DivX on the MVP

[fordster]

One thing I’d love to be able to do is play DivX through my MVP. The current beta release of the Hauppauge MVP server program does this and it would be awesome if GBPVR could incorporate this into a future build.

[jquinlan]

This has been discused before. Hauppauge can do this by doing a real-time transcoding from MPEG to DivX. It is CPU intensive on the serving PC and will probably cause problems if you have multiple MVP's. It would be better if the next model of the MVP had more codec's builtin for thing like this.

[fordster]

It would be great if the MVP could be upgraded with more codecs and I’m sure the next version will cater for this, but having just purchased version 1, I don’t want to wait for version 2 to play DivX.

If Hauppauge have avoided upgrading V1 firmware then it’s probably out of the question anyway. I guess the MVP just doesn’t have the power as a fully working PowerPC machine with 64MB ram, and a separate chip acting as a MPEG-2 decoder. It would seem the only current solution would be to build it in the server software.

I’ve had the Hauppauge Beta software playing DivX on a single MVP on a 2.6GHz P4 with 512MB ram whilst doing other things and it was cool as, no juddering or nothing.

I really think the GBPVR software is excellent, but this for me is what’s missing. Is there really anything else more important to wish for because it already appears bug free, stable and well polished. So for me DivX functionality is top, yes - I want my cake and to eat it!

[Jean-Christophe]

If you have quite a big HDD, you can uncompress DivX to MPEG2 and watch them from MVP. Right?

[jquinlan]

Jean, It sounds like it would work.
I wish there also was an easier way to play more types of files, but either they only build in a MPEG decoder chip into the MVP or they have only writtent the MPEG codec into the firmware. Do they have room for more codec's in the firmware or are they locked to hardware design? I have not seen any specs on the MVP.

[sub]

The MVP can only play MPEG1 or MPEG2 video. No firmware update will fix that.

Personally I think server side transcoding from divx to mpeg2 (as done by the original Hauppauge software) is pretty ugly. It also only works with one MVP. Multiple MVPs are not able to watch DivX files at the same time.

I'm not ruling out add server side transcoding to GB-PVR, but its not very high on my priority list.

[madders]

If transcoding could be included, it would also mean that DVDs and various other media types could be played on a single MVP.

Would it be possible to include libraries/code from either http://freshmeat.net/projects/transcode/ or http://www.videolan.org/streaming/ to allow basic support for DIVX and other media files?

Also, could GBPVR read an MPEG1/2 stream from VLC media player, and pass that through to the MVP. If so, we could use VLC media player to transcode any files for us, possibly even using a different machine, and GBPVR could just route the data through to the MVP. A plugin could then be written to start VLC streaming a media file of choice, and then play the stream once ready.

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]Would it be possible to include libraries/code from either http://freshmeat.net/projects/transcode/ or http://www.videolan.org/streaming/ to allow basic support for DIVX and other media files?

Unfortunately those are covered by GPL so cant be used.

Quote[/b] ]If transcoding could be included, it would also mean that DVDs and various other media types could be played on a single MVP

If I do look at transcoding, it wont be as simple as you describe. I would specifically have to implement support for media we need to play. Each one could take weeks.

Quote[/b] ]Also, could GBPVR read an MPEG1/2 stream from VLC media player, and pass that through to the MVP. If so, we could use VLC media player to transcode any files for us, possibly even using a different machine, and GBPVR could just route the data through to the MVP. A plugin could then be written to start VLC streaming a media file of choice, and then play the stream once ready.

No at this stage, but I may look into the protocol in the future.