Portable media player added to RV for less than $100
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 12:23 pm
I wasn't looking to do this project, but stumbled into it by accident. I got a "deals" email from Amazon and that prompted the idea.
When we travel for long distances we often rent 4 or 5 Redbox movies for the kids and wife to watch along the way. That works fine, but it is kind of a pain to find a Redbox to return them along the way or at our destination.
With this solution, I now have my entire digital movie collection (over 200 movies) in the RV always, for less than $50. Through a menu driven GUI on the TV screen, the family can scroll through the titles and select a movie with the remote control. The player uses either HDMI or composite audio and video (white and yellow RCA jacks). The media player works with photo files as well as music files.
The player has a USB jack for either a thumb drive or a portable hard drive. It also has an SD card slot. You could take your SD card out of your camera for example and put it right into this player and view your photos on your RV TV.
Here is a link to the media player:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006FN ... 05_s00_i01
I installed it by using 3M Command Damage-Free Hanging Strips (removable velcro) and attached it to the underside of the TV. There is an IR port for the remote control to work so you have to make sure that faces out. Here is a photo:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/v ... directlink
Next I bought a portable hard drive enclosure. I had a spare 500 GB 2.5" laptop hard drive laying around so I only needed an enclosure for it. The portable enclosures for the 2.5" drives are powered by the USB port so now power supply is required! In this case the drive gets its power from the media player's USB port.
I attached the drive to the rear of the TV using the same 3M strips. Here is a photo of the complete setup:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/k ... directlink
And from the front:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/a ... directlink
So the media player is powered with a power supply. The media player connects HDMI to the TV. The hard drive connects via USB to the media player. And that is it! You've got a portable media player in your RV for about $50 if you already have a hard drive, USB stick or SD card.
It remains to be seen how my mounting methods will hold up on the road, but since the command strips are removable, we'll just try something else if this fails.
When we travel for long distances we often rent 4 or 5 Redbox movies for the kids and wife to watch along the way. That works fine, but it is kind of a pain to find a Redbox to return them along the way or at our destination.
With this solution, I now have my entire digital movie collection (over 200 movies) in the RV always, for less than $50. Through a menu driven GUI on the TV screen, the family can scroll through the titles and select a movie with the remote control. The player uses either HDMI or composite audio and video (white and yellow RCA jacks). The media player works with photo files as well as music files.
The player has a USB jack for either a thumb drive or a portable hard drive. It also has an SD card slot. You could take your SD card out of your camera for example and put it right into this player and view your photos on your RV TV.
Here is a link to the media player:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006FN ... 05_s00_i01
I installed it by using 3M Command Damage-Free Hanging Strips (removable velcro) and attached it to the underside of the TV. There is an IR port for the remote control to work so you have to make sure that faces out. Here is a photo:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/v ... directlink
Next I bought a portable hard drive enclosure. I had a spare 500 GB 2.5" laptop hard drive laying around so I only needed an enclosure for it. The portable enclosures for the 2.5" drives are powered by the USB port so now power supply is required! In this case the drive gets its power from the media player's USB port.
I attached the drive to the rear of the TV using the same 3M strips. Here is a photo of the complete setup:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/k ... directlink
And from the front:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/a ... directlink
So the media player is powered with a power supply. The media player connects HDMI to the TV. The hard drive connects via USB to the media player. And that is it! You've got a portable media player in your RV for about $50 if you already have a hard drive, USB stick or SD card.
It remains to be seen how my mounting methods will hold up on the road, but since the command strips are removable, we'll just try something else if this fails.