Hi all,

I've been using an old iPaq mounted to the console to play movies burned from DVD into mpeg format through the E's stereo. There is free software out there that you can use to get the movies to a manageable size. There's a quality/size tradeoff but I'm getting around 250 meg per movie. Nice thing is once you burn them there's no need to cart your dvd's with you. Also it's a portable unit so theft isn't an issue. Not to mention the cost of DVD installation. iPaq plays mpegs in portrait or landscape mode and can pause/skip/rewind.

Added benefit is the unit doubles as an mp3 payer/gps unit and audio book player.

If anyone would like any info I'd be glad to post it for you.

Kind of a small screen no?

Sure but in Landscape mode you'd be surprised at the quality. My daughter can watch from the backseat or even hold the iPaq in her hand if she wants.

Budman,

?What is a iPaq player. I would like more info please.

Thanks,
Dave

Compaq iPaq is a PDA running WindowsCE operating system. Mine is a few years old. We were only using it to check mail from the family room over the wireless network. Rather than lay out the cash for a dvd system for the E I'm using the iPaq. Comes with Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, Pocket Word and Excel. I use MPEGTV as a movie player (it's free as are the programs you need to burn a dvd to mpeg file).

iPaqs can use expansion sleeves to add storage. Mine has a 512mb Pc card that I can swap with my laptop so I burned 20-30 movies and just copy the movie we want onto the card, then pop the card into the iPaq. It plugs right into the Aux jack in the E so we get stereo sound.

The movies are Mpeg so they can be played on the laptop as well. Each Simpsons episode is around 50 mb so we can take half a season with us or one full length movie. The screen's small (4") but I can take it with me (makes the 4 hour gymnastic meets we go to seem a little faster). One Simpsons episode even fits on my Pocket PC Phone Edition.

Our iPaq is a 3670 I think (couple years old, you can probably get one for under $200 - ebay has plenty).

Wha?!? My iPaq plays movies... man have I been missing out. I'll have to try this when I get home.

What is the software that you use to convert the movies down to something that will work on your iPaq?

DVD Decrypter reads a dvd and creates VOB files (these are watchable on a computer with dvd software like PowerDVD but are huge files) (takes about 5-10 minutes)
DVD2AVI converts the vob's to a wav file and dv2 project (can take 20 minutes or so)
TMPGEnc combines the files into an mpeg (this part can take about 2 hours for a feature length film). It has batch processing so I queue up a few and let it run overnight.

Took me a while to get the hang of it. I can send you some instructions if you like. You'll need a lot of hard drive space but once the mpeg is created you can erase all the other files.

This site has templates for TMPGEnc that are optimized for pocket pc's
http://www.mpegtv.com/wince/pockettv/template/

You can burn the dvd's according to your size limitations. I burn some for playback only on the laptop (high quality but around 1g per movie). Others are optimized for the iPaq and are about 250 mb.

You can also use a program called DVDShrink that lets you re-author dvd's to take out foreign language tracks and other stuff to make them smaller. This creates the vob files and can be used instead of DVDDecrypter.

Thanks for the info. I'll be checking those out.

Your welcome. If you have any questions feel free to ask away. The final step has a lot of options. The templates for the ipaq handle most settings for you. There are just a few things to watch if your DVD is widescreen (could end up distorted otherwise).

And if you do enough research into DVD ripping you stumble into the wonderful world of bootleg movies... It's amazing how you can download a movie, illegally mind you, only days after it is released to the theatres. Quality varies, but you can burn video CD's (VCD) if you only have a CD burner and still be able to watch them on your DVD player. Not that I have ever done this...

I use SmartRipper to pull the VOBs off of DVD's. The last time I went to Blockbuster they had a rent 2, get one rental free deal going on but I didn't have time to watch all 3 movies. So I ripped one to the hard drive and watched it a few days later by hooking an S-Video cable between my PC and TV. Ain't digital great!

[quote:b8263b8d69="Alien Element"]And if you do enough research into DVD ripping you stumble into the wonderful world of bootleg movies... It's amazing how you can download a movie, illegally mind you, only days after it is released to the theatres.[/quote:b8263b8d69]

Actually, you can get the movies before they are released. (but I don't know anything about that kind of stuff...)

As I was doing some research on how to rip to PocketPC format, I came across this very informative tutorial/article:

http://kim.biyn.com/78/Default.aspx

It provides step-by-step instructions and makes things very clear.

Of course, you should only do this if you own a legal copy of whatever it is that you're going to rip.

Hello Jimxenus, I notice you live in Ontario CA. Perhaps we have met? Becaue I live in San Bernardino, and have attended the meets in Ontario and Huntington Beach.

Ger, with the Flaming Box, roof spotlight and air horns.

Ger Brassfield, I don't think we've met since I've only had my E for 2 months (today is the anniversary date!). I went to the last meet in Huntington Beach but there were only a few of us. Of course, we might have crossed paths here and there :D

Well, I'm sure that if we had crossed paths, you would no doubt ever forget the flaming box. I'd send a picture, but they are too big and the smaller ones do not show enough detail.

Ger