Netbooks with DVD
in [UK Linux]
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From: Ian Rawlings on 11 Dec 2008 09:25 On 2008-12-11, Daniel James <wastebasket(a)nospam.aaisp.org> wrote: > I have an LG "USB Powered" DVD writer. It came with a power cable to > draw power from a second USB port but in practice I have not, so far, > found it necessary to use that as the drive seems able to draw > sufficient power from the data USB port (of my Asus EEE) ... but I've > only been reading disks, not writing them. I'll bear that in mind personally as I find my Plextor's requirement for two USB ports to be a pain, however it is a very good drive in all other respects, dealing with things that other drives turn their noses up at. > Another thing to watch out for is that the USB ports of a > laptop/netwook may share their power input, so using a second USB port > for power may not make any more power available ... but you could > always use a powered hub. I've never come across an *in spec* situation like that, USB spec is 500mA per port, so if they can't provide that then they're not in spec, most seem happy to supply more, and perhaps you might find that a port will supply 1A but if you use two, each port will only supply 500mA. I'd imagine that's what you're alluding to, and your LG drive will draw more than 500mA from a port if it's available. > Somewhat to my surprise the EEE's built-in (Linux) media player > (SMPlayer) autoplays video DVDs from the USB drive -- no extra software > needed. SMPlayer has "Play DVD from drive" and "Play DVD from folder" > options ... presumably "Play DVD from folder" will work with a network > share? I haven't got a DVD handy to try ... Yes, the Eee's smplayer is a graphical frontend to good old mplayer, vlc has the edge on mplayer in a few small areas. There was a script on my Eee to update mplayer's codecs as the ones supplied are the 2006 pack, if you run the script it'll download a 2007 spec pack automatically. Can't remember the name of the script but if you do an "updatedb" and once it's finished, do a "locate mplayer | grep script" it should find it, it was in a "scripts" subdirectory of a path with "mplayer" in it IIRC. In the few days I had an Eee I only managed to get vlc playing my h264 encoded files, smplayer would only play the audio, a shame but not much of an issue at all. -- Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire! http://youtube.com/user/tarcus69 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarcus/sets/
From: Ian Rawlings on 11 Dec 2008 09:34 On 2008-12-11, Ian Rawlings <news06(a)tarcus.org.uk> wrote: > I've never come across an *in spec* situation like that, USB spec is > 500mA per port, so if they can't provide that then they're not in > spec, I should add that this applies to powered hubs, not bus-powered hubs as they only have 500mA to power themselves and attached peripherals, but a laptop's USB ports class as a powered hub or at least they have so far on the laptops I've used. -- Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire! http://youtube.com/user/tarcus69 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarcus/sets/
From: Theo Markettos on 11 Dec 2008 11:25 Phil Stovell <phil(a)stovell.org.uk> wrote: > On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:51:01 +0000, Frank Peelo wrote: > > > Get a standalone DVD player. Argos have a pink one for 90 Euro. > > I saw a DVD player in Asda for ?15. With screen included? :-) Theo
From: Phil Stovell on 11 Dec 2008 12:04 On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:25:16 +0000, Theo Markettos wrote: > Phil Stovell <phil(a)stovell.org.uk> wrote: >> On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:51:01 +0000, Frank Peelo wrote: >> >> > Get a standalone DVD player. Argos have a pink one for 90 Euro. >> >> I saw a DVD player in Asda for ?15. > > With screen included? :-) > > Theo Strangely enough, no. Next year, I expect.
From: Frank Peelo on 11 Dec 2008 13:02
Phil Stovell wrote: > On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:25:16 +0000, Theo Markettos wrote: > > >>Phil Stovell <phil(a)stovell.org.uk> wrote: >> >>>On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:51:01 +0000, Frank Peelo wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Get a standalone DVD player. Argos have a pink one for 90 Euro. >>> >>>I saw a DVD player in Asda for ?15. >> >>With screen included? :-) >> >>Theo > > > Strangely enough, no. Next year, I expect. The one I got for my daughter was an Acoustic Solutions PDVD-301, which, if the URL works, is at http://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?storeId=30001&catalogId=1500001151&langId=-1&searchTerms=PDVD-301&Submit=GO+%3E The Argos page has a list of features, which I suppose must be order of importance, with the most important feature first: Details * Pink. * Visible screen size... And their #1 design point was indeed the one that sold it to my daughter. I don't know why. It's not like we pushed pink on her when she was little. But if I went for something else now, I'd feel like King Canute. Frank |