Portable dvd player or tablet

[lifeistooshort]

Before I start I have to warn that I am very ungeeky and have only just started using an android phone.

I have to go to Denmark on my own with my three kids. This will involve a long car journey, a long train journey, a wait at the airport and a plane. To save my sanity (and that of other passengers) I think it is time to bite the bullet and buy some sort of device to allow them to watch films on the way.

I just can't quite decide whether it is better to have a portable dvd player or a tablet? Pros and cons would help. Also which offers the best battery life and how much space do movies take on a tablet if I go for the tablet option (i.e can I have more than one film!).

Please help tech savy ones. Any advice would be much much appreciated

[lifeistooshort]

Just remembered and additional question: how many sets of headphones can I connect to one device.

Thanks you!

[lifeistooshort]

bump. Any one? I am a bit at a loss

[nannynick]

Most devices will only have one earphone socket, so you would need to use splitters. That may work ok for 2 sets of headphones, may or may not be ok with 3 sets (using 2 splitters).

Tablets are great but you would need to buy films that could be downloaded to the tablet and played multiple times without an internet connection. iTunes may allow that but I have not checked.
Size of movies varies, typically I find they can be 750MB-1.5GB. You would be able to store various number of movies.

If you were to use your existing DVD collection, they would need to be encoded into video the tablet could play. This is a very time consuming process depending on the processor speed of your computer (you would need a desktop or laptop with a DVD drive and you would need software to do the conversion).

For cheapness if you are to use your existing DVDs, then I would go for a portable DVD player. They start from around £40, though battery life may not that be that long - 2hours ish. So consider how you will recharge it - car power adapter comes with some of them, that may be handy. Denver Portable DVD Player

[browneyesblue]

I looked at some cheap portable DVD players last year, but all the ones I found were very quiet. I ended up returning the one I bought (I didn't think DS would be able to hear well it in the car), and a friend who had one said that hers was quiet too.

I ended up letting DS use DH's iPad. I downloaded lots of free children's programmes from iPlayer to watch offline, although the number of days programmes were available varied.

I also upgraded my Sky subscription temporarily so that I could download films to watch offline. I could also download TV shows, but found the range limited.

Argos sell a headphone splitter that allows 5 headphones to share here for £9.95

[nannynick]

That's a nice splitter... good find browneyesblue