Player suggestion for car, with hard drive storage

[schwarznavy]

Hi everyone. I have an older DVD player for the car to keep the kids settled when we go on a road trip. I would like to replace it with something that has some kind of hard drive storage because keeping a collection of DVDs only for this is a bit annoying.

I like the physical setup of these kinds of DVD players -- a sturdy base and a flip screen, but can't find anything like that with a hard drive/removable storage card.

I'm guessing that I'll be forced to just get a tablet for this, but does anyone have another suggestion?

[jman98]

It's not clear to me at all if you are looking for an in dash type player or a portable of some kind. You need to clarify what you want first. And I see that your location is listed as Japan. If that's not really where you live and will be driving the car, you should probably say where you really live as that is important to know too if you want help on this.

Possibly if you want an in dash kind of player there may be a few that use car mounted hard drive storage, but if you are talking about portables, I don't think you can find anything like that. And while you may find players that can play via USB flash drives, which is possibly good enough for your needs, note that DVD players are typically a lot more restrictive about what they'll play than BluRay players.

[jman98]

It's not clear to me at all if you are looking for an in dash type player or a portable of some kind. You need to clarify what you want first. And I see that your location is listed as Japan. If that's not really where you live and will be driving the car, you should probably say where you really live as that is important to know too if you want help on this.

Possibly if you want an in dash kind of player there may be a few that use car mounted hard drive storage, but if you are talking about portables, I don't think you can find anything like that. And while you may find players that can play via USB flash drives, which is possibly good enough for your needs, note that DVD players are typically a lot more restrictive about what they'll play than BluRay players.

[schwarznavy]

Greetings and thanks for the reply. I am in the US and am not looking for an in dash type. Something portable. There is a Sylvania dual screen DVD player with USB/SD. Folks on amazon say that they do have trouble with video formats like mp4. I don't even want DVD capabilities....

[redwudz]

If you can find a player that works with a USB thumb drive, it may also work with a USB 2.5" hard drive. The built in player in my car works with both.
I picked up a 1TB WD elements drive for less than $50 US and it runs off the USB player power with no problem and has lots of room for video.

[jman98]

Folks on amazon say that they do have trouble with video formats like mp4. I don't even want DVD capabilities....

Ah... the old switcheroo. Nicely done. First you make sure you mention DVD multiple times in your first post and then later on you tell us that you don't even want it. Nicely played.

Well, I did say in my post which you seem to have to have read:

note that DVD players are typically a lot more restrictive about what they'll play than BluRay players

so no big surprise to me that the Sylvania has problems with MP4. If it's a DVD player, if it plays anything else it will likely be limited to VCD and maybe Divx/Xvid if you are really lucky. Your best option may be to buy a small, cheap laptop or notebook and play stuff that way. It will give you more format support than typical portables and the price of the cheap notebooks/laptops is not much more than a portable BluRay player. I have no experience with Chromebooks and while they may be cheaper, you have to rely on apps that Google make available and I have no idea what kind of file playing support they have.

[jagabo]

Get an external drive with built in wireless connectivity. Mount it under a seat or under the dash. For example:

http://www.amazon.com/Passport-Wireless-Mobile-Storage-WDBDAF0020BBK-NESN/dp/B00M9B4482/

Give the kids inexpensive wireless tablets to watch videos stored on the drive.