Use that old Playstation 2 to access all kinds of content thanks to Qtv. I will update this as more time allows. I am still waiting to hear back from Qtv for when I will get the disk or something.
August update. Still have not heard back from them and their site is still “coming soon” in several sections. Will there still be PS2′s available when they finally release their software?
I have spent a little time on trying to get Boxee working on an old Gbox computer that I have here at home. I have installed Ubuntu 8.10/intrepid on it but am unable to get Boxee to start. After reading up on the problem that I am having, a quick flash of a black screen then the Boxee folder tab on the bottom vanishes after a few seconds. I think it is due to the integrated ATI card. I tried a few ideas from the web, but it either did nothing or caused the video to not work at all. Next is to try a different video card. UPDATE I got Boxee to work. Turns out that the computer that I was trying to get it to work on had what seems to be hard drive and memory issues. I reinstalled 8.10 on another computer with a newer drive and it worked. Hooked it up at home to the TV using a SVGA cable and a cable that converted the sound from 1/8 mini jack (speaker out) to RCA left and right. Worked well on a few things that I tried. Did have a weird high speed viewing of a movie trailer. Ended up disconnecting the computer from the TV due to the computers size (old 4U super heavy server) and the fan noises that it produced. I need to find a smaller computer case and give it a good try. One issue that I have is that I have no remote due to the MB that I am using is so old it does not have an IR ability. So everything has to be done with mouse and keyboard. I tried to remote desktop it using ultraVNC, but I just had a black screen when I started Boxee, so that does not work. I did find something new that I am looking into. See my post on “Qtv”.
UPDATE
I placed purchased a new video card and got Boxee working in the Gbox to a point. Over all it seems to be working quite well, except I experienced an issue with Hulu in that I got sound but no picture on a couple of occasions. This I think is due to bandwidth. Other then that it was working fine. My biggest issue is that both out TV’s are of the older tube type and I am havng troubles with the display. I hope that in the near future I will get a LCD TV, which should solve all my problems.
We like movies like most everyone else and there are the good old stand-by’s that we take out to watch when nothing else is on our 100+ channels. What I don’t like is the whole DVD in the DVD player bit. I like to have the ability to watch a DVD either upstairs on my Neuros OSD, downstairs on the Xbox, on my Blackberry or our Creative Zen when we are camping. So how to make this all work. I have tried several programs and to date the best I have come up with is the following. To get a DVD protected or not into the computer I use DVD Decrypter. This free program is rock solid for converting an entire DVD or just the main movie to VOB, IFO and BUP. You also have the choice to convert to an ISO. Why an ISO, because it is just one file and can be mounted and viewed using software or read by some cool devices like the Tvisto Galaxy, which is great for taking to the rental cabin.
Ok, now that you have your movie in VOB, IFO and BUP, the next step is to convert it into a format that can be viewed on one of the mentioned devices. For this I have yet to find anything that works as well as Handbrake. This is another free piece of software that will convert a folder of VOB, IFO and BUP files into MP4, AVI and some other formats. If you plan to use the Windows Media Center with an Xbox see my entry on that for issues that I found converting files. As for the Divx converting, you need to get the Divx Converter, and that does cost money. I have to admit that the quality is very good for the file size. My conclusion on the whole converting is that you need to convert to the best format for what you are planning to use for playback. For example the Xbox, my current findings are AVI and for little hand held video players, best to use MP4.
So seeing that I am a MS Certified Partner, I get some cool software to mess around with. I decided to try and get a Windows 7 BetaOS to work with my Xbox 360 so that I could watch movies stored on the NAS. Using the Windows Media Center and the Media extender for Xbox, I got all that working together without too many problems. I did get some BSOD, but I think it had to do with either my video card or the NIC. After an update the OS seems to be working well. I did find that AVI’s work well as do Divx. You do have to download the divx player to install the necessary codex for that all to work, both on the Windows machine and the Xbox itself. The only issue I have is with MP4 and that is frame dropping. I found a web site that explains it better HERE. In short it has to do with Zune compatibility and videos need to be between 23-29 fps.
I have now rebuilt my Window 7 box and am again testing it with my Xbox 360 and NAS playing music(mp3), avi and dvix videos. So far it seems to be working just fine. I did need to install Divx on the Win 7 computer along with DivX Tech Preview. This I got from the DivX site. There is also a very nice video on the DivX site explaining all this. I found other methods that are out on the Internet that say they can do the same thing, do not work with Windows 7.
