I just bought a used car. The previous owner installed a Kenwood receiver (radio, CD, DVD, navigation, etc.) It’s cute, to be sure, but what exactly do the Kenwood folks have in mind for the DVD player? Obviously it makes no sense to play a DVD while the car is in motion. That leaves either (1) let the car idle for two hours to watch a movie or (2) run the car’s audio and video systems off the battery for two hours to watch a movie. I’m not keen on either of these.
So, what’s the idea here?
It’s so you can have picture-in-picture at the drive-in theater.
But, seriously, I’m pretty sure Kenwood figures people are just going to use it while they’re driving. Sitting in a non-moving car to watch a movie on a 4.5" screen seems kind of boring.
Tons of people eat lunch in their cars. Why not watch an episode of Family Guy?
On a coach on a motorway recently I noticed that a significant proportion of truck drivers watch DVDs while driving in the middle of the night.
A friend had one of these…he would regularly drive us into Boston for a night of clubbing and we’d play videos of techno songs and DJs to start the night early.
Isn’t the idea for the passengers, particularly noisy little kid-type passengers, to be able to watch DVDs and be entertained so they don’t keep kicking the back of the driver’s seat and cause the car to careen off the edge of the highway?
That’s the idea - but pay attention to the number of screens that are obviously mounted so that the driver can see them. That we haven’t heard a lot of stories about accidents and fatalities caused by a driver watching a DVD are pretty surprising.
Or maybe I just ignore the news a whole bunch.
-Joe
My mom’s new jeep has an indash DVD player. The only time it will work is if the car is in park. (Probably not the case on an after market install though). My feeling is that they figured that as long as they already had the big LCD screen in place for the Nav system…why not?