I watch esoteric movies, of course the player has to be hard to find.

April 24, 2009 10:22 AM

I have a bunch of AVI and DVIX movies I want to watch on the subway. Is there a cheap video player that can play them natively or do I have to convert them to something else?

I have a slim modded PSP, but can't get movies to play on it. I'd rather not spend forever converting them over to mp4 or whatever. I just want a cheap, not totally junky, media player that can play all sorts of files (sort of like a portable VLC player), but none of the ads I see mention anything about AVI. Thanks.

posted by history is a weapon to Shopping (12 answers total)

I dunno what qualifies as "cheap" for you, but I got my brother an 16GB Cowon O2 (review) for about $220. It's pretty nice, looks better in person than in the pictures -- kinda like a thicker iPod touch. Anyhow, it's one of the few portable devices out there that plays DivX files natively, it's got a big screen, and it takes SD cards if you need more space.
posted by LordSludge at 10:43 AM on April 24, 2009

Using Handbrake, you can queue up media to convert, and run it overnight. That's how I keep my iPod fed, and it has pre-sets for the PSP as well.
posted by Oktober at 10:47 AM on April 24, 2009

The Sansa Fuze is a good option - cheaper than the equivalent iPod. Videos do require conversion, but it's relatively quick and painless. Note thought that videos will only play properly from internal memory, not from SDHC cards. But having the ability to expand the storage capacity fairly seamlessly is a real plus for audio and photos.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 10:50 AM on April 24, 2009

How about a cheap, old laptop? There are also portable DVD players that will play DIVX.
posted by Otis at 11:16 AM on April 24, 2009

My creative Zen Vision M can play divx stuff natively, as long as the res and framerate aren't too high. This is an older player now with a small screen but I imagine more current offerings from them might also support these formats.
posted by utsutsu at 11:21 AM on April 24, 2009

I just got an eee pc 900ha for this. 8.9 inch, it's basically the same size as those portable dvd players. I don't even really copy movies to it, I just copy them to a flash drive from my desktop and when I leave for work in the morning I grab the 900ha and pull the thumb drive.
posted by syntheticfaith at 11:35 AM on April 24, 2009

I do as Oktober does, but using Visual Hub instead of Handbrake. My iPhone always has a movie or two on it for the subway/airport/plane, and there's like 40 more waiting on my computer to swap in as needed.
posted by rokusan at 11:39 AM on April 24, 2009

(Not to mention last night's Daily Show, etc.)
posted by rokusan at 11:39 AM on April 24, 2009

I had a Creative Zen Vision W that played divx. A larger portable (4.3" screen), mainly for video than music. Has a hard drive.
posted by wongcorgi at 1:59 PM on April 24, 2009

Portable players probably won't mention "AVI" as a supported format. Even Anything But iPod doesn't list AVI. Instead they list: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, WMV, MVK, H.264, Other

Technically, AVI is a container format, which can contain audio and/or video, and sync the audio with video. That means something.avi can refer to a wide number of encoding formats (typically DivX and XviD).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:48 PM on April 24, 2009

a tapwave zodiac can be picked up for fairly cheap off eBay, great screen and audio , coupled with tcmp software, and you have the ideal pre- iPod multimedia device. plus great gaming etc.
posted by spyke23 at 3:06 PM on April 24, 2009

2nding the eeepc. I've got one and watch videos all the time.
posted by thekiltedwonder at 5:04 PM on April 24, 2009