and so on.

For instance, could the dvd drive be removed and replaced with a hard
drive full of ripped dvds?

video inputs? can it be used as an affordable lcd screen for a video
camera?

perhaps some curious geek has taken the guts out of one. What's
inside? some kind of ARM processor, or an embedded PC system? IDE
interface to the dvd drive?

maybe the LCD and video part of it can run independently of the dvd
playing part?

I'm just fishing for potential alternative uses here, nothing
particular in mind.

cheers,
Cory

Buy a budget laptop pc and then watch the movies off that.
Cheaper and less stressful.

Or do what so many others are doiing and buying a xbox, replacing the
8gb hard drive with a 200gb hard drive an dthen copying movies to the
hard drive to watch when they want to.

 

[Me]

Or do what so many others are doiing and buying a xbox, replacing the
8gb hard drive with a 200gb hard drive an dthen copying movies to the
hard drive to watch when they want to.

Not to mention enjoying thousands of arcade games and emulators on it.

 

[Phil]

Buy a budget laptop pc and then watch the movies off that.
Cheaper and less stressful.

Or do what so many others are doiing and buying a xbox, replacing the
8gb hard drive with a 200gb hard drive an dthen copying movies to the
hard drive to watch when they want to.

So far I have looked inside a digitrex DVD player picked up for $68 at Big
W. The power supply has output voltages exactly the same as a regular ATX PC
power supply. Same goes for the Humax Digital set top box that I have. The
Humax set top box has a serial input/output to load new software into the
tuner. If only it had a USB port. While at first glance your post sounds far
fetched, I wouldnt be surprised if someone could make something wierd and
wonderful with a portable DVD player. Maybe a mini laptop computer??!!

-P

 

[Chris Mayer]

On 19 Jul 2004 21:47:16 -0700, [email protected]
(Cory Seligman) wrote:

[snip]

Buy a budget laptop pc and then watch the movies off that.
Cheaper and less stressful.

Or do what so many others are doiing and buying a xbox, replacing the
8gb hard drive with a 200gb hard drive an dthen copying movies to the
hard drive to watch when they want to.

Yep, there isn't much doubt that a modded Xbox is *the* media station.

If you could easily whack in a digital tuner card, it would be awesome.

 

[Cory Seligman]

Buy a budget laptop pc and then watch the movies off that.
Cheaper and less stressful.

Or do what so many others are doiing and buying a xbox, replacing the
8gb hard drive with a 200gb hard drive an dthen copying movies to the
hard drive to watch when they want to.

That's not the point though. I'm not really looking for something to
watch movies off. I have a laptop and I have a normal DVD player
already, and they're fine for what they're for. The main thing I'm
looking at is hacking potential.

The thing about the portable DVD players is that there is quite a lot
of value at a good price. eg. they run off batteries, they have a
colour LCD screen, they have a DVD drive, very likely to have a
flashable microcontroller etc etc. All of these things tend to be
useful for other applications, and if they use fairly standard
components, then there's a fair bit of potential for other uses.

As someone else in the thread said, it's a bit far fetched, but maybe
a mini-laptop. I'm not necessarily hoping for that, but it's likely to
be a possibility.

I'm just curious, and I'll probably go out and buy one to pull to bits
anyhow.

cheers,
Cory

 

[langerhands]

if you do, let us know how you get on.

 

[Patrick Dunford]

So far I have looked inside a digitrex DVD player picked up for $68 at Big
W. The power supply has output voltages exactly the same as a regular ATX PC
power supply.

Most recent DVD players use computer mecahnisms