Seeking Universal player... suggestions?

[ShieldWolf]

I've built a system that sit's in my living room and uses my TV as it's sole display. It's intended to play movies, music, games, and surf the net.

I'm aiming to make this thing so easy to use that my mother in law can use it, and I'm planning on creating a custom shell to achieve this.

In order to simplify things, I'm looking for a video player that will play DVD's (drive and file), MPEG's, and AVI's with various codecs (particularly DivX and ASUS Capture), so I only need to hack the one application.

I was actually considering using Windows Media Player 6 (with the registry hack to play DVD's), but I thought I'd see if anyone here has another suggestion

Thanks

[setarip]

Actually, your own thought (although I presume you mean v.6.4 of the Win Media Player) would be a solid choice. However, even with the registry hack, or the direct installation and registration of the iviaudio.ax and ivivideo.ax WinDVD filters, you'll have less than full control (or at best, awkward control) of DVDs, ripped or otherwise.

I'd strongly suggest a small investment in the most current (3.xxx) version of WinDVD, which now plays .AVIs, MPEG1, MPEG2, VCD, SVCD and even DVDs ;>} Of course, for DVDs, you'll have total control available (audio, video, scene, speed, etc.)

Do you REALLY want your mother-in-law to mess with this neat setup???

[ShieldWolf]

I won't consider this project successful until it's easy enough for a complete novice to use... also, most interfaces look pretty crud on a television, so I really need to create a custom interface for everything.

Talisman (a shell replacement) allows you to specify the maximum size an application can fill, so I was thinking I'd set up a control panel on the border of the screen, and implement all the functionality in that, then run the player in (what it thinks is) full screen mode. Then all I need to do is catch mouse-clicks on the player itself.

With this approach, I can completely isolate the user from the application AND make an interface that looks good on the tv.

I can also re-use this code when I build my remote reciever, and run the whole machine off my programmable remote.

This is going to take a lot of work to code, so you can see why I'd rather use as few different players in it as I can.

I already own copies of PowerDVD 3.0 and AsusDVD... isn't AsusDVD just an OEM version of WinDVD?

It would be nice if there was a video player that publishes the necessary hooks for coding, the way that WinAmp does... that's what I'm going to use to build my jukebox. I'm thinking I'll build a client-server jukebox. Then I can use a browser for the interface and use VB/ASP/IIS to control Winamp.

As long as I don't have hackers turning my stereo on full blast late at night, it should work fine....

[setarip]

If it is, it's undoubtedly a "Light" (and, perhaps, outdated) version.