If she can work this player I will get her a KINDLE FIRE for Christmas. She does love her books and is finally comfortable with technology - except the cell phone and the TV remote. It's a screamingly frustrating process around my house.
Okay, it didn't work. Any tips from my genius people aren't there? I have DVD-R Recordable discs and I want to transfer shows I have downloaded on bit torrent so that they can be played easily on one of those in car DVD players. The winrar file worked fine. The AVI one did not.
I FIGURED IT OUT ALL BY MYSELF SO I RULE THE WORLD AND YOU ALL MUST TREMBLE BEFORE MY MIGHT OR DIE LIKE ALL WHO HAVE FAILED BEFORE YOU!!!
Sorry...sugar low.
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6 comments:
You can't just drag and drop files to make a DVD-R data disc, Cal. A DVD player recognizes video/audio of very specific encoding arranged in a very specific file/folder structure. Get a disc burning software suite like Nero and use select the menu to master a DVD-Video disc. Then it will let you import your torrented AVI files after which it will transcode them to DVD-Video and master them onto the disc more or less automatically. If I were in your position, I'd get a stack of DVD-RW's so I can keep recycling them. It's unlikely your mother would keep the eps around to rewatch indefinitely. Incidentally, Philips DVD player decks tend to support DivX files in AVI container, but they don't have portable ones as far as I know.
Now, if portability really weren't an issue and you'd like to save yourself the expense of DVD-Rs, listen on for what I'd do. I'd get her a USB media player box, plug into her TV, and let her watch it off a flash drive or a USB hard drive. The WD TV HD by Western Digital is foolproof simple in operation and interface. I had one for a year or two and then gave it to my parents to watch downloaded AVI/MKV/MP4s that I load onto their USB drive whenever I'm home to visit. I used an Asus O!Play HDP-R1 for a year or two but I wasn't too fond of that, but that had a much more complex interface. I just got rid of the Asus and ordered a Sony N100 which not only has the snazzy Playstation3/Bravia HDTV style of crossbar menu interface but also has the full complement of connectivity/output ports. USB, HDMI, RCA/composite, component, Ethernet, Wifi. The ethernet/wifi is for Netflix and Amazon. The RCA/composite and component cover compatibility with older CRT TVs. The WD TV HD gen-1 and 2 boxes (before they evolved into the WD TV Live) still had native composite-out for older tube TVs, but the Sony is the most complete I've ever seen.
You can usually find deals on eBay or Amazon for refurbished 1st/2nd gen WD TV HD units for $60. That's my #1 recommendation. I've not only given this to my parents but also to my best friends living half a continent away who watch as much torrented TV episodes as I do. This holiday season I've seen the Sony N100 for $50 on Amazon/Walmart/Newegg, which is what gave me the impulse to finally upgrade out of the Asus HDP-R1. But the WD TV HD is great for simplicity and straightforward functionality.
Your mother would only have to power on the WD TV, hit "Enter" to go into the USB drive plugged in, and use arrow Up/Down to select the episode title or filename, then hit Enter to play it. It has the same Fast Forward/Rewind buttons as on a VCR or DVD player. And it has the Skip Forward/Back buttons just like on DVD players, which skips between AVI files like skipping tracks on a DVD.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Thanks alot. I never expected that much solid research. I will look at the other options you have given me. She is digging on being part of the digital age so you are really helping me out. Wait until she finds out I arrange for the grandkids to open presents on Skpe on Christmas morning.
Here's a nice one I found on eBay.
http://www.winavi.com/
and
http://www.elby.ch/products/clone_dvd/index.html
Do it just fine for me watch shows on my 7inch DVD while Colleen shops or is at Doctors.
Oh and it costs about 22 cents per disk of 4-5 hour shows so I don't use RW just cheap +R or -R disks
Why bother burning a disc? Why not buy a media center that you connect to your tv, then just transfer the downloaded show onto usb, plug usb into media center and watch...easy peasy
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