[bob]

On Feb 2, 12:59 pm, wrote:
"bob" wrote in message

oups.com...



On Feb 1, 12:34 pm, wrote:
There should be a DVD player that has a USB computer input--preferably a
portable one. Is there?

The purpose would be to allow one to play CD/DVD/HD over an audio system.
e.g. I have an external hard drive loaded with 1000 hours of music in
compressed form. I plug it into a USB input on my computer and I can
listen
to almost anything. Navigation is through the computer display. A
portable
player has the advantage of a built-in display, which makes it
unnecessary
to connect your audio system to a TV set in order to select the pieces to
be
played. I've seen lots of portable DVD players at a reasonable price,
but
I've never seen one that could be connected to an external hard drive.

In addition to a USB port, there are two other things you'd need that
are missing from the typical portable DVD player:

1) iTunes-like software to manage your music

2) a user interface to control the software

Throw those in, and the product you're describing already exists. It's
called a laptop computer.

That thought occurred to me. Unfortunately, there are no cheap laptop
computers. What I really need is an old used laptop computer with line only
operation. It wouldn't even have to have a color display. It wouldn't even
need a hard drive. But it should be able to play DVDs.

Oh, you want *cheap*. Could be tough. Laptops old enough to qualify as
cheap may lack USB ports, a DVD-ROM drive, or both. (But why does it
need to play DVDs? Don't you have a separate DVD player for that?)

I definitely see the need. I store my music on a computer upstairs,
which can feed my stereo wirelessly. I can control that (also
wirelessly) from my laptop. I sit in the living room with the laptop,
telling the desktop computer to send music to the stereo in my living
room. It works great--but I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't already
have the laptop.

bob