Current Events > Is there a way to play dvds, on a tablet device?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Surprised there's no tech for this yet, I think there might be a market for this. I've got hundreds of DVDs but after moving around nothing to watch them on. I really wish I could just have them play on my tablet for portability
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Yaarghh

I think they have Bluetooth dvd drives, but I could be mistaken.

If not an external cd drive should work.

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You can rip them in a folder format and play them withe menus and extras on PowerDVD, or you could rip the video file and they'll play on any media player.

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I think it could be there on Ebay. There is a lot of gadgets there.

The raw DVD no. There's not going to be drivers for it. None that work well anyway. You may be able to get some kind of iso playing app. Haven't looked into it but it's just ARM+Linux under the hood so it should be possible.

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Sign up for a Vudu / Movies Anywhere account and download the app(s) to your devices

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If you're talking about a detachable PC that runs regular Windows, then yes, absolutely - just need a USB optical drive. (And maybe a USB-C to regular USB adapter, depending on the ports the tablet has.)

If it's Android / iOS, then that's a bit less certain. You can still get the adapters to plug an external drive in, but while this works fine with eg. flash drives or mouses or keyboards, I don't know how good the support would be for optical drives; keep in mind optical drives were basically dead when iOS and Android first came out, let alone when they gained support for USB devices. But at least on Android it's fairly possible there'll be an app for it (rooted device may be required).

Otherwise, you could always use a PC with an optical drive to rip the movie to a video file that the tablet can play. That's probably the more convenient approach.

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Mistere Man posted...

I think they have Bluetooth dvd drives, but I could be mistaken.

If not an external cd drive should work.

Huh, a bluetooth dvd drive that's an interesting idea.

I used to have a portable dvd player decades ago so something like that but for a tablet would be nice.

I currently have this crappy samsung "Tab A" tablet which not even the netflix app will play in HD for some odd reason...
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i know you can buy a USB based DVD/BluRay drive, but I'm not sure if your (or any?) tablet will accept an external source of video. do you have a playstation or xbox? because those will still play DVDs/BRs.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


i hope not. i prefer to own physical copies of things like books, music, movies and video games. i dont like owning a license to access content from a specific provider, i'd rather own the thing i want to consume. the only time i really buy digital is gaming on PC because there isn't really an alternative. if i could buy DVDs/BRs with actual games instead of a Steam installer with a CD key in the box, i'd be all over that.

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saspa posted...

Huh, a bluetooth dvd drive that's an interesting idea.

It's also a completely unfeasible one. The fastest bluetooth connections run at 2 megabits (0.25 megabytes) per second. The slowest DVD drives need to be able to read the data at 11 megabits (~1.38 megabytes) per second.

It could maybe work - though extremely slowly - for copying or ripping, but there is no way you're watching a movie directly from the disc at bluetooth speeds.

Now if there was one that connected over wifi, that might be feasible.

I currently have this crappy samsung "Tab A" tablet which not even the netflix app will play in HD for some odd reason...

That's weird. The Tab A does have an HD display, so it should be able to.

i dont like owning a license to access content from a specific provider, i'd rather own the thing i want to consume.

You only own a licence with physical media too. The only difference is that the source you install from is a disc, instead of the internet.

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It is weird. I think youtube can play in HD, but I checked netflix playback specification and the maximum resolution is "SD" and I have no idea why.
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