Re: Networked DVD player

["Stuart Poulton" <stuart.poulton@xxxxxxx>]

Here's an article about hacking a Wharfdale M5 to work over a network......
note that some interesting hardware is required an it's not cheap.

http://www.area450.com/thesampozone/articles/wad.htm

Stuart


----- Original Message -----
From: "Graham Howe" <graham@xxxxxxx>
To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 10:22 PM
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Networked DVD player


> Here is my feedback that was passed on to Kiss after I was lent one of
> these units:
>
> 1. The menus look awful, a lot of this may well be down to the design
> which is one of the poorest gui's I have come across. Compare it to
> something like the Tivo interface and you'll see what I mean.
>
> 2. When looking through a list of albums in the music module you can't
> see any of the cover shots, this is pretty standard functionality on
> many mp3 players.
>
> 3. Even worse, when browsing a load of pictures, you don't see
> thumbnails, this really is a basic requirement of any picture browser.
>
> 4. When viewing a picture it is stretch horizontally and the quality
is
> dreadful.
>
> 5. When playing a divx from any of the disk you included, the picture
is
> squashed vertically to such an extent that I have black bars covering
> almost 2/3 of the screen. There are also small black bars at the sides
> of the picture.
>
> 6. There seems to be a lot of pixelation with the opening sequence in
> the Gold Member disk, I don't know if that is the player or the disk.
>
> 7. I can only select AVI's from the LAN to play, no IFO, VOB or other
> movie file types seem to be supported.
>
> 8. The machine does not actually browse the network itself, rather it
is
> supplied a list from the software running on the PC. So presumably I
> would have to rebuild the list on the PC every time I added a new
film,
> song or picture to the LAN.
>
> 9. When playing a DVD the picture is too big for the screen. I am
> definitely losing some of the picture from the sides and I think some
at
> the top and bottom too. Aspect ratio seems to be correct, it is just
> that the picture is too large.
>
> 10. When playing a DVD there is no dialogue at all and the only sound
> seems to be effects which are coming out of the front speakers. The
amp
> is indicating a digital source, so it seems to be that the 5.1 is not
> being decoded/directed properly by the KISS. The same disk in a DVD
> player plays perfectly through the same cables to the same amp.
>
>
> Now it is possible that I set something up incorrectly, but I do have
a
> reasonable amount of experience with HiFi, AV and PC's ;-)