[KLUG Members] RE: Using dvd player?

[Adam Williams]

> The only dumb question is the one that is unasked. Agreed?
> Ok...Here it is:
> Is it possible to hook a dvd player for a tv, to the computer and use it
> to download dvd's with info that you want from the dvd?

Technically: yes.  Pragmatically: Probably not.

DVD players ARE computers, very often using very "normal" commodity
components.  But they are stripped down computers, stripped down to the
absolute barest essentials to reduce cost and theoretically to increase
reliability.

It would certainly be possible for an OEM to sell an external DVD drive
that is a traditional DVD player and sports a SCSI or USB connector. 
But I've never seen one.

My first Oritron DVD player in fact used an IDE DVD drive and tearing it
apart - there was an IDE ribbon cable and a common IDE chipset on the
mainboard.  But the cable was permanently affixed to both the drive and
the motherboard.  (But Boy Howdy was that DVD player a piece of crap).

I've read that some DVD players even run an embedded version of Linux.

> I've thought about this and have never seen it raised, and, if you know
> me, I'm the guy that asks the questions that make you think, and am very
> curious about it and looking to klug to see if the "gurus" have any
> answers.