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Use your Portable DVD Player as a Monitor

video Use your Portable DVD Player as a Monitor

In this short video, I show you how to use the input function on your portable DVD player. 90 percent of decent quality portable DVD player's have this function.

This is a little simple for an instructable, but I use it all the time and I thought I would share.

Thanks for watching!

35 comments

Aug 3, 2010. 12:45 AMTheSmurf says:

Do this hack with a DVD player that doesn't have A/V IN ports. That'll impress me. Oh yeah... Please.

Aug 3, 2010. 4:17 AMcomputerwiz_222 (author) says:

"Oh yeah... Please." ????

Aug 3, 2010. 5:20 AMTheSmurf says:

I can add cream and sugar if ya like... A cherry maybe?

Aug 3, 2010. 8:27 PMcomputerwiz_222 (author) says:

What are you even talking about? These are the useless comments that clutter up Instructables.

Apr 13, 2012. 6:37 AMgeorion says:

yes.........you are cluttering gee wiz!

Aug 28, 2010. 4:34 AMaltomic says:

yeah, useless comments that clutter up instructables

Aug 28, 2010. 5:11 AMTheSmurf says:

No one has ever heard of 'pretty please, with cream and sugar and a cherry on top"? Wow. BTW get over it.

Aug 3, 2010. 9:35 PMTheSmurf says:

I was just putting out a challenge to do this hack with a portable DVD that does not have AUDIO/VIDEO inputs.

Sep 27, 2011. 4:05 AMqbrain says:

also whit this hack you can play DVD!!

just remove the jack! lol

Apr 15, 2008. 5:28 PMtimheppner says:

Interesting that you call this a "hack", when you're doing something that the DVD player was designed to do. A hack is doing something that the item you're hacking wasn't designed to do.

Dec 16, 2010. 5:40 PMmaddman says:

amen

Jul 8, 2010. 1:14 PMcliffyd says:

yes couldn't agree more!

Feb 19, 2009. 8:12 PMarcane2rox says:

This remark is as True as it gets. I am a hardcore non-stereotypical hacker. Hacking: Is to hack Hack: To use something beyond it's authorization or beyond it's normal purpose. or microcomputer user who attempts to gain unauthorized access to proprietary computer systems.

Apr 15, 2008. 5:52 PMcomputerwiz_222 (author) says:

lol - i no, its all in "selling the idea" I have been doing this since I got my player...

Nov 20, 2008. 9:51 PMSolderguy says:

I wouldn't recommend playing the Xbox in your car, as the vibration will cause the hard drive heads to bounce and scratch the platters.

Mar 14, 2009. 8:01 PM

ReCreate says:

yeah...get a solid state

Jan 2, 2010. 11:23 AMarduinoe says:

solid state on the xbox 360, i wish :(.

Jan 3, 2010. 12:43 PM

ReCreate says:

Anyways, It would take a lot of vibration to make the heads scratch the platters, HDD head's are mounted pretty tightly, Worst case scenario would be a File I/O error, And it would just try again.

Jan 6, 2010. 1:15 PMarduinoe says:

not really, if the hard drive is spun up then a small jost will render the disc useless. It will either die imediately or become more nad more unreadable voer time, a period of hours of usage. no big deal you say ?, xbox hard drives are extortionately priced, and are even more valuable if you have bought loads of games to go on it. everything own bar 1 computer and a server is solid state, hard drives are a ridiculous concept, they are so fragile yet so relied upon, especially in laptops which by there very nature are moved around and un avoidably jolted from time to time. Hard drives have there places, in backed up raid arrays in file servers. The fact that Micros**t would make the hard drive so easily removable was face deskingly stupid considering its sata which in this case is NOT hot swappable, i have seen my friends pull there 360 hard drive out of there xbox whilst its on and plug into a friends xbox only to find its unreadable, they have to buy another hard drive, the worst bit is, the hard drive is fine. just corrupted , easily solved. And to clear something up, a hard drive corruption is VERY different to a head crash or physical failure, the first can be fixed the latter can not.

Jan 7, 2010. 11:17 AM

ReCreate says:

OK, Though I think that they are a bit more fragile then they really are, I've dropped my laptop in all angles and diffirent HDD's, No problems what-so-ever, HDD's, Especially laptop ones have safety features, like parking of the head when not in use etc.

Aug 6, 2009. 3:19 PMChromatica says:

My bro has the exact dvd player but mine only has a Video / TFT switch will that work. I have the cables and av out

Jul 11, 2009. 7:33 AMterryandrea says:

my portable has rca ins on it and works great for a game system but what about a computer? I thought it would work fine but when I plugged it in and fired up the computer it came out black and white on the dvd player:-( I tried everything I could think of from changing the pal/nt settings to using different cables. Still black and white. If anyone has a work around for this please comment. Thanks

Jul 18, 2009. 3:42 PMScubaSteve says:

what color is the output plug on your PC? You have to make sure that you are plugging it into a COMPOSITE (Single RCA) And not into one of the 3 COMPONENT (3-RCA) plugs. Apparently, if you plug one of the certain composite outputs into a component input (I think its green) you get black and white.

May 28, 2009. 8:04 PMWarSaw says:

i have av in just not the switch :(

Aug 9, 2008. 12:17 PMcornboy3 says:

My fuse blows every time I plug in my xbox :(

Jul 29, 2008. 9:57 AMminime110 says:

would this also work with a computer if i had a video card with a composite video cord(the yellow ended cord)?

Jul 29, 2008. 11:53 AMcomputerwiz_222 (author) says:

Yes, it would work fine.

Jun 27, 2008. 9:40 AMmacwhiz says:

what type of dvd player do you have mine is audiovox

Jun 27, 2008. 12:06 PMcomputerwiz_222 (author) says:

It is an insignia... To be honest, it was brought in to my work and the technician couldn't fix it. So I took it home, swapped the laser assembly from a machine with a cracked LCD into this one and it works great! All of the laser assemblies are essentially the same, they just add little brackets and springs to them depending on the model. I removed all the springs and swapped them over. The thing works GREAT! I love free stuff!

Apr 15, 2008. 4:31 PM

ac1D says:

mine only have.. 2 out.. stupid dvd player..

Apr 26, 2008. 11:58 PMmunchman says:

mine only has out too.

Apr 16, 2008. 7:22 AMCADDBOY says:

Cool Trick- Where did you get or how did you make the commodore 64 emulator?

Apr 16, 2008. 3:22 PMcomputerwiz_222 (author) says:

That is my C64DTV. That is a great little toy that was sold for a few years. It is now out of production. I got mine on ebay... It is an entire C64 in a joystick. You can play the onbuilt games, or wire in a PS/2 keyboard and then hold K when it is booting to go directly into Basic Mode. It is an awesome little toy! I built an XE1541 cable and use my old 486 laptop to move new programs and stuff to it!

Apr 16, 2008. 11:14 AM

ac1D says:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=fr&rls=com.microsoft:*&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=commodore+64+emulator&spell=1

Apr 16, 2008. 2:18 PMlou_cyfer says:

thank you, mr. einstein ;)