4 ms·

Oho now i wonder if you could load them up on a hard drive[1] and just trigger playback of the right file using some physical token like an RFID tag or a tiny f

Oho now i wonder if you could load them up on a hard drive[1] and just trigger playback of the right file using some physical token like an RFID tag or a tiny few-MB SD card, if you can even get them these days, with the ID on it. Or a QR code waved at the camera, with the DVD case artwork on the other side. I just found out how annoying it is to have a two-way switch using smart switches and automation rules that used to be a bulletproof connection of two £3 switch faceplates: madcap computerised complexity to acheive things that used to be trivial is the future, man! [1] Or a Plex-like server. Doesn't even need all the UI gubbins, just a video stream address that can be inferred from the token.

bombcar 3y ago
It’s totally doable and as you suspect, quite hard to make as reliable as a DVD player.
- trescenzi 3y ago
  Hmm what if a DVD contains an index.html which just redirects to the right place. I could build a single entry point too so I can control where the right place is if it ever changes. This could even allow you to “make DVDs” of movies that are streaming only without having to pirate and burn them.
  - gravescale 3y ago
    I think the problem is that Chromebooks don't have DVD drives or any significant amount of their own storage (in which case you could store ISOs and mount them). And SD cards are pretty expensive if you only have one movie per card, because while they're cheap per MB, they only come in huge sizes these days.[1] A USB angle adapter and a judicious use of 3D printing and/or sugru and/or VHB tape might allow an optical "undercarriage" though! A Framework laptop with those nifty expansion slots might permit something unconventional like some kind of key-slot/punchcard/unique-MAC-type EEPROM/RFID reader, but the OS won't be ChromeOS. And that's really getting into the "not because it easy, but because it's there" zone! [1]: But i have just discovered that you can buy "unfinished USB sticks" that are just the little black inserts with the flash in them for £1 each for 8GB on AliExpress (cheaper than the same SD cards and less fiddly), which is big enough to get a DVD ISO or BR rip with some massaging onto! (128MB is 50p, so an indirected method would not save much money). Probably very junky chips but the write-once and read-slow use case would probably not really care much.

bombcar 3y ago

It’s totally doable and as you suspect, quite hard to make as reliable as a DVD player.

trescenzi 3y ago
Hmm what if a DVD contains an index.html which just redirects to the right place. I could build a single entry point too so I can control where the right place is if it ever changes. This could even allow you to “make DVDs” of movies that are streaming only without having to pirate and burn them.
- gravescale 3y ago
  I think the problem is that Chromebooks don't have DVD drives or any significant amount of their own storage (in which case you could store ISOs and mount them). And SD cards are pretty expensive if you only have one movie per card, because while they're cheap per MB, they only come in huge sizes these days.[1] A USB angle adapter and a judicious use of 3D printing and/or sugru and/or VHB tape might allow an optical "undercarriage" though! A Framework laptop with those nifty expansion slots might permit something unconventional like some kind of key-slot/punchcard/unique-MAC-type EEPROM/RFID reader, but the OS won't be ChromeOS. And that's really getting into the "not because it easy, but because it's there" zone! [1]: But i have just discovered that you can buy "unfinished USB sticks" that are just the little black inserts with the flash in them for £1 each for 8GB on AliExpress (cheaper than the same SD cards and less fiddly), which is big enough to get a DVD ISO or BR rip with some massaging onto! (128MB is 50p, so an indirected method would not save much money). Probably very junky chips but the write-once and read-slow use case would probably not really care much.