JimmyBarnes
9th November 2003, 07:32
I bit the bullet and made my own player - sub-mini ATX case, micro ATX MSI KM2M board, Duron 1GHz CPU, Windows 98SE. Used a cheapie Nvidia TNT2 M64 PCI card (32 MB) with TV out connected to the TV - no PC monitor (the entire bootup process, starting with the graphics BIOS, displays on the TV). Boots to fullscreen ("overscan") Windows desktop within a minute. Attached mini-keyboard to the PC for "emergencies" but it's generally not required.
Used ZoomPlayer v2.90 as the software player, and a Microsoft Cordless Optical Mouse 1.0A (black and silver to match the PC case) as the remote. Used TVTool v9.0 to enlarge the raster (800x600) to fullscreen (overfills TV display) and centre it - didn't need to use TVTool's TV Mode.
Then configured ZP as follows:
* Control Bar shows when the mouse is moved to the bottom of the screen
* Control Bar contains Rewind, Stop, Play/Pause, Fast Forward, Fullscreen/Windowed mode, Folder (for browsing to open files)
* Fixed Control Bar at 600 pixels width
* Fixed Control Bar (relatively) just above the edge of the bottom of the movie frame - important when ZP's zoom out feature is used.
* Control Bar displays elapsed and total time, and enables random seeking
* Mouse scroll wheel controls frame zoom-in/out
* Left mouse click also does Pause/Play
* Right mouse button displays extensive ZP menu, including Player Options
Point and click with a bit of scroll wheeling does it all. Much easier than trying to customise a generic remote (which I have also tried) to do even the above few key functions. ZP's extensive customisability helps greatly.
One issue was that the range of common (ie cheap) wireless optical mice is 2 metres or less. I sit 3 metres from the TV, but found that by orienting the mouse receiver a certain way, normal mouse control was obtained at that distance (and probably some way beyond).
Have only been using for a short time but it works really well. Hope it's of help to others contemplating building their own player. :)
JB
Used ZoomPlayer v2.90 as the software player, and a Microsoft Cordless Optical Mouse 1.0A (black and silver to match the PC case) as the remote. Used TVTool v9.0 to enlarge the raster (800x600) to fullscreen (overfills TV display) and centre it - didn't need to use TVTool's TV Mode.
Then configured ZP as follows:
* Control Bar shows when the mouse is moved to the bottom of the screen
* Control Bar contains Rewind, Stop, Play/Pause, Fast Forward, Fullscreen/Windowed mode, Folder (for browsing to open files)
* Fixed Control Bar at 600 pixels width
* Fixed Control Bar (relatively) just above the edge of the bottom of the movie frame - important when ZP's zoom out feature is used.
* Control Bar displays elapsed and total time, and enables random seeking
* Mouse scroll wheel controls frame zoom-in/out
* Left mouse click also does Pause/Play
* Right mouse button displays extensive ZP menu, including Player Options
Point and click with a bit of scroll wheeling does it all. Much easier than trying to customise a generic remote (which I have also tried) to do even the above few key functions. ZP's extensive customisability helps greatly.
One issue was that the range of common (ie cheap) wireless optical mice is 2 metres or less. I sit 3 metres from the TV, but found that by orienting the mouse receiver a certain way, normal mouse control was obtained at that distance (and probably some way beyond).
Have only been using for a short time but it works really well. Hope it's of help to others contemplating building their own player. :)
JB