[Jason Dunn]

http://www.sampoamericas.com/products/dve631cf.html

After fighting the good convergence fight for a couple of years, I finally gave up on using my DVD-equipped PC connected to my TV for watching movies. It was too much of a hassle, and "cool" factor aside, it's simply faster and easier to use a dedicated player. I picked up a cheap DVD player from Costco, but was impressed with it's ability to play VCDs, MP3 files, etc. This Sampo unit takes that up an extra notch - it has a CompactFlash slot! You can put your CF card into the player and it will display your digital photos or play MP3 audio. Talk about a natural partnership! Now why won't anyone put a CF card reader on a desktop computer...

"Sampo's revolutionary DVE-631CF is not only a DVD player, but also a digital photo playback system that allows you to easily navigate among digital pictures on your TV screen...The smart resolution converter can convert digital photos from basic VGA to multi-mega pixel resolutions to match the display capability of your television."

It can be purchased from Buy.com for $229 (affiliate link).

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.sampoamericas.com/products/dve631cf.html

After fighting the good convergence fight for a couple of years, I finally gave up on using my DVD-equipped PC connected to my TV for watching movies. It was too much of a hassle, and "cool" factor aside, it's simply faster and easier to use a dedicated player. I picked up a cheap DVD player from Costco, but was impressed with it's ability to play VCDs, MP3 files, etc. This Sampo unit takes that up an extra notch - it has a CompactFlash slot! You can put your CF card into the player and it will display your digital photos or play MP3 audio. Talk about a natural partnership! Now why won't anyone put a CF card reader on a desktop computer...

"Sampo's revolutionary DVE-631CF is not only a DVD player, but also a digital photo playback system that allows you to easily navigate among digital pictures on your TV screen...The smart resolution converter can convert digital photos from basic VGA to multi-mega pixel resolutions to match the display capability of your television."

It can be purchased from Buy.com for $229 (affiliate link).

[Kemas]

Toshiba's 5005 doesn't have dedicated CF, but it does have dedicated SD and MMC.

Kemas

[jfrancis]

Nice that it will also display JPGs from a CD-RW too.

[[Cruzer]]

Jason,

Over at FRY's Elect. they have a bare bones systems that comes with
a PCMCIA slot built in. So some manufactures are implementing this
concept into their units. When I get enough money set aside I will
purchase one.

RC

[davidbaldauff]

Here is a cheap CF USB reader:

http://www.sandisk.com/consumer/im.asp

[JonnoB]

I have a 4 in 1 similar to the ImageMate. It has it's own memory (32mb) along with CF, MMC/SD, SmartMedia slots all in a small USB adaptor. What would be nice is if PC builders threw away the floppy and replaced the drive bay with one of these guys and we can use the solid state memory cards for swapping files.

[johnm]

If this DVD play will display JPEGs from CDR, then that is all I need. The ability to do CF is just a nice plus. CF is a temporary storage medium, the first thing I do is dump these images to hard drive and then CD anyway.

This company is really bringing out some cool things.

[Dave Conger]

Originally Posted by [Cruzer

]
Jason,

Over at FRY's Elect. they have a bare bones systems that comes with
a PCMCIA slot built in. So some manufactures are implementing this
concept into their units. When I get enough money set aside I will
purchase one.

RC

There actually used to be a few of these sold as addins. I have seen a couple that add a PCMCIA Type I/II/III and a Type I/II slot to your computer. They connect to the system via two SCSI cables. Some of the auction sites might have them since they are an older product. Pretty decent idea I thought, but I never really found an justification for getting one back "then".

[adamz]

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/foru...topic.php?t=74
I don't know, Jason, I think you've downgraded your tech status with a standalone DVD player. I really dislike them. Computer/Software DVD players have many more features. I just got a Matrox G450 eTV card that integrates video capture, TV tuning, Dualhead display, and video output. It can play any video off the computer onto a full screen TV screen while retaining the computer's desktop area for anything else. And the PVR features are great for recording TV shows to your hard drive (instead of using a standalone VCR or TiVo system). Plus it's kinda cool to be able to re-encode a TV show for viewing on my iPAQ.
There's also a new All-in-Wonder card that has better features like a wireless (radio signal) remote and integrated TV listings, but I thought Matrox would have better support on Windows 2000/XP.

So does this standalone DVD player save bookmark information on the CF or anything? I don't know what kind of Computer/DVD playing setup you had before, but this eTV is really easy. It's a lot easier to click on a point in a timeline than using the fastforward button to jump to a specific moment in a DVD movie. And it's just as fast as putting a DVD in the DVDROM drive (same as you'd do on a standalone player). Plus the zooming/panning features in PowerDVD are so great!

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Adamz

I don't know, Jason, I think you've downgraded your tech status with a standalone DVD player. I really dislike them.

I beat my chest, bellowing the battle cry CONVERGENCE for a few years, but let's face it: when all you want to is watch a DVD, booting up your PC, logging in, firing up the DVD player, setting the audio levels, etc. is just a pain. I also ran across a few DVDs that weren't compatible with my Pioneer DVD drive. Ultimately, it's just a pain in the ass. The TV out drivers for my ATI card are also unstable and lame... :x

Nevermind the noise and bulk of a PC... :roll: