I was browsing another forum site this afternoon where there was some discussion of the upcoming MR DVD collection. One of the responders mentioned something about putting a tv in the bathroom, where much of our best reading occurs.
WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!!
Of course, to be frugal about it, visit a pawnshop and look for a used LCD TV with a DVD player built-in, preferrably a 32-inch screen or larger (40 inch would be fine), for easy reading!. You mount the TV with one of those adjustable/angled type wall mounts (cheap ones are available at WalMart online store. Slip in one of the DVDs and away you go.
(to those mugs that say, just bring a PADD device in there, remember, you want the use of your hands!!!)[:D]
Otherwise, look for a good price on a retail unit (again- with the DVD player built in).
After dinner, just ignore your wife’s repeated demands as to when you plan to be finished “in there” !!!
Probably works great for that 1:00 AM subsequent visit, as well!!![;)][:D]
The wonders of technology- Neil B should read this one!!![;)]
a couple of pointers, first unless you are sitting on the throne 10 feet away you dont need a 40 inch. want is a different idea, lol. one inch diagonal for every 4 feet of distance ie a 6 foot distance would be a 24-26 inch tv.
aside from that the tvs with a built in dvd have a poor track record. if the player breaks the whole tv is dead. nice in theory but if i were to do it i would use a standalone player.
And, unless you have very good circulation/exhaust in your bathroom, steam could be an issue with any monitor or TV. Seems like a handheld portable DVD player would be more practical in this sort of situation.
Owen, could you please explain your formula again? I could see 4" diagonal for every one foot of distance. Otherwise, your math doesn’t work out.
Model Railroader magazine’s editor, Neil Besougloff, has written in another thread here that the DVDs won’t play on anything but a computer’s DVD player, not one that plays on a TV screen.
Here are some of his comments about the set:
"- E-readers, iPads, Nooks, and similar devices are all different animals that receive downloaded material from different places, such as iTunes, the Barnes & Noble Nook website, etc. And of course they don’t have DVD drives. So this 75-year set is not designed for those devices. The MR DVDs will not work on your TV set, hence the note about not working in “stand-alone” DVD players that are designed for watching movies or playing video games.
The 75-year collection includes all the pages, covers, ads, stories, etc. But the decals and any cardboard printing will not be part of the DVDs. The subscription cards (those small cards that are bound into the magazine each month) are not part of the DVDs."
So the OP’s idea is not so GRRREAT after all – at least not for the MR DVD set.
So you don’t believe it would work in a hand-held portable DVD player? Is there some sort of encoding on the DVD disc itself whereby it would only be accessible or readable via a computer’s DVD player vs. a hand-held DVD player?
We won’t really know until the set is released, but you probably have to have a mouse or other device connected to a computer to access the menus, navigate through the pages, etc., and most DVD players for a TV set usually can’t do that.
I have the National Geographic magazine DVD set and you can’t do anything with them on a DVD player connected to a TV set because the necessary navigation buttons are not available on a remote control.
The main difference is that a DVD player for your TV is made to play a continuous video stream, and a DVD set for a computer is set up to show only one frame (screen) at a time.
Nit-pickers??? I don’t think so. You present an idea on the forum and others respond with why it might not/would not work. I thought that was what forums were for: Discussion.
In regards to my earlier comment on steam, I mentioned it because my bathroom is L-shaped and quite small so a large (let alone a small) wall-mounted monitor or TV would NOT be practical in my sort of situation. If you have a more spacious bathroom - go for it! Good ventilation is still a must.
What everyone is referring to is a “data dvd” or dvd-rom, similar to a CD-Rom, but with much more capacity. All you would need in the throne room owuld be a laptop with a dvd-rom drive, which virtually all of todays laptops have. Just mount a fold down/up shelf to set it on.
While both movie dvds and data dvds can be played on a computer’s dvd drive, only movie dvds can be played dvd players.
How about a phone and a fridge to go with the TV and I would never have to leave the “Bathroom” other then go to the store to buy more supplies. (beer, chips, and T-paper).
I once saw a bathroom with a separate toilet room. When you opened the lid of the toilet the lights would dim. I always knew that using the toilet was a relaxing event, but do you really need automatic dimming lights? I have never understood the phone near the toilet either. Me being on the toilet is an excuse for not answering the phone.