Lord Lionheart

Any expats in the US need a DVD player that will play DVD's from all over the world. Region 1 - 5, UK, US etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Coby-DVD-224ss...5583265&sr=8-1

Use this hack and away you go for only $25 plus shipping;

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic330093.html

I got one locally and it works great!!

fatbrit

Don't do DivX/Xvid, though!

Lord Lionheart

Seems to play the DVD's I've burnt from UK Nova fine. Not sure what format they are in.
It's only $25 and plays US, UK and home burned DVD's. Any better ones for the price?

fatbrit

The UKNova downloads (and most torrent download of movies/tv progs) are usually:
Wrapper: AVI
Video: DivX or Xvid
Audio MP3 or AC3

For a standard DVD player, you can't just copy them onto a DVD but must first convert them to the DVD Video format (a process that takes several hours).

However, if you use a player such as a Philips DVP5960 you can simply burn the downloads direct onto a DVD as a data file (a process that only takes minutes). Also, you'll fit at a very minimum triple the length of video on your DVD. The Philips even has a USB port so you don't need to burn -- a thumb drive or external USB drive can feed the data in instead. It's also easily settable to Region 0. I think the $30 or so extra is well worth paying.

Lord Lionheart

I agree, from what you said I might order that too. I use Nero to burn my DVD's but it does take a couple of hours to burn each one. Looks like a great time saver. Thanks for the info. I guess this hack should work to make it region free too;

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks?dv...&Search=Search

Longy

For those who are mostly playing stuff that they have downloaded its worth considering one of these.

http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DSM-320...5590712&sr=8-1

No need to burn loads of CD/DVD's - just play it direct!! I have one and its great!

fatbrit

Hack works fine. If you get a thumb drive, you don't even waste time burning DVDs. I've even connected an external 500 GB USB drive to it. Works fine but there are two issues: you only get the old 8+3 naming convention for files so navigating the drive is difficult--especially since is does not order the listing alphabetically, and if you leave it on pause to long the drive powers down and you need to power on/off to restart it again and lose your place.

If you want the best solution, though, just connect a networked computer to the TV. Currently experimenting with MythTV on a PC as the TV input, and despite the fact it was a pig to get going, it was well worth. Can now flick between the internet, music and video from the lounge TV -- with everything stored on the server in the office. And even my porno movies in RealMedia play widescreen!

fatbrit

I was tempted to try one of these, but I also wanted to surf from the living room couch -- hence just used a PC.

Lord Lionheart

It's getting more complicated and more expensive from my original $25 player...................... but the porno option would be worth it

fatbrit

The $30 upgrade to the DivX/USB DVD player is well worth it to save converting files. The other options discussed here are for the geeky crowd only at this time I think.

Lord Lionheart

I agree. So if you have a laptop connected to the USB input you can play downloaded UK Nova files directly through the VCR, correct? I have used S-video but you only get the inferior laptop speaker sound

fatbrit

Nope -- probably.

Easiest method. Grab yourself a 1GB or bigger thumb drive, e.g. this.

When you've downloaded the file on the computer, copy the lionheart_does_santa_monica.avi file to the thumb drive. Then put the thumb drive in the USB player and play the video directly from there. The video and sound will both play on the TV.

If you want to play directly from the computer to the TV, life gets complicated!

Lord Lionheart

But if the laptop is connected via USB to the VCR it will play the files ( and sound) through the Philips VCR. Correct ..................................... I wish I hadn't started this stupid thread now :curse:

fatbrit

Probably not...

Ka Ora!

I got one of these it even plays ripped iso images and its true High Def best 500 i have spent its networked far better than apple tv and less agro than having the pc plugged in to the the telly you can also plug in external usb drives so currently you can have about 3 tb of video music storage.

http://www.tvix.co.kr/eng/products/PVRM51105130SH.aspx