On Sun, June 17, 2007 11:12 pm, Chris Hellyar wrote: > Hurro, > > Looking for a media player, similar to the Dlink 320: > > http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=318 > > Basically want a cabled ethernet connected device that will play mp3's > and divx / MPEG4 movies to the TV, that can connect to a samba share, > web URL or something on a Linux file server. "Media Server" if you > will. > > The Dlink unit is cool, but requires proprietary software to run under > windows for it to work, which isn't much chop. > > Anyone got a neat toy like this in their lounge? > > (And before someone suggests media distro XYZ... If it doesn't look > like a small DVD player with an infrared remote it wont past the "'er in > doors test" which is required to get it into my lounge!) > > Cheers, Me.
To enlarge on my earlier email, Twonkymedia is a fantastic cross platform uPnP server - cross platform, and costs 15EU - a price well spent IMHO. Also uShare http://ushare.geexbox.org/ has an open source implementation. uShare claims to work with the Dlink unit, as does Twonky. However I would encourage you to at least try geexbox - a 6MB distro [1] that can be booted from CD, hard drive, compact flash or over PXE (which is my current implementation). It will run on a P3 of around 700MHz and will access content from the internet, smb shares, local hard drive/cd/dvd, a local TV card (including a DVB-S card: freeview anyone?), uPnP servers and probably more if I thought for a bit longer. So grab a low profile machine, whack in a TV out video card, connect a remote control and you'll have exactly what you are looking for. Whats more it will play many more formats than the Dlink player. > > -- Nick Rout
