Windows Laptops Ship With Linux Media Player

hqm writes "Maybe this is the real way Windows will be made irrelevant, not by a Linux desktop, but by Linux embedded software. LinuxDevices has an article stating 'NEC is the latest vendor to announce a laptop with a built-in embedded Linux based media player option. The NEC Versa S3000 will use InterVideo's InstantOn technology to enable users to listen to music, watch DVDs, and more without having to wait for Windows to load. Another major laptop vendor, Toshiba, in July launched its Qosmio laptop, which also includes a Linux-based media player environment. NEC will market the S3000 in Hong Kong and China. The laptop also includes InterVideo's popular WinDVD DVD playing software, which is also available for Linux.'"

No.

[RAMMS+EIN]

``"Maybe this is the real way Windows will be made irrelevant, not by a Linux desktop, but by Linux embedded software. LinuxDevices has an article stating 'NEC is the latest vendor to announce a laptop with a built-in embedded Linux based media player option. The NEC Versa S3000 will use InterVideo's InstantOn technology to enable users to listen to music, watch DVDs, and more without having to wait for Windows to load.'''

I think this will merely prompt MS to "innovate" and provide a similar technology. It's good to see that FOSS is ahead of them in this area.

Re:Wooohooo!

[Ziak]

I doubt it i tried installing linux on some of my friend's computer because all they do is surf the Internet and talk on IM clienets they still wanted there windows back because they didn't like the look of linux ( i have no idea what that means ) But once someone gets used to something regardless if its beter they'll throw a fit if you change it on them.......

Re:Fluff.

[RAMMS+EIN]

``Unless Windows Media Player is *not* included as the default player, i don't think this bundling will actually help much.''

Which is exactly what is happening in Europe.

Re:Dual boot-like!

[stratjakt]

Do you, or any of the other slashbots get it?

This is what the device does when you turn it on:

- Checks for disc in drive
- If disc is present, and is a DVD or CD Audio Disc, the device boots the "media player" burned into roms on the board
- If not, it boots normally.

This is really dual-booting, except one of the OS's lives in firmware.

In other words, it doesn't "save RAM" when running windows, it doesn't have to do with Windows Update. It doesn't have anything to do with windows at all.

It's as if you booted from a floppy that had a linux-based media player on it.

Re:Fluff.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the fucking article? Do you have any idea what you are talking about? The answer is No. A very obvious no.

Re:Fluff.

[merlin_jim]

Windows Media Player does not include a DVD player; it can play DVDs, but you need to install a codec. WinDVD installs the codec for it to use.

Re:Power Consumption

[stratjakt]

That's the idea. The CPU barely does anything, and can be throttled back.

How well it works in RL, we'll see.

There's more to power usage than just the CPU. Consider watching a DVD - you've got the dvd-rom spinning and its motors grinding away reading the disc, that sucks power (a device I normally don't use on a laptop).

Chances are, if you're on a plane, you've got the backlight jacked all the way up, and the volume on full through the headphone jack.

And all that dedicated hardware still sucks 'it down, especially if it's doing fancy post-processing jibber jabber. Bob and weave and all that.

It'll surely be more convenient to watch a movie or listen to a CD, since it would function like a standalone unit. As for the power savings, someone else can beta test that while I wait for the results.

Re:Which Media Player?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the image isn't covering the whole screen, and your framebuffer is (for example) 800x600, add these lines to ~/.mplayer/config

vop=scale
zoom=yes
xy=800

Re:Legal DVD on Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually InterVideo doesn't offer any Linux DVD software to the public yet. You have to be an embedded developer to get it. See here [intervideo.com]

Yep!

[bach37]

I think it does [intervideo.com]! lol

Re:which player?

[n0spamus]

It is running InterVideo's LinDVD player:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 94567 [newscientist.com]

Several Cube PC's Already Ship With This

[Cylix]

If you check out Toms Hardware [tomshardware.com] you can see a small chunk of cube pc's which already feature this.

Not a bad option if you are like me and looking for a portable everything box with an alternate plan of being a PVR in its spare time.

However, after looking over the prices I decided I would rather have a mini-itx solution.

A nice C3 board with tv out and a PCI slot for capture ended up being my pick. Thankfully, I alraady have most of the components to slap into this little beast. The final product should measure about 7 x 2 x 10 (w x h x l).

Yeah, it won't have instant on dvd support, but I'm not going to nit pick when my savings was in the 300+ range.