Portable DVD players
Portable DVD players
Since we get bad TV reception on the boat most of the time I was looking at getting a portable DVD player from Costco. It is a no-name brand, 7" screen for about $170. Has anyone used one of these yet? It runs on its own battery.
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Scott
- Admiral
- Posts: 1654
- Joined: Tue May 18, 2004 12:46 pm
- Sailboat: Venture 25
- Location: 1978 Catalina 22 with all the Racing Goodies!! 4 horse fire breathing monster on the transom
We carry a Dell Inspiron 7000 (See Dinosaur) Laptop with DVD and wireless internet. Matter of fact its the one Im on now on the front porch.
I got it for $600 2 or 3 years ago on e-bay with 1 bad pixel. That was when they were selling new for almost $3k.
It has great resolution and we have the luxury of 4 or 5 extra batteries (Friend gave me its twin with all accessories last year). When power is an issue we also have a 12v adapter.
Works great in the small interior of the Mac for watching movies or sitting on the hatch to watch em in the cockpit.
The only downside is that now you can get a rocketship HP at best buy for $800 after rebates with a 17" screen. I know this as we just got the wife one. I dont take it on the boat though cause its the best computer in the house.
I got it for $600 2 or 3 years ago on e-bay with 1 bad pixel. That was when they were selling new for almost $3k.
It has great resolution and we have the luxury of 4 or 5 extra batteries (Friend gave me its twin with all accessories last year). When power is an issue we also have a 12v adapter.
Works great in the small interior of the Mac for watching movies or sitting on the hatch to watch em in the cockpit.
The only downside is that now you can get a rocketship HP at best buy for $800 after rebates with a 17" screen. I know this as we just got the wife one. I dont take it on the boat though cause its the best computer in the house.
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Duane Dunn, Allegro
- Admiral
- Posts: 2459
- Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2004 6:41 pm
- Sailboat: MacGregor 26X
- Location: Bellevue, Wa '96 26x, Tohatsu 90 TLDI and Plug In Hybrid Electric drive
- Contact:
We used a portable DVD (6" screen) for years. The bad thing is the already small standard 4:3 screen is even smaller when playing a DVD in letterbox mode.
You will want the 12v adaptor, the batteries rarely last for a full movie. We never even brought the battery on board. It makes the player much lighter and it runs fine off the 12v batteries in the boat. The only drawback is the small screen and the lack of audio punch out the mini speakers.
This year we switched to using my laptop. It's fairly new and has a 15" WXGA wide screen with a DVD player (and wireless G networking), perfect for DVD's in the wide format. We'll never go back. It runs great off our small 125 watt inverter, the load is only .4 amps when playing the movie.
To address the audio I picked up a FM Modulator. Our Stereo/CD player doesn't have a aux input and without a cassette player you can't use the wired tape like input devices. The FM modulator broadcasts the stereo audio on an unused FM channel. You just tune the radio to that channel and magic, you now have a floating theater. The kids can even watch when powering at high speed now.
You will want the 12v adaptor, the batteries rarely last for a full movie. We never even brought the battery on board. It makes the player much lighter and it runs fine off the 12v batteries in the boat. The only drawback is the small screen and the lack of audio punch out the mini speakers.
This year we switched to using my laptop. It's fairly new and has a 15" WXGA wide screen with a DVD player (and wireless G networking), perfect for DVD's in the wide format. We'll never go back. It runs great off our small 125 watt inverter, the load is only .4 amps when playing the movie.
To address the audio I picked up a FM Modulator. Our Stereo/CD player doesn't have a aux input and without a cassette player you can't use the wired tape like input devices. The FM modulator broadcasts the stereo audio on an unused FM channel. You just tune the radio to that channel and magic, you now have a floating theater. The kids can even watch when powering at high speed now.
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Captain Steve
- Captain
- Posts: 722
- Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2004 9:40 am
- Sailboat: MacGregor 26X
- Location: Oxnard, CA "Wildest Dream" '98X Nissan 50
BK,
We got ours at Circuit City for about the same price. My wife watches movies when we drive somewhere and on the plane. It comes with ac and dc adapters, remote and a patch cable so when we stay in a hotel or where ever we visit it hooks up to the TV and we got movies...and CDs of our pics of family events. It also plays music CDs and it has 2 outputs for headphones.
We got ours at Circuit City for about the same price. My wife watches movies when we drive somewhere and on the plane. It comes with ac and dc adapters, remote and a patch cable so when we stay in a hotel or where ever we visit it hooks up to the TV and we got movies...and CDs of our pics of family events. It also plays music CDs and it has 2 outputs for headphones.
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kmclemore
- Site Admin
- Posts: 6256
- Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2004 9:24 am
- Sailboat: MacGregor 26X
- Location: Ambler, PA -- MACX2018A898 w/ Suzuki DF60AV -- 78 BW Harpoon 4.6 -- 2018 Tahoe 550TF w/ 150 Merc
This is what we have:
Audiovox D1210
It has a DVD, TV Tuner, and detachable speakers so you can use it in the car, too. Runs on 120V or 12v, has nice sound and a pretty big screen in a *very* flat, thin package. Also has mounting points on the back if you want to hang it up like a picture and a bag that lets you hang it in the car. One especially nice thing is that it also comes with wireless headphones, so we can watch a movie after the boys have gone to bed in the aft berth and we don't disturb them! It's a bit pricey, but I got mine on eBay and saved quite a bit.
When we are home we use it in the master bathroom to keep up with the news while we are gettting ready for work - or for a late-night whilrpol bath and DVD movie... when we are in the car the kids watch their movies on trips... and in the boat it's a TV, DVD and MP3 player, too. I think it's worth the money, given we get so much use from it.
Happy Sails,
Kevin
Audiovox D1210
It has a DVD, TV Tuner, and detachable speakers so you can use it in the car, too. Runs on 120V or 12v, has nice sound and a pretty big screen in a *very* flat, thin package. Also has mounting points on the back if you want to hang it up like a picture and a bag that lets you hang it in the car. One especially nice thing is that it also comes with wireless headphones, so we can watch a movie after the boys have gone to bed in the aft berth and we don't disturb them! It's a bit pricey, but I got mine on eBay and saved quite a bit.
When we are home we use it in the master bathroom to keep up with the news while we are gettting ready for work - or for a late-night whilrpol bath and DVD movie... when we are in the car the kids watch their movies on trips... and in the boat it's a TV, DVD and MP3 player, too. I think it's worth the money, given we get so much use from it.
Happy Sails,
Kevin
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dianne12
DVD
We use a few year old laptop. I feel it offers all around benefits:
- big screen
- PC capabilities for writing letters, doing work (yech)
- We plug our spare gps in via the serial port and can track progress on a big screen
- waypoint plotting/navigation capability
- Using Microsoft Streets (which also works with the GPS, BTW), we can see what restaurants etc are in port
- dump digital camera pics into it for nearly unlimited storage while on a trip,
- potential for internet via cel phone
With prices now around $800 and units lighter than ever, this seems to us to make a whole lot of sense as an overal useful tool and entertainment center on the boat. And when we leave we take it home and use it there.
To boost sound, we run a patch cable from the laptop to our stero, which has an auxiliary input.
My son wants me to bring our video projector to watch movies on a big screen such as a neighbor's sail, but we have not tried that yet!
Rick
- big screen
- PC capabilities for writing letters, doing work (yech)
- We plug our spare gps in via the serial port and can track progress on a big screen
- waypoint plotting/navigation capability
- Using Microsoft Streets (which also works with the GPS, BTW), we can see what restaurants etc are in port
- dump digital camera pics into it for nearly unlimited storage while on a trip,
- potential for internet via cel phone
With prices now around $800 and units lighter than ever, this seems to us to make a whole lot of sense as an overal useful tool and entertainment center on the boat. And when we leave we take it home and use it there.
To boost sound, we run a patch cable from the laptop to our stero, which has an auxiliary input.
My son wants me to bring our video projector to watch movies on a big screen such as a neighbor's sail, but we have not tried that yet!
Rick
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Duane Dunn, Allegro
- Admiral
- Posts: 2459
- Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2004 6:41 pm
- Sailboat: MacGregor 26X
- Location: Bellevue, Wa '96 26x, Tohatsu 90 TLDI and Plug In Hybrid Electric drive
- Contact:
The extra uses of a laptop are nice. Our recent 23 day trip was the first time I had taken mine on board.
In addition to movies;
We did all our route planning on it. The results were hotsync'd to the Pocket PC we use as a color chartplotter at the helm and all the routes and waypoints were uploaded to our GPS for use by the autopilot.
I had two 128Mb memory cards for the camera and we still ended up dumping the pictures to the laptop 3 times during the trip. Next time I'll remember to bring a couple blank CD's so we can back them up for additional peace of mind on a one of a kind trip like ours was.
Half of the marinas we visited had WiFi internet access at the docks, one was even included free in the slip fee. We were able to get email, news and sports and get a good picture of the upcoming weather situation.
The computer provided additional entertainment for the kids by running their games occasionally.
We also used Word and Excel for the usual notes and wordprocessing as well a the overall trip plan and mileage log.
It was far more useful to have it on board than the old DVD player.
One thing I might add eventually is a USB TV tuner so we can get the over the air broadcasts as well.
In addition to movies;
We did all our route planning on it. The results were hotsync'd to the Pocket PC we use as a color chartplotter at the helm and all the routes and waypoints were uploaded to our GPS for use by the autopilot.
I had two 128Mb memory cards for the camera and we still ended up dumping the pictures to the laptop 3 times during the trip. Next time I'll remember to bring a couple blank CD's so we can back them up for additional peace of mind on a one of a kind trip like ours was.
Half of the marinas we visited had WiFi internet access at the docks, one was even included free in the slip fee. We were able to get email, news and sports and get a good picture of the upcoming weather situation.
The computer provided additional entertainment for the kids by running their games occasionally.
We also used Word and Excel for the usual notes and wordprocessing as well a the overall trip plan and mileage log.
It was far more useful to have it on board than the old DVD player.
One thing I might add eventually is a USB TV tuner so we can get the over the air broadcasts as well.
Portable DVD player
My son received a free dvd player when he purchased his last car . It is the same one that is for sale at costco.My wife and I used it during a power outage the fully charged battery lasted easily two movies .I also used it during a recent hospital stay.The costco one also comes with a carrying case and two headsets, mine did'nt. I think it would be great if you had small kids you had to entertain. Our boat is outfitted with a12volt plug. 
new DVD player
I saw today that Toshiba has announced a new laptop that allows users to watch TV and DVD's without booting up Windows. This is a first, price is $3000.