Can someone recommend me a DVD player that plays MANY different formats?

[DeadlyNinja]

While I have tons of DVD players in my house, I don't have a single one of them that can play AVI files. I was thinking of buying something like that, but I was wondering if there are DVD players that could play even more than just AVI and WMV. Is there a DVD player that can play pretty much any format? I'm specifically interested in MKV since I'm downloading something (it's a movie that'll never be released in America) that is 4.5 gigs and is at 720p (according to the file info). I have no clue if it's true, but if it is, it would be pretty awesome to watch a 720p movie on a DVD player.

 

[Blazkowicz]

there can be anything in that mkv (one I have is real(tm) video).
well if you want to play anything you need to get or build a media PC. it can be without hard disk if you use instead a compact flash card and CF to IDE adapter, then I'd see some kind of horizontal µATX case (have a look at antec minuet 300 EC for instance), a board with the latest IGP, one stick of ram and a low power processor like 65nm X2 3600+, athlon BE or pentium E2140.
this will be a bit more expensive that a DVD player though. I believe some cheap ones can do 720p xvid but that may or not be restricted to avi files..

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Yeah, I already have a media PC. It's a pain in the ass to hook it up to the TV and moving it around. My monitor is good, but not very large. I much prefer a player that I can just have it hooked up instead of moving things back and forth.

 

[Blazkowicz]

ha! just pretend you're hooking it up

the way I was seeing it was pretty minimalistic, with a media player linux distro that can be booted from CF, USB key or CD, you'd only need power, video/audio out and a remote.

 

[ERP]

I agree on the media PC front, I have 3 DVD players that will play "DivX" files, bit on practice there are just too many cases of incompatability, so I have a dedicated HTPC in my living room and use that to play back videos and DVD's.

 

[J_Saint]

This may be of interest...

http://www.ziova.com/cs505.php

It's based on a Sigma chipset like many similar to it but most do not have a dvd drive.