Picking a good quality portable DVD player

[warde]

Hello I am new here and do not know much about DVDs so excuse the ignorance. My husband and I are wanting to buy a good quality portable DVD player for two reasons.

1. To keep the kids occupied in the car on our long trips.
2. To use to copy some home disks to give to others in the family.

We have bought 2 already. One, a cyberhome, we returned because it would not turn on or off all the time. The second is a RCA DRC612N. The problem with it is that in the car it hiccups after 30 minutes or so. The hiccuping is very bad every 30 seconds or so. It works fine at home, even if we jolt it for a few minutes. The hiccuping occurs using the battery or the power plugin in the car.

My questions are why would it hiccup after a half an hour in the car and what is a better portable DVD player that would play DVD+R

[lgh529]

In most cases, its not the Player that "hiccups" but the media is not quality. I only burn on quality DVD-R's (eg. Ritek G04, etc) and I never have problems. When I first started this hobby, I learned this lesson the hard (and expensive) way.

[babyboo]

2. To use to copy some home disks to give to others in the family.

You aren't really looking for a "Portable" DVD player for the car that ALSO copies discs are you? I have never seen anything like that before. Maybe I missunderstood you...are you are looking to play back from the portable player and record on a standalone/PC?

[warde]

Yes, We want to be able to use the portable player to watch the home movies or my husband wants to review his recorded lectures. We would like to be able to use the portable to connect it up to our capture device which is hooked up to our PC to make coppies of the home or lectures. Unfortunatly the quality is not as good when we do that as it is hooking up our main DVD player. So I am not sure that one is an option.

The hiccuping occurs on rented DVDs also, not just the home movies, the kids movies are rented or bought, but they still hiccup.

[andkiich]

I've got the Initial 7" screen portable. Has yet to have any problems with anything. Had this one since Christmas.

[lgh529]

Capturing from a DVD player to make a DVD copy is one of the hardest ways to make a copy that I know of. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this, and its often using free software. Like using DVDDecrypter for example. It will make an exact copy of your previously authored DVD in a snap.

As far as quality goes, if you bought the portable at walmart and paid <$250, then it isn't very good. Panasonic was the first to have a portable player and I still think they make a pretty good one, but its going to set you back about $500. Stick with Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic for the better players. These will have anti-skip features, etc as opposed to the cheaper Samsung, Cyberhome, and Audiovox units.

Bottom line: You get what you pay for. Check here for the differences.

[steelhead]

I have the polaroid 7" portable player and it works very well. Battery life is also very good on it.

It also plays DVD-R media fine. 've used cheap and good media with success.