GeexBox

[nitrogen_widget]

http://geexbox.org/en/index.html

I was having problems getting GBPVR to play nice on an old system.
no-go.
It just didn't have the chops.
Then I found this.
The hardware requirements are crazy low.
It's built around MPlayer.
I've been playing with it & it seems play just about everything real smooth even over a lan.

I'm wondering if since it's Linux & linux & perl go together so nicely if the Access Perl module could be used to read episode info from a gbpvr server?
It probably won't ever be as pretty as an MVP, but it'll play mp4 & DVD's on a low power p3.

[dgeezer]

I played around with this a little myself. It played back a 1080i mpeg that I had on my computer with no problems. This same file always shows some blockiness on movement when viewed with windows media player or especially on vlc. This is in an athlon 64 system with only onboard video (ati 200).

I wish I new a little more about programming to modify this. I'm imagining a box with only a motherboard, dvd drive and ram booting from a usb stick and somehow porting over my GBpvr menus etc. Kind of a super mvp with onboard dvd drive.......

[nitrogen_widget]

I was thinking the same.
I'm not too worried about the GBPVR interface itself, but I would love to figure out how to use linux to read episode data out of the DB & display that.

Mostly though, playing DVD’s & the wife’s XVID movies off a DVD or my server with the spare PC parts I have is what will make her happy as opposed to dropping a few hundred for another fast PC for GBPVR.

The latest version of this even works with my compro videomate pvr software card.
I wouldn't want to record with it, but since the card is just collecting dust it will probably be good enough for time shifting. Which will again satisfy the wife’s “I wish we could pause upstairs” desire.


I wish I knew more about programming also.
I read about Mono, which is supposed to be a .net framework for Linux.
But then you get into x-windows & lose the low system requirements.

[SavCom]

I've had moderate success with GeexBox, but I use Movix to great effect - plays back fine - even better than Media Player!! Works on a diskless box a treat, so a network-loading silent PC is easy to set up in the lounge. As to the extra information about the episodes - not played with this, but it should be possible to strip the info from the recordings section of the GBPVR web site..... Just a thought.

You can readily read other media files off of other servers too, but the only downside is that it is not uPnP ready. Geexbox purports to be so this may help when finding servers on your LAN.

Martin

[Pioneer4x4]

As to the extra information about the episodes - not played with this, but it should be possible to strip the info from the recordings section of the GBPVR web site..... Just a thought.

I have zero knowedge of any of this stuff (linux...) but don't forget that GBPVR adds the recording info as metadata to the actual .mpg file. So all you need is to read the file itself. I 'assume' that it can be done in linux.