interesting & different home theatre setups
 

hey guys

just thought i would see if anyone has an interesting and different home theatre system.
I have tried a few different things such as hooking up a pc to the TV making it a dedicated media player (this was years ago before you could get packages from Harvey Norman) and had it on the network with a wireless card so I could put media on it using my main computer.
but I didn’t like having to use a house and key board on it and the resolution was shit! as I have found with most TV out card.
it just does not look normal.

I have done heaps of other stuff but right now I have found something that works really well for me and was way cheap to setup.
I got 2 cheap ass DVD players brand name CONIA for $40 each! , the DVD part of it is gay as and stuffs up but that’s not what I got it for as on the front on the players there is a USB slot.
the players play all the media I can frow at it: media player, divx, MP3 , real player and lots more.
i get a 2 gig thumb drive, put the media i want to play after i have downloaded what ever and then just plug it in! , the operating system is great on it and this setup work really well :)

costs involved = conia dvd player: $40 , thumb drive: $40 for 2 gig.

so not a bad alternative to tapes, DVD’s or cd's

[url]www.DTVforum.info[/url]

some outstanding HT setups....

what is the quality like from the dvd player, in the sense playing it off a thumb drive.
Also where abouts is the conia players avalible? cheers

My Brother is currently driving around Australia and he has one of these set up in his caravan [URL=http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Mp3-MP4-3-5-HDD-media-player-NTFS-Avi-Divx-Dvd-LCD_W0QQitemZ280125843026QQihZ018QQcategoryZ98410QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem]Click [/URL] he has put a 500 gig hd in it, stores and plays all his movies from it at 700 MB (average) per movie that works out to be 700 od movies not too bad really and he reckons quality is really good.

thats what i was planning on doing at first but the thumb drive works for me , but a HDD would be great! , the quality is really good , i am impressed by how well it goes , its HD quality.
its hard to find one if you can find one at all :( , they where a promotional item and they dont carry them anymore , prolly coz the actual dvd drive stuffs up quick but you dont buy it for that , you buy it for the USB port and fact that it can play EVERYTHING :D

i think i have seen this feature on some of the new LG and other brand dvd players , it is a really good idea so i hope to see more players with usb ports on them and the ability to play heaps of codex's and media types would be good.

I love my xbox with XBMC, i have 2 both networked to my server pc which has around 900Gb of storage for movies, tv shows etc. Once there is a dashboard etc out for hte 360 i will consider upgrading to that purely for the HD output.

i am looking at getting this for my room so i can listen to my music and movies from my computer.

[url]http://www.yamahamusic.com.au/products/avit/htavreceivers/RX-N600B.asp[/url]

1 more vote for Xbox and XMBC... don't even really use it for games anymore, it's pretty much just a dedicated media player. watch all the divX's i download on it, but as bear said only downfall is it's not HD, which is only a bummer depending if you have a HD projector/display. I have to get round to networking it with my PC so i don't have to burn everything onto DVD before i can watch it.

on another note, i'm still running S-video out of the xbox, i've seen some component cables for xbox but i'm not sure if they're just a converter or a true component output?

Yeah i used to ftp everything to the xbox and watch it, i got sick of unplugging it and putting it in the study for the transfer then back out to the lounge to watch. Now i just run network cable everywhere, its awesome. If you cant be fkd running the cable your options are wireless (which is pricey) or netowrk of power devices. I have these for a roof which i cannot run cable to where i want. They work fine for streaming, they give me around 1.5mb to 2mb second transfer. see link

[url]http://www.netcomm.com.au/SpecSheets/NP285_Turbo_HomePlug_Twin_Pack.pdf[/url]

if you decide to get some, make sure you shop around i got some at a pretty good price from an online computer store, not direct from Netcomm.

i was wonder if there are any good gadgets, out there that can play all the computer files e.g. divx and so on directly able to be plugged into ur plasma or lcd in HD.

cheers