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Calling geeks with Googling skills…
I’m looking for something for my parents (and heck, I’d use one too.) What I’m looking for is a Tivo-like device that connects to a TV, but has the following features:
- A DVD drive where my dad can pop in a DVD and push a single button to rip it to the built-in hard drive;
- An easy, remote-controlled Tivo-like menu where we can access stored DVDs on the built-in hard drive, or play one directly from the DVD player;
- Easy connections to a TV and sound system, much like a typical DVD player;
- Doesn’t look like a computer.
Extra-special cruncho-spectacular options would include a SD/CompactFlash/MMC/whatever-else-there-is-now reader so my mom can do a photo slideshow on the TV or transfer photos to the hard drive.
Anything out there like this? Or am I going to have to find a crack team of geeks and build this one myself? 
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8 Responses to “Calling geeks with Googling skills…”
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I think an XBox can do most of these things: at least the bits about storing movies and being able to play them as well and having easy connectors and not looking like a computer. I don’t know about all the other weird crap since I don’t actually own one.
The XBocks doesn’t have any of the media connections on it for the flash memory devices. It also can’t rip DVDs with the software that it has pre-loaded on it. As long as you don’t need #1 and #2, you can easily get away with one of the nice HP Media Center devices. They for the most part have DVD playback capability, have flash media slots and most of them don’t look like beigeboxes (zomg, travesty; I love my 4U server chassis sitting below my PlayStation2).
Erica, I think it’s time to get your crack-commando team of geeks ready to build such a beast, or append functionality to a WinMCE device ~_~
Everything but the first can be found in:
http://www.tivo.com/1.1.3.asp
I’ve seen these babys at Best Buy and they are pretty cool.
IIRC, MythTV has the first capability but Myth isn’t really ready for Prime Time yet. It is missing the easy to use interface and more importantly, it’s missing the ‘does not look like a computer’ piece.
I’d be very surprised if you found a commercial product that will rip a DVD like that. (But I’ll be watching to see if anyone comes up with something)
=C=
MythTV on a Linux box will do all of that, and more too: http://www.mythtv.org.
I’ve stopped watching live TV since installing this on my desktop. A couple of words of advice though:
(1) Use a Hauppauge TV Capture Card
(2) Don’t use an nForce2 motherboard; it causes lockups now and then
(3) MythTV is apparently hard to get installed, but it’s pretty easy using Gentoo, and probably easier using KnoppMyth.
Argh … I had a post ready to go, but my comp crashed. Well, here I go again!
The first thing I thought while reading this was Panasonic. I remember hearing about a Panasonic DVD system that works must like this.
http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vModelList?storeId=15001&catalogId=13401&catGroupId=24987&cacheProgram=11002&cachePartner=7000000000000005702
There is a series of models on there that you should like. They work just like Tivo, record to the hard drive while playing DVD’s or watching TV at the same time. They use a remote for easy access too. Also, they have something BETTER than SD cards. Why use SD cards, which you have to continuously move between computer and player, when you can use a direct ethernet hookup? Hehe, I believe I’ve done a good job =D
one click is tough, because of the DMCA and similar laws. however your friends at doom9.org have some discussion the general problem with dvd to hd is that ‘one click’ solutions are going to take lots of disc space, or only be able to transcode to mpeg-4 wmv9 etc… unless of cousre you get dual cpu/multi core, but then expotic form factor except mamoth ’shelf component’ cases* are pretty well ruled out.
you can get hardware mpeg-4 encoders, or course, and scripts can be written to make the software things work ‘one click’ and the windows gui can be replaced with a more ‘remote’ control friendly WM ui. I know there are numerous highly cusomizables ’shell replacements’ for windows, and of course a linux based solution has easier customizability..
*= cases designed to one of the standard dimentions of component audio equipment etc…
Also a company called Ellion make DVD/Hard Disk recorders of various types like the ones you’re looking for.
You should consider Windows Media Center 2005. It has all the features you’re after, a nice interface, and is easy even for non-geeks to use.
As to “would include a SD/CompactFlash/MMC…” and “doesn’t look like a computer”, consider one of the MSI SFF cases. As an added bonus, they have a nice thermal design so the fans don’t sound like jet-engines.
Here’s my setup:
http://zone-mr.ath.cx/content/photos/homesys/screen.jpg
http://zone-mr.ath.cx/content/photos/homesys/mcepc.JPG