Serious Electronics Question: Portable DVD player -- add input

[ratzz]

Hi all,

I have a portable DVD player that has only outputs and I was wondering if there was anyone out there with electronics experience that could tell me if it is possible by way of installing various components to add a video input (no sound needed).

I think this might be aimed at chaps with much electronics experience(!?!).

Thanks in advance guys,
Simon

[drventure]

Hmmm. not likely, though, depending on how it's put together, you might be able to somehow split into the feed to the lcd panel inside, but I really doubt that as well.

It'll likely be a whole lot more cost effective to pick up a MIMO or some other cheap, smallish lcd screen with a normal input on it.

But, that's from the mouth of a software guy

[MonMotha]

Many of those cheap portable DVD players from a few years back were based on standard "DVD system on a chip" products and as such just dumped composite or s-video NTSC or PAL into an LCD with an onboard decoder.  If you can figure out the pinout of the cable running from the mainboard to the LCD in these cases, splicing in your choice of external video is usually trivial.  One that I yanked apart was nicely labeled for me

Dunno about the current design trends.  There's no real reason to build them that way other than to leverage the old off-the-shelf SoCs with analog outputs.  The analog video decoder for the LCD adds cost and a step in the video chain, so modern designs may run TTL digital YCbCr or RGB video (not analog) to the panels which would be a more typical "native" video signal for an LCD.

[ratzz]

Ok, I'll crack this thing open and post some pics.

I have a little electronics knowledge, and good soldring skills so lets see how far I get!

Thanks for your help chaps,
Simon

[ratzz]

Ok, there were three leads coming from the back of the screen going into the main board. I'm thinking that two looked like power, and the other was for video.

Does any of this mean anything to you tech guys?

I'm not a complete dummy but any pointers would be great ... thanks guys ...

[lilshawn]

your first photo looks like the connections for your speakers...not sure if there is anything else there too.

the second one could possibly have your video...what kind i'm not sure.

the third is possibly your power connections (just by the silk screened letting in the board it's plugged into.)




on your second photo most of the traces go down from the bottom of the connector and to the left....where do they go from there??? could you post another photo??