DigitalSandbox

Finding ways to entertain the Things on 12 hour car trips to Nama’s house has always been a struggle. They are too young for car games. Books and toys are only good for about 3-4 hours. The only thing that seems to really hold there attention is movies.

But those portable DVD players are actually surprisingly cumbersome to use. You can’t mount them anywhere except between the seats since both kids want to watch. Hauling around a CD case of discs isn’t too difficult, but I don’t like doing it. I only carry burned CDs in the car as a theft protection ? that has already saved me once ? but burning copies of DVDs requires a SuperDrive, which I am sadly lacking.

All this has lead to dream of a Better Way?. My ideal setup would actually not involve a DVD player at all. Why bother with discs and such when you can simply carry all the movies you want on an iPod Video.

Imagine a setup where you mount an LCD screen in the car. Not a 17” or anything. Just one of those little 7” jobs. This could be a permanent installation or temporary. Then you simply plug it into your iPod and away you go. Select a movie fromt he iPod and enjoy the sound of no screaming kids.

When I mentioned this idea to The Wife she thought it was an awesome plan. That is, until she heard the price. See if I already had and iPod Video it would be easy. A screen can be found for $70 at Target. You can probably find them for less elsewhere, but I haven’t actually looked yet. But spending $300 on an iPod Video was the problem in my master plan.

So I was left with only my dreams ? until today. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but I already have a perfectly viable media jukebox in my possesion. My trusty Mac Mini.

Unfortunately, I didn’t come up with the idea myself. I found it here. But man is it a thing of beauty. Hook up a Mac Mini to a screen and stick the whole thing in your car. The tricky part is how do you navigate the system to select which movie to play? Well, thanks to Front Row, that’s no problem at all. No keyboard. No mouse. Just my handy dandy Sony Ericsson T610 and Salling Clicker (I may have mentioned this program before).

Now all I need is a screen, a DC inverter, and a DVI to S-Video adapter. Hey honey?