How can I build a DivX Standalone Player?

[The Maynard]

When I tested my TV out of my card I found that the resolution of the original DVD was just fine. Both Media Player and MicroDVD displayed it just fine. The video card I used converted the computer's resolution of 800x600 to the resolution of the TV so any video, when selecting Full Screen mode, looked normal on the tv.
I've been fooling around with the MicroDVD software and the INI Editor that comes with it and I'm blown away by the results! Full DVD-like menus and transitions directly ripped from the DVD and working just like the DVD! I love it!

[ejp]

wow, havent posted in a while...

crahak... (or anyone else for that matter)
can you post some information up about updating the firmware via usb? here or on your website. it'd be very much appreciated. thanks a lot!

[crahak]

Define what you see as "firmware" in this case? Also, doing it the USB way won't necessarily be this easy (depends a lot of what you're trying to accomplish). I'm gonna use my IR keyboard/mouse combo for all my updates. Works well enough

If what you're calling firmware is instead just software (codecs and such), well, it has to be installed from windows itself (so no boot disk, unless you just use to bootdik to copy the update files to the box, which would have to check for updates at boot every time...) If that's what you're trying to do, just try the same way CD's autoplay. The .inf file can start whatever you need to. (you need to have auto insert notification enabled for that to work though)

Also, if it's software, you might have to remove older versions of them first. So when it gets to make a usb drive, that autoplays (so far easy) that has to uninstall specific stuff then reinstall some more... It's just not worth the effort. Good old keyboard and mouse does wonders you know? lol

[ejp]

crahak...

i think i'm pretty much set with the idea of using USB to upgrade the software, since that's the only improvement i can actually think of to the idea of a "Standalone DivX Player".

so unless i can think of another idea, that's what i'm sticking with. also, why would it have to uninstall the old software? doesn't make much sense, because every time i update the DivX Codec or whatever software on my system, i usually don't have to uninstall it.

[crahak]

Lots of time you update software, you have to manually uninstall old/incompatible ones, there's no way around that. You'll have to manually retrieve the uninstall strings from the registry of your player (or install the exact same software on another machine for that) so that's already too much of a pain in the butt to even bother about it. Secondo, lots of soft won't even uninstall themselves properly. They leave files, folders, registry entries and a bunch of crap behind that can still mess up the whole system. This is why I keep an image of my system before adding all these nice things. (Lots of software don't work together very well at all either. e.g. plus! 95 and office 97; if you installed plus before office, plus wouldn't work, but it would work the other way around... M$... nice eh? Software is like that...) You can do it that way if you want to, but I think I'd try to find other "features" instead...

Oh, and thinking about that, 95% of the programs we install will require user intervention. You'd have to code (for every update) a program that will send the proper WM_ (messages) to push buttons (you have to monitor the system to knoe when they appear and make sure they're the right ones) and such. This is very often buggy, and when whatever other situation (non expected) arises, it doesn't work at all... You'll end up speding hours to try to do something that would be easy and take 30 seconds with a keyboard and mouse.

[Alan69]

You seem to be thinking that if you hook some things together, they'll work like magic. You can't take yarn and crochet a vest that's a quarter inch thick and can stop a nuclear missle. You also can't make a PIC do DIVX unless you let it have a month to play one file.
Firmware doesn't run anything. Putting a codec into firmware doesn't DO anything. A processor READS the firmware and USES the instructions to do things like decode a DIVX. A PIC is not enough processor to do this. You don't seem to get that you'd need a hundred or maybe two hundred PICS to decode a DIVX as fast as your computer can, all decoding the one DIVX. A PIC doesn't magically talk to a floppy drive either. Just do that, read a floppy with your PIC. That alone is more than a year project for you to do since you don't already know assembly..

[ejp]

Alan69...

i think we've established that already. euh, thanks for re-enforcing it though.

[ejp]

crahak...

just wondering. i was looking at your site again, in the coding area. will you actually give out your code, or an executable, or something? that would definately be cool, if you could. i'm having second thoughts about that DivxOS, hehe. thanks again.

[ejp]

crahak ... ?

[crahak]

I will hand out both the source code (ok, maybe not very well commented, not pretty nor fancy code (I am not pretending) but functionnal anyways) and the executables, plus probably direct links to the other stuff you need (nimo codec pack and the like) in the downloads section. However, I'm doing some major changes all the time, so I can't put out a "beta" yet or anything. I'm using an buggy ActiveX control to play mp3's right now... Nice vu meter and all, but it's limited and very buggy... So I'm thiking about doing it all the DirectShow way (I already have it working with mp3 and AC3 but ogg vorbis isn't behaving even with the DS filters...?) Anyways, lots of changes like that. It's coming together. Last thing is scripted multi level menus that work at any screen resolution, and place the number of desired "buttons" evenly on the screen, all graphical, work with keyboard and remote (both arrows and numbers; mouse too soon when I feel like it)... All the buttons are created at runtime as a control array. Works great Working on a scripting engine now... Doing lots of things, it's not like 2 lines of code... There is still a lot to do, but it will come together, only a matter of time. I should have my parts in a couple of days (Had a problem with a ridiculously slow computer shop, I ordered my parts from another place)

[drewson99]

well .. about building a car .. its like building a car with a hot tub .. buy a stripped down pos old car .. use a hack saw .. break it down (hell of a pain but u can do it) .. and drop that sucka right in there .. and voila .. hot tub on wheels .. and the mechanics of it ARE simple

hells yes. I work in sw dev, and I want this guy on my project...

you-go-boy

ZZ

[ejp]

crahak...

sounds like everything is going perfect! i guess A LOT of people will be visiting your website for all this information. thanks again.

just some questions...

will you post information about what (and how) exactly to throw away in Win98SE? i've already installed Win98SE on my old HDD, but not totally sure on what i can get rid of. also, how to get rid of the shell (explorer), and just have only what this project needs.

also, just wondering if your coding will incorporate coding for the buttons on the actual case, such as a keypad. i'm kinda having a hard time imagining it. an A-to-D Convertor to a PIC to the microprocessor. is that algorithm correct?

thanks.

[crahak]

Well, uh, things aren't going perfect. Most mp3 playing ActiveX controls suck, and are very limited. So I decided to go DirectShow (most likely) but it won't render ogg vorbis files right

Lots of annoyances like that, but it's making progress. It will happen, but there are always issues to solve...

People would visit my site probably more if I submitted it to searchengines, HTPC-related forums and the like. Right now, it's just there, with only a few references to it in a couple threads on this forum.

Well, you can deltree all the help in win98 (you really think you'll use minesweeper's help?) ugly bmp's, .txt's, sound schemes, and all that kind of crap.

About the shell, see control.ini, the line that says "shell=c:\wind0ze\explorer.exe" Should be simple enough to write another exe's name on that line. (if you want to do it by hand, sure, else you can make a tiny program that handles .ini's)

About a keypad on a case, uh, we already have a remote control, and a IR keyboard/mouse, why more buttons?... lol
If you want to do that, well, you're (basically) on your own. You'll need:
1-a keypad (doh); most likely a matrix type of unit (don't forget to debounce the buttons...)
2-a PIC, that will scan the matrix, then convert it to a number, then sent it to PC via serial link (software coding is the main thing, and there, you're really on your own, no time for that...)
3-you will have to add code to my program to handle the com port, plus configuration, and add code to make the program react accordingly. The thing is I'm using a keypress handler that your keypad won't trigger. You'll have to write a full serial comms piece of code that will do whatever you want. Unless you choose to code another program (completely on your own) that will send keypresses to the front end, which, might not be able to do what you want to do with these buttons in the first place......
Anyways, no AD converter involved, you have to scan the keyboard's matrix (rows and columns), the signal is there or not. That's digital. It's not called an algorithm either really, it's just a way to interface. If you use a small number of buttons, and that you don't use the parallel port already, I strongly suggest using the parallel port instead to scan a few buttons periodically. Much easier, no pics, no serial comms... I might actually code something like that eventually, now that I'm thinking about it It's fairly easy. I had made a Idec PLC emu in asm a while ago interfaced (basically) like that.

Edit: Any DirectShow coding experts in the place??? lol

[ejp]

crahak...

WOW, thanks a lot. it's almost as if you know this kinda stuff inside and out. thanks for even more information! it can only help.

another thing, though. as i said before, i'm probably going to update the software via USB. any ideas come to mind when i say that? i remember someone saying (maybe you) that the unit would have to constantly monitor the USB port. then i'm guessing, somewhere in the code, it would have to accept whatever is being sent to it. and then, of course, there's another peice of code to handle whatever was sent, which was the updated software. does that sound right to you?

thanks.

[crahak]

Well, the first part actually is very easy, as long as you know what you're doing

Hmm, you haven't given uo yet on that USB thing?
If you just want to use a thumbdrive, it does broadcast some WM_... messages to the top windows, and you'd have to use subclassing to handle the messages... IF you don't know that already, you might as well steer clear of that way of doing it... LOL
Otherwise, you can use good 'ol autorun like any drive. When it will be inserted, it will run an app that will do whatever you want to your machine.
However, that is by far the easy part...
To do a really great updater, you'd have to maintain lists of what should/should not be there as well as versions, and every time you plug it in, make it scan registry uninstall strings, check for versions and what not... Just to know what has to be done to it. Eventually, you'll have to make it kill some processes, delete files, complete folders and registry trees as well as some programs won't uninstall right anyways, copying files and registering them, plus maybe the hardest part, launching the installer for the new soft, plus monitoring all windows constently to catch the dialog boxes and choose the right options (that is a nightmare) yet that would be required, unless you want to have to plug in a mouse and keyboard to type in stuff and click buttons?) Also, this way of doing things is really buggy usually, and it just doesn't handle unexpected events... There is no way way to do this. If you're asking how to do it, you're quite far aways from having this all done and working

I think it's just not worth it, and I won't be doing any of that myself. You won't need to update it often, and these will be a LOT easier to do the conventionnal way. Your USB updater project alone is by far more work than my HTPC front end altogether, including all the associated programs, graphics and what not.

Anways, I added quickly some code yesterday to auto show/hide mouse and use the buttons too. I will add the parallel port interfaced buttons too at a later point when I got mostly everything else working

[ejp]

hmm...

in that case... does anyone have any ideas on how to improve a standalone divx player? otherwise, i think i'll stick to at least trying to upgrade via USB.

thanks.

[crahak]

From now on, someone else will have to help. Sorry.

[ejp]

does anyone know why i can't find any patents on anything similar to a standalone divx player? i know there are many personal projects, and a few companies, like KiSS. but how come i can't find an official patent number on anything like this?

[vitualis]

Because the concept is probably not patentable (and shouldn't be either).

The individual components have probably got patents (e.g., hardware MPEG-4 decoding circuitry, etc.)

Regards.

[ejp]

thanks...

that's what i though, i just needed a second opinion. but you mentioned that it shouldn't be patented. i know it CAN'T be patented because of what you said, but why shouldn't it be?

[vitualis]

A patent should be given for a specific original invention and/or process.

A "stand-alone player that plays DivX" is just a broad concept.

For example, you can and should be able to patent a specific technology for making an "electronic paper" type display but you shouldn't be able to patent the entire CONCEPT of "electronic paper".

Patents are for the protection of a new invention, not for staking a claim on an idea or concept. Remember the spirit of "patents" is to encourage innovation. If you could "patent" a broad concept, it would result in hindering innovation.

Regards.

[ejp]

thanks again ...

i wasn't really going to patent this. it's just that it's part of the project writeup and i just needed a valid reason.