DVD player hacking - can I build an HTPC on the cheap?

[Atheus]

I posted this on another forum and got few replies, so I figured I'd try you guys as you seem to like ambitious modding projects...

If you've ever looked into building or buying a home theatre PC system you probably found that the case was going to hurt your pocket more than any other component. Here in the UK, the ones with all the goodies run from £130 to £290, and you can almost double those numbers for american prices. You really need one with a VFD or LCD front-mount display, an IR reciever, and a remote, or else you'll have to have a mouse and KB hooked up in your lounge and nobody wants that.

So, my plan is to rip up a buggy DVD player and salvage the LCD and IR components, then mount them into a plain black desktop PC case which I have in the garage somewhere. I guess I'll use the parallel port to interface with them... or maybe usb... either way I would have to write some code.

IR reciever first, as it's simpler. Here's a pic of the back of the 'daugterboard' it sits on with some physcal controls.

http://213.78.133.35/infra.jpg

As you can see, the metal casing of the unit goes to ground along with one of the 3 pins. The other two pins go to the 'motherboard' of the DVD player, one of them with caps to ground (presumably line filters) and the other without (power line?). What do I need to get data off this thing? Will the parallel port hande these frequencies? Anyone ever done anything like this before?

Here's the LCD (VFD?) panel.

http://213.78.133.35/panel_front.jpg

http://213.78.133.35/lotsa_pins.jpg

This thing has a lot of pins, but I figure I don't need all of them, just power and the ones relating to the main charaters on the display. I don't want to light up the 'now playing' and 'dolby digital' symbols or anything like that. I can't find the pinouts on the web, but it's a QLF0103-002 from a JVC player and it appears to use a samsung panel. Putting 9 volts across what I suspect to be the power pins (in either direction) gets me four red lines across the face of the panel. 5 volts gets me nothing. Why would it show these lines? Is it some kind of error code?

All comments welcome, and thanks to anyone who can help me out, especially if you're an EE!

[Caeberos]

That sounds like an excellent idea, however rewiring that display to show anything meaningful might be next to impossible unless you can find a pintout diagram and some control software (coding it youself might also be impossible without some kind of aid that you might find difficult to find). All your other project goals seem reasonable, you might be best off attemping to get a commercially produced VFD for status display.

Also if you are looking for an IR reciever you should look in the the Lirc project, they have a simple circuit you can make that costs around $15, not sure how much where you are, and is fairly simple to use. Ati RF remotes also work well for the purpose and don't need to be in line of sight. Both options are good and don't need you to directly write code for them.

P.S. the lines probably indicate that it is ready to display, but has no input... (just a guess)