DVD Players

Archived Q&A and reviews ▼

Archived Q&A and Reviews

Questions

Portable DVD Player Rental

June 2006

Where can I rent a portable DVD player for use on a cross- country plane trip? We'll be gone ten days, but only really want the player for the airplane. I know I've seen kiosks for this in the airport, but the only info I can find online is for the ''InMotion'' brand, which, unfortunately, doesn't serve the airport we are flying to (Boston). Are there other services? Local stores that rent for reasonable daily rates? I suppose at some point it becomes more cost effective just to buy one, but I'd rather not.
Trying to make the flight manageable

Why not ask to borrow one from someone on the network? I bet you'd get one. Of course, you'd need to replace it for them if it was lost, stolen or broken - but I'm certain you'd take extra care with that in mind
-Sharing adults

July 2003

We would like to rent a portable DVD player for a little over a week to help our family have a comfortable 5 hour flight to and from our vacation destination. Any recommendations of where to go/who to call to do this? Thanks.

You can rent a DVD player from SFO in the Untited terminal. Check out their website, inmotionpictures.com. Jackie

Try this site. http://www.inmotionpictures.com/index.asp anon

Depending on your destination, you can just do it at the airport. At SFO and OAK there are Inmotion boothes that rent DVD players for the plane trip, and I think you can keep them for the week (additional details can be found at http://www.inmotionpictures.com/). I've rented a DVD player and movie from them several times - both to use at the airport while I waited for my connection and on the plane. It was fast, easy, and relatively inexpensive. They have a lot of children's titles available for rental. DVD fan

Looking for an inexpensive portable DVD player

September 2005

I understand a portable DVD player is key when traveling with toddlers. I am in the market for an inexpensive yet quality DVD player for some upcoming airplane travel. Can anyone recommend a good brand/model and a good place to shop? Thanks in advance. julie

I have a Polaroid PVD-300 DVD player. It has broken and had to be replaced three times in two years. From my research, it seems that most of them, cheap or expensive, break very easily and are not up to the usual wear and tear involved in carrying them in luggage, dropping from car seats, etc. I bought mine at Best Buy, with a full extended warrantee. That warrantee was the best investment I ever made. They have replaced mine on the spot; no questions asked all three times it has broken. My advice is to buy the one with the features and picture you like, and factor the warrantee into the cost, as it is a must. Anon

My husband bought a cheap generic brand DVD player on Amazon for a long plane trip with our 3-year-old. The battery ran down after about 45 minutes, so we were only able to use it for a small portion of our trip over, and not at all coming back (but we still had to lug it, the pwer cords and battery, and the DVDs we brought, for a week in our suitcase.) It stopped working altogether after the 2nd or 3rd time we used it and got added to the Big Box of Non-working Equipment in our basement.

Want to buy high quality portable DVD player

April 2003

We are interested in purchasing a portable DVD player for use on long road trips. We are looking for high quality, not necessarily the least expensive. We would appreciate any input regarding features (such as screen size), brands, likes/dislikes, etc. Many thanks. Erin

I travel for my work and found myself with lots of idle time in airports after 9/11. After renting the portable DVD player from http://www.inmotionpictures.com/ at the SF airport several times, I decided to buy the Panasonic model they were renting. The player is easy to operate and I figured it would not be too fragile if they were using them as rentals. The battery lasts for 5 hours. Our player has a 7'' screen and it seems plenty big to me for close range viewing on the plane or in bed. Headphones are a must. You can buy a splitter to connect two sets of headphones if you want to share the player in a public place.

I've had the player for over a year and been very happy with it. My 4 year old gets to use it only when we are on vacation. It was worth its weight in gold when she couldn't fall asleep after traveling to the east with a 3 hour time change. I went to sleep and she watched her video. When it was finished, she pressed the stop button and went to sleep. Dara

We bought one from Walmart.com for about 300. The brand name is 'Initial'. They have three models with different size screens. We have the 5.8 in screen which is fine. We love it! It comes with a remote, a car charger, and a rechargable battery. The battery charge lasts for about two movies. We use it as a last resort for eating out and long car trips and it has made life so much less stressful with our 2 year old in certain situations. Highly recommend it! Diana

DVD player for long car trip?

June 2005

We're driving to Yellowstone from Oakland in August with our 9-year-old and nearly 12-year-old. Everyone I talk to says a DVD player in the car would be a huge help. Where do I go to rent one (or purchase, if that's cheaper)? Also any recommendations for where I can rent or borrow lots of DVDs for 2 weeks? I am happy to pay a reasonable fee to borrow from anyone's personal collection of kid-friendly DVDs! Thanks for your ideas. joan

We're thinking about the same thing. You can get DVD's at most libraries. I don't know if you can keep them for 2 weeks, but it's worth finding out. Also try some Stories on CD. Have fun. anon

Just to suggest an alternative -- We've driven to Houston and back and to Yellowstone and back multiple times with our kids, beginning at age 2 1/2. If you don't want to do DVDs, you don't have to! We've always done books on tape. There are lots of great books on tape available at libraries; we'll usually buy a long tape for a really long trip. Cody's has some great choices if you want to buy -- we got ''Inkheart'' for our trip to Seattle at Christmas, and it lasted the whole way there and partway back. Too much video at my house already

We keep our 3 boys (ages 6,9, & 12) happy in the car by listening to recorded books - either CD's or tapes. They love it! Most libraries have them and there are also Internet resources for buying and renting them (Google ''recorded books''.) The Harry Potter books in particular are good and very long recordings. But we have listened to many others both classic books and contemporary ones. We prefer it to DVD's as at least the kids have to imagine the story in their heads. It is also possible to find old radio shows like Zorro and the Lone Ranger - very fun. Road warrior mom

Not sure where you can rent or buy a DVD. But I do know that my local library rents out DVD's for free. They have a pretty good selection and typically you can rent them for one week only, but you can extend the time frame by simply calling to request an extension,(anyday before they are due...) Might be a pain to call from your trip.... but if you want to rent alot of DVD's it might be worth the trouble to get a bunch for free! I belong to the Kensington library, which is part of the contra costa system. Not sure if you have to be a resident for it to be free. You might want to check out your local library to see if they have a similar system. Good luck. Julie

Feb 2004

We just bought a portable DVD player to make roadtrips more enjoyable for our 2 year old son as well as for us (last time we drove to Tahoe, he screamed more or less for 2-3 hours out of the 4 hour drive...). We are now, however, faced with the dilemma of how to install the player in the car so that he can see the screen without being able to touch or kick it. We've been searching high and low on the internet for some sort of contraption but the only thing we found was some sort of 3- legged construction that is usually used for laptops and costs around $300. We also found a carrying case at Best Buy that can be suspended between the two headrests, but it was also close to $100 and I think our son would be able to kick it in that location. We have a Toyota RAV4 which is an SUV, but on the smaller side.

I can't imagine that everyone has a car with a built-in DVD player and am assuming that other people ran into the same problem while trying to enterain their kids on the road. If anyone has come with or found a perfect (and inexpensive) solution ... please let me know !!! mom that wants peace on the road

We had the same problem with our DVD player. We ended up with a case by ''Case Logic PDK3'' which we purchased on line from BestBuy.com for $24.99. (It's $5.00 more in the store and shipping is free.) It hangs either between the two front seats or behind one of them. For the price we think it works great and my 3 year old can't reach it when she is strapped in her car seat! Susan

We, too, use a laptop computer to play DVDs in the car. The space between our two front seats happens to be perfect for the laptop. The computer sits snugly on top of the captain's chair armrests and is strapped down with a bungie cord. Short of that, I was set to buy/build something to sit on top of the center console to provide a stable base for the computer. I even considered a blanket folded up. Thinking it would provide a base and cushion the ride. When there's a will... Good Luck. Steve