Portable DVD players are now really cheap. Useful?
 

Does anyone use these regularly? Saw on SD that there's been a big price drop on a this nice Sony 9" model and am thinking about picking one up.

How is the battery life?

I bought a Philips 7 inch portable DVD player for US$100 in Bangkok recently. It's a bit heavy, but sometimes I bring it with me if I'm going to buy the cheap DVD's and I can check the DVD quality right at the stall before I decide to buy the DVD. I think the battery life is 2 - 3 hours.

I haven't taken it on a long trip, but will when I go from Hong Kong to US later this month for a cruise to Caribbean. It'll be useful for me on long plane ride and on the cruise ship because I usually pick up some DVDs in the US that are not available in Hong Kong or Bangkok. Lugging the player around is a bit of trouble because it's heavy and you have to bring the charger, A/V cables, and earphones.

Real question is: how much do you enjoy playing your DVDs?

There was a point in time at which cassette players became very cheap too...

Just sayin'.

It occurs to me that unless you are in a seat with a power port you're pretty much limited to playing a couple DVDs at the most unless you decide you want to also pack an auxiliary power pack. The difference in screen size between what's standard on jets would not be negligibly different than what the airlines provide.

I bought an 8.5" Philips model back in mid-2006. It was one of a handful of models that had a dock for a 5.5g iPod Video of which I had a 30gb version of at the time. It made watching video much easier than squinting to see the tiny iPod screen. It got around 4 hours of playback when using the iPod (only about 2.5 hours when spinning a DVD) and was a good supplement to my 14" laptop which, at the time, only got about 2 hours on battery. It was also worthwhile when traveling with my wife so she could watch one thing and I could watch something different.

Fast-forward 4.5 years and it's dead weight that hasn't been taken out of a drawer in at least 3 years. It's been replaced by any one of 5 devices (of which I have 3 on-hand). It's the size of a netbook which will last longer on a charge and can do so much more (though you'll need to rip your media ahead of time, something I've already done as I use an HTPC as whole-home movie server). It has a smaller screen than an iPad which is thinner, lighter, and has nearly infinite uses while on the road (again, you'll need to rip your media). Even an iPod Touch, iPhone, or Android phone is big enough to make due with for video playback while doing so much more and being MUCH smaller. Laptop battery life has also grown leaps-and-bounds, so 5-8 hours of laptop use is nearly the norm.

Based on the above I don't really see any justification of the size and weight of a portable DVD player if you have any one of the above devices, save for possibly for kids in a car or on a plane if you don't want them possibly doing damage to one of the said other devices (though I put my iPad within arms reach of my 16-month old triplets with very little fear of damage).

If you happen to not have ANY of the above devices, or absolutely will not rip or download your media ahead of time, then there might be some use for a portable DVD player. Still, it's a lot of added bulk and weight, even if it is cheap.

I bring mine with me and the RCA plug adapter to hook it up to the TV in my hotel room.....

Also make sure you "unlock" it so it will play all the DVDs you buy,

it was great to have on a very long layover in Singapore a couple yeas ago

Rally

Was a good idea in 2003-2006. Now an iPad, other tablet or Netbook will be a much better multitasking option.

I'm embarrassed to admit how much I paid for a portable DVD player back in 2004: $400 :eek:

It still gets occasional use during mattress runs: I hook it up to the big-screen LCDs at the local Hyatt Place and run through a few of the many DVDs I have yet to watch. (And FWIW, the TV at the HP is bigger than the one I have at home.)

But overall, there's a reason that portable DVD players are so cheap now....

Wirelessly posted (Nokia E71-2: Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/5.1.21051/22.414; U; en) Presto/2.5.25 Version/10.54)

I do see a surprising number of portable players being used - many by parents to keep their kids entertained/occupied, but also by a number of adults in F
(the guy across the aisle was watching an Angelina Jolie movie the other day).

I wish I was tech savvy enough to convert this pile of DVDs into digital but that also takes time so I stay with the small DVD player.

Rally

Especially since a lot of new DVD and Blu-Ray discs come with a free digital copy of the movie for your laptop/netbook.

I paid close to $1000 for a Panasonic portable DVD player in 1999 or 2000 - that thing got more looks than an iPad would have on its launch day. Remember, back then there were virtually no laptops with DVD players, so watching your own movies on a plane was quite something. Amazing how quickly things have evolved in just ten years.

Just got this in email from Amazon, thought might be interesting http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DVD-.../dp/B0014FO5CE $80

If only the next generation of iPads had a DVD player option, I would buy one in a second. That's what I am holding out for!!!!!

It is not really that hard. Just search for the best settings for Handbrake for your device and plug them in. Apple devices are already set as presets. Then just rip the DVDs while you are doing other work on a computer.

Don't hold your breath, Apple won't put a DVD player in an iPad. Too much bulk and no need, they would rather sell or rent yo a movie from the iTunes Store. I often RIP a DVD to digital to put it on my iPad. It takes less than an hour for most DVDs.

The tablet is where it's at. You got form factor, battery life, screen size, light weight, ability to browse the web, read books, play games, email, facebook, all in one device! I don't remember the last time I bought a DVD. I thought I would miss having a physical copy, but I realized that I haven't watched most of the DVD/Blueray disks I bought over the years. I stream movies now with AppleTV (the original version), I hear the Roku Box with Netflix is pretty good.

By the way, VLC will play most non-Apple videos on the iPad. ;)

Don't forget that most of these portable DVD players have a video line-in. So, rip your content, store it on your iPhone or iPod, and hook it up to the sweet 9" screen of your $80 DVD player. Much cheaper than an iPad too :D

Portable DVD players are cheap for a reason. Who wants to lug that around and have limited selection of DVD's?

I'd get something with digital media storage. iPad or something similar. Netflix is great on flights with WiFi on the iPad... $10/month.

I'm definitely in favour of buying a netbook instead. True full-functionality in terms of codecs, awesome battery life, and you can browse Flash websites. :D

If you really have to, you could hook up a portable DVD player. Or, rip your DVD's using any number of free tools to easy DivX/XVid avi files.

can someone post an Idiots guide or a link to taking a DVD with copy protection and region protection and ripping it to a smaller digital file that I can play on my Netbook or a smart phone or even burn it on another DVD and play it in another region,

I am using windows XP

and how long will it take to convert a 2 hour DVD ?

I can rebuild your car motor but this has me stumped !

thanks

Rally

This is, in my opinion, the most useful feature of a portable DVD player. In the semi-pro video game, portable DVD players make great on-tripod monitors, particularly when you're using some kind of depth-of-field adapter, most of which flip the image.

For watching movies, either in the hotel room, the club room or on the plane, my laptop is a much better solution. The batteries last longer, and there are all manner of external extended-life batteries available. The picture resolution is better AND I can play Blu-Ray content, as well as standard DVD content.

Frankly, I'm waiting for a Verizon-compatible iPad (not one that must be used in conjunction with a MiFi hub). I think that's probably the best solution to portable video entertainment, plus a lot more. When I see these things in use on long-hauls, I positively salivate with envy.

Okay, there are a number of considerations here.

First, it is illegal to distribute or use copy-protection defeating software. This isn't to say that there isn't a lot of it around, but some is better than others. I like AnyDVD, which is a painless way of ripping anything, whether DVD or Blu-Ray, and is well supported by its manufacturer. It's the only product I've found that works transparently on everything and it's a single click to rip. It does, however, cost money. There are shareware products around, but they are either obsolete and unsupported, or rather complex to use. How long it takes to rip depends on CPU power. On my media computer, a standard DVD takes around 10 minutes, a Blu-Ray up to 80 minutes.

The problem with AnyDVD is that all it does is rip content and remove copy protection. Shrinking the file size is another issue. DVDShrink is an unsupported free shareware product that, like the name implies, can shrink DVDs (it can also rip-and-shrink but, as I noted, it is obsolete and there are newer copy protection schemes that it, by itself, cannot defeat). It does this in two ways. First, it lets you remove unwanted material, e.g. foreign-language audio, previews, extra features, etc. Second, it can recompress the material at a higher compression rate. This, of course, results in some degradation of quality -- the higher the compression rate, the less the quality.

Another option is to transcode the video into another format. DVDs use mpeg, but there are more efficient codecs available, e.g. mp4, divx, etc. I don't bother doing this, so I can't direct you to anything specific, but a Google search should reveal many options.

Finally, you'll need a player that is compatible with the codec you've chosen. Microsoft Media Player will handle most things, but I prefer a product by Arcsoft called Total Media Theater. It's the most versatile player I've found, offers lots of tweaks and control to maximize the viewing experience, and can handle anything I've thrown at it, including Blu-Ray. There's a nice free player called Video LAN that offers a similar amount of control. It has, however, some minor bugs and doesn't play Blu-Ray.

Note that it is not a foregone conclusion that your netbook will be able to play full-screen videos. The primary concern is the built-in graphics card. I have an Asus Aspire 1 that can do this very well. On the other hand, I have another Asus (I don't recall the model number at the moment) that cannot.

I find the easiest solution is either to rip directly to my laptop's hard drive without recompression or ripping to a portable USB drive without recompression.

Search "DVD Fab Decrypter" and look for the free downloads. Within the free downloads page is another free software that makes your DVD drive region-free. I should mention DVD Fab is updated all the time and works where lesser ripping programs fail.

Unless you need to save space, you can play this directly on your netbook.

If you need to convert, One of the easiest and fastest (and free) software for Windows (IMO) is XVid4PSP. The paid version of DVD Fab Decrypter can do this, as well. Do NOT use Handbrake as it sucks for Windows. However, I will say one of the saddest things I witnessed was some guy holding up his iPod for an entire long-haul flight watching a movie. As for encoding speed, it really depends on your specs.

Use VideoLAN (VLC Player) on your netbook to play the DVD or avi files. Best free software out there. You're not going to play Blu-Rays on a netbook. There's no point as the screen resolution isn't good enough.

Yeah, I still can't figure out who's buying all those discs. I mean $10 to $20 for a movie you are unlikely to watch more than once or twice. What's the point? But I digress.

Redbox - Quick, Easy, Cheap
 

If you fly with your portable DVD player or optical-drive-equipped laptop, you can rent a DVD from a Redbox in your departure airport and return it at your destination airport. Just a dollar per movie, and no need to rip it ahead of time.

You can determine at http://www.redbox.com/Locations/LocationSearch.aspx?l={0}&movie={1} if an airport has a Redbox.

The point is (1) having the movie in your collection; and/or (2) watching the movie more than once or twice. Millions of people do this, obviously, but I guess it's just not your thing.

I never recommend traveling with original disks, after having forgotten disks on planes before. With the tools mentioned, it's easy to make a backup and use that instead. ^

Portable DVD players will be for people who aren't tech savvy.

The minute I got my first iPhone (a 3G), I learned how to convert video files to iPhone format, load them and then watched them on the iPhone when traveling. I have an iPhone 4 and the 32GB are great for music and video. Last cross country trip I caught up on all the Modern Family episodes I had missed.

Free format converters like Format Factory are very easy to use and have a list of mobile devices and convert to that format when you select it. Just make sure to unclick the Ask.com toolbar when installing!

Yup, tablet market will take off and there will be models under the price of the iPad which are capable of good video viewing on a much better screen than you're likely to get on these portable DVD players.

Of course, most of the other tablets are using 7-inch screens so you may have to pony up for the iPad and then use apps. like Handbrake to rip and AirVideo or Zumocast to stream or transfer videos.

Just wait until tomorrow...there will be dozens of new 7-10" tablets announced at CES.