DVD player UI hack

posted Jul 11th 2006 7:00am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: home entertainment hacks

dvd ui hack

[larspontoppidan] has an extremely cheap DVD player. It doesn’t work too bad for movies and he liked using it as a CD player. The only problem is the idiotic front panel: a play button that points left, a stop button that points right. Who does that? Lars decided to use an ATMega48 to fix the ridiculous buttons and to interpret commands from his Technics remote. The MCU takes the input from the buttons or remote and then issues the correct IR sequence for the DVD player. He’s got a detailed write up and even covers the initial decoding of IR commands from the original remote. Lars throws in a silly Apple style “breathing” LED hack as well.

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Comments [17]

Reader Comments

hmm… fine hack, for those with a crappy dvd player. the rest of us will wait till tomorrow for the next hack ;)

Posted at 7:45 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by andrew

why do people have to rip appart every hack. this is useful.

oddree.com – Surgeon gernel recommended

Posted at 9:10 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by bird603568

Is there any site like hackaday that update there site every day and comes up with cool hack not some Bs hack…. This site us to be cool when they first open up.. Now they are just copying and pasting info the dont even read the hack.. They just read the tilte come on hackaday lets kepp up the good work.. dont quit on us plz. I would hate 2 see this site close down I’m here 2 suport u guz….. Come on u guyz dont want to lose money if ppl dont go 2 your site u lose money so u are loseing cumstomer…. Let’s Keep up with the twoing first century. I love this site….

Posted at 9:28 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by Johnson

it must be bc he are owned by aol now. lol jkjk, nice hack. how exactly does it accept the ir if there is no original module in the dvd player? like how does the hack interface with the player.

Posted at 10:02 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by corbs132

Really nice hack, the only thing reason I can see the buttons being reversed is MAYBE since in china/japan people read from the right to the left, so moving to the next scene or whatever, would be like going to a new chapter in a book, so you would turn the pages to the left. Thus to go forward in the dvd you would press the left button. Other then that I have absolutly no idea why else they would do something like that >_>

-Sulk

Posted at 10:15 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by sulk

wow that is so crazy.. how can ppl even come up with this stuff? wow..

seriously thats dope

also it already had an IR sensor.. to whoever asked.

Posted at 10:16 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by g0d

It’s not just about rewiring the buttons of a crappy DVD player… This hack incorporates infra-red interpretation and decoding as well as microcontroller programming and LED PWM’ing using said microcontroller. Those who see a crappy DVD player hack just skimmed through the summary… this would be a great project for those wanting to use remote controls in projects without using a pre-made kit. Since my current project is probably utilizing an AtMega and the LCD I’m using can be hooked up to a keypad, I may be able to incorporate this hack into the project very easily.

Verdict: This is very useful yet basic (in application) and is great for anyone wanting to mess around with IR stuff on the hardware scale.

While I understand that Eliot has been very busy with Netscape recently and the quality of the site has taken a considerable hit (lazy afternoons, monday sipping), hackaday has not lost its roots of appliance and electronics modification.

Posted at 10:21 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by TX297

Christ.. If all the bitchers would post a hack that lives up to THEIR expectations, every last one of the little F’ers would be happy wouldn’t they?

More to the point: Whine in PROPER ENGLISH, and someone might take your critisisms seriously.

As for the hack, if you bothered to read the article, you would have gained an insight into how to REVERSE ENGINEER a problem. Yes, there are tons of data on IR code schemes laying around, and most microcontroller app books have at least one IR project. BUT: this guy went straight for the guts and decoded it himself. That takes a bit of planning and a lot of work to figure out.

Although, I’m surprised he got nailed on the antistatic foam situation. That is downright humorous. At least he laughed about it too.

Jebus, what the hell do you guys want?! A Hack-A-Day robot that delivers a beer and smacks your inbread mother?!?!

Read the friggin title of the website! Hack A DAY.. thats 365 hacks a year. Not every one of them is gonna give you lil script kiddies a hard on.

Posted at 10:41 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by OrbnLgnd

OrbnLgnd:

Damn straight – I can straight away see a useful application for this for me – i have a UHF CB radio that i would like to be able to control remotely. Instead of doing the research myself, all i need to do is copy+paste larspontoppidan’s work (/me iz teh 1337 skript k1dd13 lol!!1 :).

The only problem now is getting around to doing it – even if it has been handed down to me on a silver platter :)

Posted at 10:59 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by frank

whoa no i wasn’t bashing this hack, i was just saying it’s not useful for the majority. i admire the diy spirit, though. i mean, he could have just gone out and bought a new one but instead he did it himself.

Posted at 11:41 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by andrew

damnit people assume too much!

Posted at 11:44 pm on Jul 11th, 2006 by andrew

assume too much yes…. but we can expect that every day someone is going to gripe about something…

Anyway… that’s an insane hack… and very well documented.

Posted at 2:34 am on Jul 12th, 2006 by trebuchet03

digging the hack, in response to the nay-sayers, try looking at a hack and learning something, study it and bring it to the next level. Then, when you’re done with your evolved idea, post it. This is a community, if everyone could find a good hack everyday, they wouldn’t be coming here, the web-site is more for personal evolution than for your personal “script kiddie” bag of tricks.

To hack is to learn, get the point?

Posted at 4:04 am on Jul 12th, 2006 by antiwhack

Thanks for the overall positive feedback! It is much appreciated.

@3 Well, I have a DVD player with a totally unique interface, do you?

@6 Yes it is crazy. And that was exactly why I carried on with the hack. The idea was too crazy and funny to _NOT_ do!

The process of doing such a the hack is also important. You increase your skills, learn new stuff and develop code modules. I think the modules presented here are very well structured and documented, so they should be reuseable with minimum hassle

Posted at 6:34 am on Jul 12th, 2006 by Larspontoppidan

video link in the article works again

Posted at 8:55 am on Jul 12th, 2006 by Larspontoppidan

i’ll be honest.. i was really just impressed with the nifty led

lol

is there a vid of it breathing cuz i only saw the one of the interaction

Posted at 11:00 am on Jul 12th, 2006 by g0d

thanks eliot this is great stuff and the cnc mill project is out of this world i no ur very buzy thanks againe steve

Posted at 4:07 pm on Jul 12th, 2006 by steve preece

DVD player UI hack

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