LCD vs. LED Television.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

I don't watch any TV, but play a movie most nights.

As you say the power savings, in isolation, are not great, but if want to run the boat completely on solar over winter and still enjoy all the toys you need to consider the power consumption carefully. The consumption of larger appliances, such as watermakers and fridges is more critical, but savings across the board are beneficial.

An AHr saved is an AHr earned to corrupt a popular saying.

I prefer a boat set up on solar / wind power rather than generator based primarily for the greater reliability. I have seen too many boats waiting in out of the way places for generator repairs.

Sure, well, you fall under both my exceptions -- use it a lot, and tight power budget.

But even still -- two hours a day is 16 watt/hours, or a little over a half an amp/hour at 25v or so. You would have to be pinching the power pennies awfully hard, to care a lot about that


As to solar power -- you are very right there. I wish I had somewhere to put solar panels on my boat. My father's boat is all solar and it's brilliant -- no moving parts, practically nothing to fail, no fuel consumption, no noise, no problems. He goes for weeks at a time without charging. I'm thinking about putting some solar panels on one of my mooring piles, if the harbormasters will let me.

[motion30]

end of the road I have a Jensen 12 volt TV , the ad claims it is both LCD and LED whatever that means . feel free to come over and check it out if you wish

[endoftheroad]

Originally Posted by motion30

end of the road I have a Jensen 12 volt TV , the ad claims it is both LCD and LED whatever that means . feel free to come over and check it out if you wish

Thanks

[Capt Rottnest]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Just buy a TV with a HDMI interface, thats essentually a monitor. The old distinctions really dont apply much these days, TV=monitor=TV really.

Dave

I am a little disappointed with the 12V HDMI LED TV I have. As a TV its fine, as a computer monitor it is terrible, very fuzzy image. I was hoping to use it as both a TV and low power monitor but now need to revise this.

Seems to me the screen standard to work as a TV can be much lower than required for a computer monitor.

[endoftheroad]

can I plug a DVD player and USB memory sticks to Apple TV monitor without having to power a laptop? I'm not sure I'm confused now. why would I need a television and all those channels out at anchor? I guess if I lived on a dock and couldn't use cable channels it would be the pits though. but then I'd have wifi on a dock and could watch anything using the iPad via Apple TV.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

And then slap a $99 AppleTV module to the back of it and you're done. Now you can also stream music and video from your iPod, iPad, iPhone, MacBook, MacMini using AirPlay and even mirror the screen so that all can enjoy the navigation or read that email from home etc.
Heck, I think you can even stream from iTunes from a Windows PC.

This is all wireless. The only cables are power to TV and AppleTV and a short HDMI between TV and AppleTV. You do need your own wifi aboard of-course. Streaming from the Internet: radio works with most wifi service and movies with almost none, but this is all done with just that AppleTV module, no computer needed.

A1. That's the setup I've at home all TV content via the Internet ( and comms too ) no cable or sat costs. Works a treat , using The FilmOn app I get access to the beeb, itv, film 4 etc as well for free.

Dave

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Capt Rottnest

I am a little disappointed with the 12V HDMI LED TV I have. As a TV its fine, as a computer monitor it is terrible, very fuzzy image. I was hoping to use it as both a TV and low power monitor but now need to revise this.

Seems to me the screen standard to work as a TV can be much lower than required for a computer monitor.

Yes often because you can get away with a lower resolution for TV. But a good 1080p set makes a good monitor once you don't exceed about 25" diagonal above that you need IPS and very high res to sit close to a large screen. Large TVs ate designed to be viewed At a distance.

Dave

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by endoftheroad

can I plug a DVD player and USB memory sticks to Apple TV monitor without having to power a laptop? I'm not sure I'm confused now. why would I need a television and all those channels out at anchor? I guess if I lived on a dock and couldn't use cable channels it would be the pits though. but then I'd have wifi on a dock and could watch anything using the iPad via Apple TV.

Hmmm no, you got it mixed up. The AppleTV does not need an iPad to show radio and tv and movies from the Internet. It comes with a remote control and uses the display as it's screen and you can use it without powering anything else.

I think you got wifi wrong; you need to create your own wifi aboard like people do at home. Like install an Apple Airport Express. This is where you connect all your wifi enabled gadgets/laptops/phones to. Then you have the wifi to connect to the Internet. You connect that to the Airport Express WAN port just like people ashore connect a DSL modem or cable modem to that. Now, everything in your own wifi is connected to the Internet. With the right gear (Ubiquity) you can use this at anchor as well as in a marina.

Now, even when you have no Internet wifi link to shore, you can still use your own wifi network aboard and you can use the Airplay service to stream content to the AppleTV. Music straight from your iPad, wirelessly, to the speakers connected to the AppleTV or the LED TV if you don't have extra speakers. Same with movies. There are no USB sticks or DVD's involved, these are mostly obsolete IMHO.

We stream our own content 90% of the time because we find most of the rest rubbish

[colemj]

The AppleTV requires AC power, doesn't it? So does the Airport Express?

We have two LED TV's on board. One is 22" AC powered with built in DVD player. It cannot be modified for DC without major surgery. It runs off a small inverter and draws 8A DC when operating with the DVD. The other TV is a 20" AC/DC (power plugs for each) with USB ports and built in media player software. It draws 1.3A DC when powering a 1TB drive filled with movies. We purchased this one a year ago for $100 at a mall in Panama (the 24" version was $150), so they are pretty cheap - and probably more so in the US.

On a boat, physical media will rot before your eyes and quickly become unusable. Not to mention the shear volume of space they occupy. Get a TV with USB port and built in media player and buy a large hard drive to hold movies.

Mark

[endoftheroad]

Jedi,
Thanks for the clarity.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by colemj

The AppleTV requires AC power, doesn't it? So does the Airport Express?

We have two LED TV's on board. One is 22" AC powered with built in DVD player. It cannot be modified for DC without major surgery. It runs off a small inverter and draws 8A DC when operating with the DVD. The other TV is a 20" AC/DC (power plugs for each) with USB ports and built in media player software. It draws 1.3A DC when powering a 1TB drive filled with movies. We purchased this one a year ago for $100 at a mall in Panama (the 24" version was $150), so they are pretty cheap - and probably more so in the US.

On a boat, physical media will rot before your eyes and quickly become unusable. Not to mention the shear volume of space they occupy. Get a TV with USB port and built in media player and buy a large hard drive to hold movies.

Mark

Yes, a 20" tv with USB hard disk uses much less power than a 22" tv with *gasp* a DVD player. No surprise. To compare apples and apples, switch the 20" tv with hard disk over to AC on the small inverter and then compare DC draw

The power consumption of Apple TV and Airport is so low that it doesn't matter. They can be modded if wanted but the only diff will be inverter efficiency (5% over nothing is less than nothing)

To power all these gadgets, a small true sine inverter that is efficient and reliable is key. This one is actually made by Sinergex but cheaper in this disguise: http://www.amazon.com/Go-Power-GP-SW...I3U4G7G8IP0Z2M
When you have that connected to your house batteries, you have in fact created an on-line type UPS that will prevent most power related problems with computers and gadgets.

[noelex 77]

DVD drives do consume a bit more power than a USB hard drive, another reason for storing movies on hard drive.
However the difference should be quite small.
Internal laptop DVD players increase a laptops consumption by about 0.4A @12v. An external 2.5 inch USB hard drive is about half this.

This is confirmed testing with my 12v boat mounted PC which consumes about 0.2A move, playing a movie via the external DVD drive than a 2.5 USB hard drive.

I have never measured the difference played via a TV, but cannot see why there would be much change from the above figures.

[colemj]

I wouldn't assume the drive in the TV is a laptop drive. It is possible the manufacturer simply took their own stand alone DVD and bolted it into the TV - keeping the codex processors, power supply, output signal amps, sound amps, etc. Ours certainly seems that way. A laptop DVD is quite a different beast since all it really does is spin a platter and send digital output. The processing, amplification, etc are mostly done in the computer software.

But my point above is that physical media is not really suited for a boat, and that the newer TV's use less power, are smaller form factors and are cheaper. I suspect that the set the OP is considering is an older model.

Mark

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by colemj

A laptop DVD is quite a different beast since all it really does is spin a platter and send digital output.

Mark

This is also true of a an external hard drive.
In both cases, DVD or hard drive, the TV has to process the digital data stream into the correct picture and sound.

The DVD disc is larger and heavier than the hard drive platter and the laser of uses a bit more power than the magnetic heads of the hard drive, but at a DVD can be spun and read for less than 5w (because this is the maximium power 2 USB ports will supply).

[Roy M]

Given what I've read, so far, wouldn't the smartest move be for storage of media on a solid state storage device? No moving parts = no wear and tear (other than those pesky, elusive electrons bashing into copper wire), and no energy wasted on mechanical motors, bearings, etc. I'm asking because I'll be shopping for a new computer one of these days and the idea of a solid state storage sounds good to me, having experienced the effects of bashing into heavy chop while listening to the stereo CD player skipping tracks.