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With the DVD decoder installed and the DVD module of MMC installed, it's a simple matter of pressing the DVD button on the remote. Initially you are asked to select a source drive if you have multiple optical DVD sources available to the PC. That done, it uses your initial choice from then on. Here's what Oceans Eleven looked like on my TV, using fullscreen overlay on that head.
Apologies for the less than perfect picture. Using flash gave me overbright pictures you couldn't see, so without flash at an angle it had to be. Take my word for it, it was just like watching on a standalone deck. ATI make a big deal of their DVD support and TV output quality, so I'd expect it to do as well as recent low to midrange decks. Of course, the TV isn't that hot, so anything over midrange on my setup would be a waste, so the All-In-Wonder is a nice fit. You are able to easily control the DVD with EASYLOOK and the remote, with the good looking EASYLOOK overlays giving you nice control and a good looking display. As with watching TV, the CRT monitor had to be disabled for EASYLOOK to show up on the TV.
Is watching DivX just the same?
Watching DivX
It is. All you do is prescan your media collection using the following dialog, available from MMC's media file player.
Point it at your movie or music directory, let it pick up your movies and music, then a simple stab of the library button on the top of the remote fires up MMC in EASYLOOK mode on your attached displays (single head output to TV recommended) and you get the opportunity to scroll through all your detected movies. It seems smart enough to strip out AVI file information, and uses any found info for the selection dialog, rather than file names. Pretty cool, just like ID3 tag support on MP3's (also utilised when playing audio via EASYLOOK). Quality, as you'd expect, is just great. Here's a shot of my DivX rip of Clooney's excellent heist caper, on the TV.
Given the rip quality, there's little to no difference compared to the original DVD. Have high quality rips on your HDD, have broadcast quality output on your TV. Of course, since the Rage Theater 200 does AC-3 pass through, you get full Dolby output on the audio, if your DivX, and indeed DVD's, support it. I've got a few AC-3'd DivX's and it worked great. Full 5.1 surround to the attached 5.1 speaker set. Excellent. EASYLOOK makes it nice to pause, stop, seek and change file too.
Listening to audio
I'll admit now that I didn't spend too much doing this with the All-In-Wonder. It's capable of doing it really well, but using my TV as a music interface doesn't work for me, since I don't listen to music that way. I'm always at the PC when I have music on, so Winamp is my friend at that point. However, it does it just like watching a DivX or DVD. EASYLOOK is pretty media agnostic, a good thing. Supported file types are numerous.
What about usage nuances?
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