Atomic Posted September 5, 2006 Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 Would love to put a voting button on this but no idea how Anyways, I'm really struggling over which direction to go in terms of playing films on the car. As listed either to go for a 6/8/10 way DVD changer or to get a media player - a Rapsody RSH-100. Reason I'm struggling over the media player is the flexibility of being able to simply play a new DVD when on holiday if we spot one and/or the particular inability to upload it onto the media player while away from the house. Downside of the changer to me is the relativly limited number of DVD's it can hold. 10 may seem a lot but for long journeys it can be tiresome to have to swap them and in fact quite hard with a fully laden boot. Other pro's/cons are 1. The price... I can get a new Rapsody + Car kit for around £130+Vat and delivery so say £160. For that price I have little choice in terms of a second hand DVD changer and none for a new one. I dont need to factor in the hard drive for the Rapsody as I have a spare 250Gb drive available. 2. The DVD changer provides instant play, whereas even at home I would need to transfer the film from DVD>PC>Rapsody. Not sure how long this would take but if it involves changing the media format it would essentially be many hours. 3. One huge bonus is the ability to play different formats, I have 200Gb+ already on my PC which would take many hours of migration to DVD... Anyone else struggled over this, and if so which way did you go? Both ways is not and option albeit as a last resort I could potentially try plumbing in a portal DVD player on the fly when required, but that kind of defeats the object of a fixed installation. Cheers, AG> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sufu Posted September 5, 2006 Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 just had the same thoughts, and went for a media player, but mines just a small one with a built in screen, http://www.vivitar.co.uk/products/dmd/dmd/ Fits plenty of films on when they're in XVID encoded, with pretty good quality, and I can get plenty of music on it, but it doesnt hold a candle to a dedicated player and multiscreen setup... which would look slightly our of place in my car Still its portable and mounts neatly in the car Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atomic Posted September 5, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 I guess one thing I could add is I have a iRiver PMP120. Albeit it only has 20GB, good for around 20 hours films I could plug it into the system via an appropriate cable. Problem is it still highlights the issue of spending many hours converting the media standards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusader01 Posted September 5, 2006 Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 I have a media player but find encoding the DVD's a major pain, I have tried a fair few different encoders but haven't really found a straight forward one where you can just feed it a DVD and you get a nice divx file. Also it seems to take ages to do. Would love to hear of some useful software. C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDiAvant Posted September 5, 2006 Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 Depending on the file size and quality you require encoding DVD’s to xvid can take many hours. I use DVD Shrink or DVDFab to rip the DVD movie then use AutoGordianKnot to convert the mpeg file to xvid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigyb Posted September 5, 2006 Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 I prefer the media players just for convenience when driving, your correct even a 10 disk DVD can be limiting. The rhapsody will also play ISO images from the HD, so if you use DVDcrypter you can copy a whole DVD or just the film (no menus etc) onto the disk in about 20 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atomic Posted September 5, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 Presumably the Rapsody needs to connect durectly to a PC to download? I dont see any mention of it being networked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigyb Posted September 5, 2006 Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 Yes, USB2 only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sufu Posted September 5, 2006 Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 Conversion software is a pain, I've found several useful ones, a couple will even do batch coversions, so i can leave my pc doing a whole load overnight, as for dvd ripping, i rarely have to do that you could fit a car PC... overkill though maybe? Edit: just found this, thought it migh be ideal as it will play DVD images, so you wont have to re-encode them, just image them in about 10 mins http://www.i4u.com/section-viewarticle-81.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atomic Posted September 5, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 Does it show itself as a standard USB2 drive? Just thinking you can buy nas solutions which take USB2 drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sufu Posted September 5, 2006 Report Share Posted September 5, 2006 I imagine it probably does, not really had a good look into it though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now