Cheap wireless media hack with Netgear access point and Dvico DivX box
By Conrad Quilty-Harper 
posted April 7th 2007 8:05PM
posted April 7th 2007 8:05PM
Using nothing but a Dvico M3100 DivX media player, a Netgear WGT634U wireless access point running some open firmware in the form of OpenWRT, and a bit of coding ingenuity, jkx has managed to create a wireless player that streams movies from his Media Center PC via WiFi. You'll need to have a way of swapping out the €50 WGT634U's firmware, and you'll definitely need these two specific models in order for this specific setup to work. Jkx owns the non-networked version of the Dvico, and that's the reason why the WGT634U with its USB port was needed. So really, this is bit too specific of a solution for streaming your content: in other words, it's one hacker's way of making half of his gear act the way he wanted it to by spending as little money as possible. Even if you can't emulate this specific example, maybe you should take jkx's idea as an inspiration and upgrade existing kit rather than taking the easy way out.[Via Hackaday]
Do you guys ever read text not encosed by H1 tags ?!
It's not streaming. You have to set the device to "disk-mode", it doesn't play movies at the same time, script on the router mounts it and exports it as a network share. Deal.
I feel that I have to add that the WGT634U is a router not an access point, just for factual accuracy of course. If I didn't know just how bad that particular hardware platform was before it was EOLed I might consider putting one of these together.
He says at the end of the article: "I read on Engadget that I use this to stream video to my TV, (like the Apple TV do), but this is absolutely wrong. This media player has a 320Go hard-drive. Why would stream film on this ? I just put it on that's it :)
This is really amazing how people doesn't read the article to see what I've done. It's not the first time this happen in fact."
That doesn't make engadget careless, it makes the hack utterly stupid. The media player costs $150 and the AP costs 50 euro (67 dollars). He also paid for the 320GB hard drive.
He could've gotten an xbox for $100, installed xbmc on it, and then gotten a fonera for free and hack it to act as a wireless bridge. And add a larger hard drive if needed.
Well, I guess maybe you can't get the fonera for free in France but that doen't change the fact that the hack sucks.
I also love how he says: "Here in France, most advanded users have some network TV from a long time, and this little boxes can play network stream (like the Apple TV) for a long time now. Beside you don't pay for this service (rent for the boxes are included in DSL bill), the only issue is that you must have another computer to stream.
I guess nobody here (in France) would by a Apple TV, since we already have this kind of products for free for a long time. Look at a Freebox for example."
I've lived in France, and as much as they have great culture, they are in the middle ages for a lot of other things.
@hehehhehe:
Did you read the article? He was given the media player as a gift (presumably with a hard drive- it wouldn't be much use otherwise!) and bought the access point for €50 because it has a USB port. This means the hack cost him €50.
You suggest he should buy an xbox for $100, buy a fonera for $40 (since from what I can see they're not free), and either buy another hard drive or remove the one from his current media player and put it in the xbox. Not only would this cost him twice as much, it wouldn't even work, as the media player connects via USB, not ethernet, and the fonera doesn't have a USB socket.
Also according to the comments on the article page it can play HDTV, and at 1080i as opposed to the 720p of the Apple TV.
I also pointed out to him that Apple TV is strictly for HDTVs (which is not as common in France) and can play h264, which is much better than his little setup.
If no one buys the Apple TV there, it's because they don't have HDTVs, not because they are technologically advanced. I made sure to point it out to him on his blog.
@treetrunk
Yeah I did read it. Foneras are free most of the time, they're off promo for now is all. These 3100 boxes are sold without hard drives so let's just ignore that part we don't know who bought it.
So depending on how you want to twist the story, yeah, you can say it would cost him twice as much, or you can say it can be cheaper. He could've sold the 3100 (gift but whatever) and gotten the xbox as they are the same price. Gotten a wireless bridge (any cheap DD-WRT capable router will do if fonera is inaccessible) and most of all, saved a lot of time by not having to hack the crap out of that router. You have to admit that's a much easier way and he would've had a box capable of streaming, not just playback stored files. That's why I say the hack sucks, it's not elegant whatsover.
And no, that thing cannot handle HD files. Even xbmc can handle 720p xvid files. Anyway, I doubt the guy has an HDTV, which is why he couldn't appreciate Apple TV.
Hack aside, what made me laugh most is how he tried to pass off France as this technogically advanced country which had no use for Apple TV as it is so passe (missing accent) which is completely untrue.
This is a great hack. The WGT634U has so many possibilities when it comes to Openwrt. I turned it into a wireless music player http://www.robhardwick.co.uk Well Done Anyway.