Dedicated Divx/xvid Box

[phatsuperakuma]

I have windows xp installed on

p450
512 sdram
2x9 GB hdd
32 Mb w/tv-out
1 tv tuner w/remote control

What i would like to do is put it next to the tv with-out a active : monitor, keyboard or mouse. All the input would be via the remote control . All the box would be doing is playing XviD/divx media. The box would need to be setup so as soon as you turn it on you could select movies to play (no login etc). How would i do this? Remember though that there would be no active keyboard or mouse. What program will do this ? Is there an os designed for this ? Can anyone point me to some links?

[deadpac]

Too lazy too come up with anything new, the below is a direct rip from one of my previous posts. I've gotten eMoviX to work using an OLD Pinnacele PCTV remote and never had to use a keyboard or mouse when I was running eMoviX. I've never gotten eMoviX to do more than VCD on an old p2 400mhz so not sure how much more success you're going to get with a 450mhz but it looks like it's worth a shot. Keep in mind these are bootable Linux distros. I used an ATI card whose tv outs are easy to work with as they are initialized as soon as you power on; Nvidia TV outs on the other hand.......

eMoviX, MoviX, MoviX2
http://movix.sourceforge.net/
It can also play divx, xvid, mpeg1, mpeg2, rm, rmvb, wmv....etc
but a p3 450 might not be powerful enough to run it though; I think the amount of ram you have free say around 64mb for decent playback. I haven't tried the DVD playback function of any of the MoviX's yet but I don't think you'll have access to menu function. Depending on which version of MoviX you decide to build an iso for the total amount of space on a CDR can range anywhere from 18mb to 30mb.

Womp!
http://womp.sourceforge.net/
Probably your best bet if MoviX doesn't work for you. I was able to get this thing to run very smoothly on a p2 400 with only 96mb of RAM.

GeeXboX
http://www.geexbox.org/
Probably a last resort if the other 2 don't work.

AND

when all else fails try any of those well know bootable distros that happen to have Mplayer (basically the root of the above 3) contained on them.
i.e. Knoppix, Dyne:Bolic .....etc

[Suntan]

First check to make sure that the PC will play Xvids at the res you have. Otherwise it maybe disapointing.

If you can them with XP then I would suggest you get a free copy of myHTPC (get it on the forums of www.meedio.com) it is a HTPC front end. You can also try Xlobby, or buy Meedio.

Make yourself a UIRT2 (remote control tranceiver) if your TV card based remote doesn't run with Girder, or you want to be able to start your PC from the remote.

Then get Girder, after you figure out how to use it, anything on the computer can be done from the remote.

-Suntan