Media Player that runs off DC

[LWCount]

Converted most all of my books, records, CDs, DVD, photos and placed them on many Western Digital 2.5 hard drives that plugs into any usb port on a laptop. Normally I just plug these devices in my Asus oplay (it can read drives up to 3T) and off we go.

But I haven't found a media player to play movies and music that runs on DC that I could plug into a monitor (DC). I don't want to use an inverter.

Anyone know of such a media player. Any suggestions?

 

[psytechguy]

I have a Western Digital media player that uses a 12 volt "wall wart" style transformer that plugs into 110v. It's a simple matter to wire up a cable with the same plug as the player (I believe it's a 5.5 mm DC plug) and just run it directly off of a 12 volt source.

I'm wiring up my Capri camper for solar this coming week and will be including a circuit with 3 of these cables to power my media player, an external 2tB hard drive, and a 19" LED TV, all of which normally use transformers when plugged into 110 volts, but are 12 volt DC devices.

 

[LWCount]

I have a Western Digital media player that uses a 12 volt "wall wart" style transformer that plugs into 110v. It's a simple matter to wire up a cable with the same plug as the player (I believe it's a 5.5 mm DC plug) and just run it directly off of a 12 volt source.

I prefer the Asus oplay mini but WD also excellent. It works with my GPT formatted 3T GoFlex drives.

This sparked an idea.

I'm going to check out the specs on cheap netbook car adapters and see if I can get a match on voltage and current ratings. The Asus uses 12 Vdc, 2A. Then just solder a plug on one end.

Thanks.

 

[akrvbob]

I hope you will humor an old fart who is gadget challenged

What is a Media Player, and why might I want one? Is that an iPod?
Bob

 

[psytechguy]

Yes, an iPod is a type of media player.

Think of them as a dedicated hardware version of Windows Media Player or iTunes on your computer. You can connect a hard drive full of various formats of video and audio files to the media player, and the player is able to decode and stream them for playback, output to a TV or computer monitor.

My Western Digital media player is a little black box connected to a hard drive. It outputs to a TV via an HDMI cable. I can scroll through a menu screen of all the content on the hard drive. It's like having an audio/video jukebox.

A few years ago I digitized my entire CD and DVD collection. What used to completely fill the shelves from floor to ceiling along my bedroom wall now resides on 6tB of hard drive space.

Kind of an ideal setup for a van/RV dweller!

 

[caseyc]

6 terabytes, I'm impressed!

 

[akrvbob]

Again, humor an old fart, don't the great majority of them use a mini-usb to charge and all you have to have is a cigarette lighter plug with a USB in it to charge it off 12 volt DC?

I don't understand the whole question of the thread so I have to assume I'm missing something (which will be very normal).
Bob

 

[StarEcho]

This Media player is 12v 1.5a -- comes with AC plug but no reason why you couldn't get dc plug...

http://www.amazon.com/WD-TV-HD-Media-Player/dp/B001JZFQU4

ie, this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Power-S...90288259&sr=1-1&keywords=12v+1.5a+car+adapter

And re the why does one need a media player...it's more to do with bypassing the whole computer/laptop thing...just attach the 12v media player to the 12v tv and off you go. Your actual "media" attaches to the media player via the usb cords.

Here is a quote from the questions and answers section of the amazon page on the wd media player:

"What is it? Can someone explain what it is and why anybody would want one? Jul 8, 2009
Simply put, it lets you play digital media files on your tv. As to my personal 'why': I have a bad tendency to scratch, mis-case or lose dvds. I could not find them when desired or the quality was poor due to prior mishandling. So I convert my DVDs to mkv on my computer and store them on a hard drive attached to this media player. When we want to watch a movie, there is no searching for the disc- we just pull up the menu, scan or search for the title, and start enjoying it. I have my DVDs in storage, so if anything happens (hard drive dies, etc) I still have my originals in mint condition to reconvert. « Show Less
Jul 31, 2009 by Sara Jacobson"

Hope this helps....

 

[LWCount]

RE: Media Player that runs off DC

I don't understand the whole question of the thread so I have to assume I'm missing something (which will be very normalTongue).
Bob

- - -

Hello Bob,

Also old fart and have no desire to carry around all the DVDs, CDs, books, records, VHS tapes, photo albums, old magazines and all the rest I've collected and spent untold sums of money.

So I got rid of it. And now it fits in a travel bag on many hard drives.

Plug a usb hard drive with the music/movies into a small footprint MEDIA PLAYER, then plug the media player into a DC MONITOR. Easy peezy

Everything goes on the hard drive. I like Western Digital's 2T because it's excellent and around 100 to buy. Ironic, you can live in a van and have more media than a small library.

I manually make a backup of the drive and just give away or toss the media.

The best type of downsizing.

 

[psytechguy]

I donated boxes and boxes full of DVD's and CD's to the Salvation Army and will write them off on taxes this year as a charitable donation.

It was hard to part with a 25 year collection. I had to keep reminding myself I had 2 more digital copies of everything!

Partial hard drive stash. These are all backup drives. Those silver cases are Lacie 1 tB drives.
View attachment 287

 

[user 423]

Another OF with a question. I have an old Samsung SCH-i760 phone that has MP9 on it that I plug into portable speakers. It only handles up to 2G cards but that's plenty of music for me. It has bluetooth so I will shop for a bluetooth portable speaker setup eventually.

My question: Are there any DC monitors with bluetooth?

 

[psytechguy]

They're currently finalizing the new Generation 2 Bluetooth standard, which will open it up to streaming video capability by enabling speeds up to 10 megabits per second.

Current Bluetooth is something like 720 kBits per second. Not fast enough.

 

[user 423]

OK,thanks. It would be nice to be able to do something simple like update the BIOS to get the higher speed but probably not gonna be that lucky.

 

[bvanevery]

If the issue with using an inverter, was not wanting to waste electricity going through DC to AC to DC conversions, I've been using a Wagan 200W power inverter for 4 years. I also had a special straight DC power brick for a Dell laptop. That brick was still converting from 12V DC to the 19.5V DC the laptop wanted. I've never seen any noticeable difference in my deep cycle battery runtimes with either device. I didn't instrument the battery with anything fancy, just took voltage readings with a multimeter and judged its capacity on that basis per manufacturer's specs. I'd aim to "drive onwards to recharge" when my battery dropped below 50% state of charge. Nowadays I just use the inverter and don't worry about it. If there's any difference in consumption, it's not enough to make any reasonably noticeable difference in my laptop runtimes.