Hi guys please share your knowledge and recommendations for a good car DVD player, what to look for , features , brands , ease of use etc.. I literally have no idea as I’m buying one for the first time so we can keep our little one entertained.
In car DVD players for kids
sammyla on 02/06/2018 - 10:59
Comments
This.
Use a DVD rip Program to extract the files.Maybe go for a Optus deal so your kid can take advantage of the unmetered Netflix.
Good idea but you'd probably need a mount for it - if they were holding it they might drop it (and would be difficult for them to pick up if they are young enough that they're still in car seats).
Run Kodi on a laptop
Mount it upside down
DoneYou can get a Dell Inspiron for about $40 (old 2006 one not new.)
They have amazing speakers and a res at 1600X1050
You can also play old Retro games on it as well.
upside down
What..how!
Buy a laptop mounting kit after that mount it to the car. If your car supports a DVD player but did not come with on you can use its cable route in the roof space to provide it power and you could also connect it to the AUX port.
To flip the screen, right-click the start icon in the lower left corner. Select Mobility Centre after that select rotate screen.
Why do kids need this? I didn't have one as a kid, and it worked out alright. I didn't trash the car, and I wasn't parented by a screen.
When I was a kid my parents made us little brown paper bags with a snack, a drink, a cheap hand-held game, a book and a puzzle. We would get one once an hour if we didn't cause trouble in the previous hour. Was very labour intensive I imagine! Mounted DVD would be a bit easier. Were you really expected to stay quiet with nothing to do for seven hours at a time?
it's not about staying quiet. it's about children not having to be entertained.
they can look out the window, play the car-car-truck game, play the alphabet sign game, play the alphabet name game, put a sing-a-long cd on , rest, have quiet time, have a snooze, etc
I don't think a six year old (for example) can be expected to entertain themselves AND sit still for 5-12 hours. You probably haven't had the pleasure of looking after one for extended periods of time.
@altomic: OK, fair enough. I guess I'd never met such boring kids that they have the ability to do nothing at all for hours at a time - didn't realise they could exist. At least they're easy to look after - plonk them on a couch and go about your life. Maybe come back every once in a while to wipe the drool from their faces, toilet them and feed them.
@Quantumcat: you're attitude is quite saddening. "here kids, watch a dvd/ play your iPad, because I can't be stuffed doing anything with you, and fobbing you off to to an electronic device is easy"
seriously, what do you think parents and kids were doing on long car trips before hand held electronic devices were developed?
@Quantumcat: Chances are the kids are more interesting as they have the ability to entertain themselves for hours at a time, rather than rely on technology. They probably have a fantastic imagination and will grow up to have patience that not many others in their generation will have.
As a child I travelled around Australia with my parents, which involved frequent 8 hour days in the car and I didn’t have technology in my hands at all, there was none.
Look out the window and play I Spy?
Get an inexpensive 10 inch tablet. Buy a $10 car tablet holder from ebay and mount the tablet at the back of the driver or passenger headrest. Load the tablet with ripped dvd movies. Get headphones. If you dont know how to rip dvds, read up on google, or get someone to do it for you.
Give your little ones some seroquel or Valium and watch them happily not irritate you
Another vote for a tablet.
DVD's aren't steady enough to have a pleasant viewing experience in the car. On a bumpy road they can very easily jump and buffer.
If you're not fussed about spending $$$, OP, Clarion make a nice roof-mount mechless screen with IR output for IR headphones. Hook a RPi up to it via HDMI running Kodi.
I had the Clarion ceiling-mounted model in my last car, cost over a grand to buy and install it. The car eventually had to have a couple of batteries replaced because of constant drain from the Clarion system (I don't know if the autoelec installed it right), and leaving us stranded a few times. Then the headphones got broken (can buy $$ replacements but comparatively few aftermarket options for IR headphones), so we opted for the car speakers, but the whole DVD skipping and stopping the car to change cartoons because a serious PITA, not to mention fights over what two or three kids choose to watch. Would never do it again.
Replaced the car and then bought a couple of Android tablets with thumbdrives to store videos on, the kids can do it themselves now and no real dramas as long as the USB cable is plugged in properly. Added bonus, we have used them in overseas airports and flights numerous times, and it trumps the quality and reliability of the inflight entertainment every time.
That's not good with the battery drain - definitely sounds like it was an install issue. Can't say I've seen one skipping, but if Clarion were having issues maybe that's why they went mechless?
As a parent, I've tried several solutions to this particular issue and keep coming back to the cheap DVD players from KMart or Target. Last one I bought was this:
https://www.target.com.au/p/laser-9-portable-dual-screen-dvd…
It just works, and as I have two younger children the second screen suits us. YMMV of course :)
Ebay has plenty of headrest mounted setups too. Never tried on though. We use an ipad in a zip lock bag held by a bulldog clip which hangs of some ocky straps between headrests.
I’ll echo many: get a tablet (what every flavor you prefer) rip dvd’s To digital files and copy them over.
I splurged and spend maybe $30 on a mount (clamps on to drivers and passengers head pest pole and the. Has the mount in the middle). All kids in middle row can see fine. I then have headphone splitter and they all wear headphones. Wife and I in the front get to talk and listen to “our music” while kids watch shows.
*we only use this when on trips 3hrs+ as a treat
iPad Mini/iPad/Android or Windows Tablet.