What is the best way to use my laptop as a part-time media player?
 

I have a hp pavilion with remote. It has these ports: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24567165@N08/3318127035/

I would like to use it as a media center from time to time. But I don't know which cable I should buy. I'm looking for a cable to my Marantz(=amplifier). And the it will redirect sound to the speakers and image to the projector. So, does anyone have some tips?

Also I'm thinking about using Elisa for it but it appears quite buggy to me... So if anyone has any suggestions on that, let me know.


Thanks!

and sorry for the lousy English.

Your setup is not limited, so you can choose either way. Again what type of connectors your amplifier and projector has depends on the cable. If they can handle HDMI, you can use that. If your amplifier only has coaxial or spdif, you need to get a special S-Video connector that has 9 pins. A projector can use either HDMI/DVI-D or VGA.

The easiest for one cable hook up is HDMI because you can hook it to an amplifier and then to a projector.

The next problem will be setting up Linux to output digital audio and transfer the graphics to the external monitor.


I have not found any media centers for Linux that works reliable and stable. I have tried Elisa, MythTV, and Freevo. None of them are reliable and stable. Probably VDR might be reliable and stable, but it is not the prettiest. I am thinking writing my own media center program, but I do not look forward doing it.

If the projector output is on screen 1, then you could precede a command with `DISPLAY=:0.1 ' to have it displayed on the projector.
So you could use the laptop normally, or to control a video player (like vlc) and have only the video on the projector.
E.G.
DISPLAY='0.1' mplayer -fs video/my_video.mpg

So do I really need a a 9 pin S-video?(I have a 4 pin but it doesn't seem to work.
HDMI is not an option I think because my amplifier doesn't have it. Or is there a cable with different
And it doesn't have a 9pin Svideo-in either. So does thet mean s-video is not an option or does it mean that I need a cable that has 4 pins on one side and nine on the other?
(Sorry or all the questions but I'm really not that good with cables and stuf)


Thanks for the help so far!


ps: cool that you think about writing your own program. That's really nice. I wish I could help or something(unfortunately my hacking skills are limited to following tutorials). But shouldn't it be more interesting to improve Elisa(or some other program) because writing a new program from scratch is a lot of work...

probably if you can use a standard vga cable, that would be the best route, the S-video out typically requires installation of proprietary drivers for the video card and isn't supported directly by the open source drivers in the kernel which isnt that hard if it's an nvidia card