Can someone tell me why one'd choose to go for an car DVD system - whether after market or OEM - and spend the money/time getting the thing installed instead of just buying a less-costly portable player that can be plug into the power outlet ?

 

Funny you should ask. I spend most of my time right now consulting with a manufacturer of high-end rear-seat entertainment systems.

1) Can't forget the thing. Can't drop it and break it, won't hit you in the head when you slam on the brakes.
2) Don't have to fight over it in the back seat - if it's on the center line in the roof, everyone in the rear seat can watch.
3) They have IR wireless headphones so you get rid of the mess of power and headphone cables.
4) Bigger screens (on some) than portables.

Don't need a stereo either - I can just wear my iPod earbuds and drive, too. : )

 

It depends on who's watching it and how often it's going to get used. If it's to entertain someone in the back seat a few times a year on long drives a protable is enough. For everything else a bult in system might be worth it.

 

well but you can't take it with you...so say you can't take it out and watch it in the motel room....that sucks

 

It is what it is. I personally would rather have an installed system in the car. I can watch movies on my laptop if that's what I want to do...

 

That's what we do. I rigged up a system to mount a laptop on the console between the front seats (Suburban) so the kids can watch movies when we travel. Bigger screen than most built in systems and we generally take the computer with us anyway. If I were buying a new truck, I'd consider a factory builtin unit, but the cost of retrofitting one vs using a laptop is too high, IMO.

 

One nice feature of the installed systems is the wireless IR headphones, though... for kids.

Lets you listen to the stereo : )

 

Yes, that would be nice. For some reason, my kids really hate headphones. We tried it with a splitter on the laptop, but it just didn't fly. So I end up playing all the movies through the stereo anyway. I know all the dialog in nearly every kids movie now. I'm sure that will come in handy one day.


Are they really IR, not RF? I guess line of sight isn't much of an issue from an overhead console to the wearer. I know IR can be a bit of a pain for wireless headphones indoors.

 

If you think IR is a pain indoors, try wearing today's RF headphones and driving around the countryside.

Unless you use expensive spread-spectrum frequency-hopping technology, the regular interference is really annoying.

Trust me on this... it's been done.

 

Oh, I believe you. It just kind of surprised me because I've had some not-so-great experiences with IR headphones indoors.

 

The internal reflections off of the windows seem to help... and as you noted, it helps when the users are strapped into their seating positions : )