One of my pet peeves is to get out on the water, with only the blissful sound of the wind and waves, and then have some &%$*^@! young pups show up in a power boat, blasting their rap music across the water out of huge speakers. Why in the world do they want to get out into nature, only to destroy nature’s serenity, let alone ruin the peace-and-quiet of other boaters? There should be law!
Perhaps for this reason, I have never really been tempted to install an elaborate stereo system in Harried Potter. When we’re on the water, and either the Admiral or I want to listen to some music or —more often the case— an audiobook, we’ll use our iPods. They are capable of also showing video, and thus we have found that it is rather pleasant, when settled down for the night in the v-berth, to watch a movie on them —similar to what we do at home before falling asleep.
Nonetheless, our iPods’ screens are rather tiny, especially when two people are trying to watch a movie at the same time. And using dual earphones is something of a hassle with all the wires strung around the bed and pillows. I therefore decided this year to break down and install a bona fide portable DVD player in Harried Potter for those evenings when we’re overnighting on Lake Powell or Bear Lake. I did a bit of research, and finally decided on the Philips PET 1030 model, for a variety of reasons:
- It had a comparatively large screen: 10" diagonally.
- That screen had good resolution and color.
- The lid could swivel 180° and fold back down flat again to watch the screen.
- The sound was surprisingly clear for a portable player.
- It came with a custom bracket for easy mounting and removal.
- It could run off of its own rechargable internal battery, but also came with both an AC adapter and a DC plug for a cigarette lighter.
- It had a remote control (essential when watching a movie in bed).
- It had a wide varity of plug receptacles, including video input (from our iPods), ouput to other displays, S-video, earphone ports, even a USB port and a slot for a flash memory card (like the one in our digital camera).
The obvious place to install the DVD player was at the foot of the bed, i.e., at the bow of the cabin. After carefully measuring the dimensions and space needed, I decided to install the mounting bracket along the bottom of the louvered hatch into the rode locker. Below, on the left, you can see the bracket, held into place with two bolts through the hatch door.
|
|
A mounting “arm” snaps in and out of the bracket, as shown above on the right. That arm holds an adjustable bolt that finger-screws into the bottom DVD player. Below on the left you can see the player mounted on the bracket with the lid shut. Given its somewhat protected position at the bow of the v-berth, it is relatively safe and secure there, so I feel completely comfortable leaving it mounted when towing Harried Potter or on the water. You will see in the photo that its power cord is plugged in; I later covered both that cord and the line in from the iPod with white slit loom so that they are not so noticable.
|
|
On the right above you can see what the DVD player looks like when we open and swivel the lid, then close it flat again to watch the screen. It is also possible to control the DVD player with the buttons upon the bottom of that screen, just in case the remote gets lost somewhere in our sleeping bag.
Speaking of the remote, I stuck some velcro on the back of it, as well as on both sides of the cabin wall, close to where are heads are when in the v-berth. I also used velcro to mount a holder for an iPod on my side, as you can see on the left below.
|
|
The DVD Player is large enough that we can see it just fine while sitting in the dinette seats having dinner, as shown on the right above. You might have noticed above that the black power cord is connected to an extension near the ceiling in the photo above to the left. This was necessary because the DVD player’s DC cord wasn’t long enough to reach all the way back to the cigarette lighter plug of the front of the sink’s cupboard. Although I could have spliced the extension, I decided to leave the large connectors intact, as seen on the left below.
|
|
The method to my madness was to also accommodate a dual plug, if need be, just in case the batteries ever ran down in both the DVD player and an iPod. That way I could run and charge them simultaneously from the boat’s batteries, as show above on the right.
Below is a short clip from a movie playing on the DVD player, in case you'd like to see and hear it in action:
 Pirate Ship in “The Goonies” (320x240, 800 KB, 1 minute 2 seconds) |
Okay. Maybe having a DVD player in the boat is a little over the top, an unnecessary luxury, but the Admiral and I really do love spending a cozy evening in the v-berth, watching a good movie. We might not have a 40-foot yacht, but we do have at least one of the comforts of home!
