Entertainment Systems

[morpheus]

I was thinking about buying a 19" MEOS TV for the boat as it has a built in DVD player, is this the best format to buy for watching films, do cruisers freely exchange DVD's as they do paperback books, or is there a better system available on the market. Would prefer to be able to download films over the internet and watch them but access to internet will be very sparse while cruising.

[bewitched]

My experience is that these days cruisers have the movies on on some form of data storage device (external hard drive usually) and watch them on a laptop or monitor.

DVD is on the way out as movies can be downloaded and keep much better on a storage device than DVDs.

I'm sure you'll be able to hook your laptop up to your dvd player without too much trouble.

[noelex 77]

As bewitched says a USB hard drive is the most common medium, but you can add movies to them from a DVD.
To play them a low powered computer like a net book with an led monitor of whatever size is most suitable ( ours is 21 inch). External speakers are needed, but simple USB powered speakers are ok.
If using a net book an external DVD drive is also helpful.
New movies mostly come from other crusers, but we occasionally hit a video store.
I think movies from the Internet will soon be viable to watch on the boat, but at the moment the speed via the phone network is generally too slow and the large plans needed for the downloads are expensive. Having a computer based entertainment system means the transition to these forms of delivery should be easy.

[starcruiser]

To listen to songs, we plug the mp3 player headphone jack into the boats aux in put jack and listen through the loudspeakers in the saloon and/or fly bridge.

The fly bridge also has a pair of loudspeakers with in built amplifier. They plug into the 12 volt cigarette lighter and into the Mp3 player.


Movies? Tv has in built dvd player, and is 12 volt. It also accepts vga cable from laptop or netbook, or hdmi cable from same. So can play stored movies, songs, photos etc.

For internet surfing, either the android phone or use it as mobile hotspot for the netbook.

[noelex 77]

On the sound side of things the most common solution is a car player that can play mp3 via a USB stick.
A slightly more advanced radio that you can plug an iPhone etc in is worthwhile in IMHO. Internet radio is the main advantage of this set up. Local radio stations are often poor with just local music and adds are annoying enough when they are in a language you understand.
Internet radio enables you to listen to new music and seems to use little bandwidth.

[colemj]

We use a media player, which is a small, portable hard drive-sized box hooked to the tv with a HDMI cable. The media player has USB ports for attaching portable hard drives to. We keep two 1TB drives full of movies and TV shows hooked to it.

They are relatively inexpensive, use very little power, small, and you have access to an infinite amount of media just by plugging in hard drives.

Mark

[ReMetau]

Originally Posted by colemj

We use a media player, which is a small, portable hard drive-sized box hooked to the tv with a HDMI cable. The media player has USB ports for attaching portable hard drives to. We keep two 1TB drives full of movies and TV shows hooked to it.

They are relatively inexpensive, use very little power, small, and you have access to an infinite amount of media just by plugging in hard drives.

Mark

We do the same.

[gkrasnov]

For my new boat in the process of being built, after lots of research, decided to settle on an itunes-appletv based system with media server. Got 2tb of movies and music already, plan to add on much more before we cast off. cant beat the fact that u can control everything (whatbplays where, volume, etc) from anywhere on the boat through itunes remote app on ipad-iphone. And if u desperate for something new, can buy and rip dvds adding easily to the library. Airplay also lets u stream internet radio from iphone to any of the appletvs on the boat (zones)... Best i could come up with.

[sonAdmiralson]

cheapest way to go is a 12 dvd player and a 19 inch LED monitor from LG that plugs 12V right into the back, You need to mount it somehow and hacksaw the base off the monitor. I used an LG monitor direct to 12V with no problems for years. Good picture too. Tons of chinese DVDs out there with a 12 jack in the back just look for one 35 bucks. monitor 120 then you need to hook the DVD sound output into your stereo. pm me if you need more info

[Dockhead]

Our system is very simple and cheap -- an Alpine Ipod-only car-type audio system (which gives remarkably good sound), and a 22" LCD TV connected to a cheap and tiny universal (zone-free) DVD player bought in Russia. We have tons of DVD's on board and it's a nice way to pass an evening at anchor, especially if the weather is bad. In fact I think I don't really watch movies at all anymore except on the boat.

We have a Glomex TV antenna/amplifier at the masthead left to us by the PO. I never watch television and haven't in decades, except . . . when I am alone on board for days on end sometimes it's nice to hear a human voice. TV in the UK is now all digital and is almost like cable with dozens of channels.

You can go wild designing elaborate built-in systems, but I find that the cheap Samsung TV from Tescos put down on the saloon table really serves the purpose perfectly, so why bother to do anything more elaborate.

[noelex 77]

An LCD TV, or an LCD monitor and computer ( or even better LED versions) are the two most common visual entertainment options.
I have not measured an enormous sample, but I think monitor and computer route uses significantly less power than the TV option,providing a low power computer is used with the screen off. The difference is greatest when watching a movie from a hard drive, which is my most common use. Looking at power consumption specs seems to confirm this, although often maximums rather than typical consumptions are often quoted in the specs.

It's difficult to make firm recommendations because there are significant differences between similar models from different manufactures, but it's worth considering power consumption carefully if you plan to use the system away from shore power.
There are differences of 2 or 3x ( for the same screen size ) depending on what equipment is used.