DVD Solutions for persons with limited dexterity?

December 19, 2005 2:19 AM

DVD Solutions for persons with limited dexterity?

My younger brother has cerebral palsy and can't use DVDs because of a lot of factors related to his dexterity - he can't handle the discs properly, he can't properly get them in and out of their cases, he can't seat a disc properly on a tray-loader. His primary hobby is watching movies on video and the ruggedness of VHS has allowed him autonomy in watching so far, but as that technology passes I want to make sure he can keep enjoying himself without having to rely on someone to work the equipment for him.

I've considered massing blank VHS and simply dubbing new releases as needed, but that's an unattractive option to say the least. I also considered a sort of juke-box system to minimize disc handling, but my brother is largely illiterate as well and relies on box-art and labels to recogize his choices. I figure it would be easy to use a specialized PC to rip and store movies as well as create an on-screen menu for selection, but my brother lives in a small group-home filled with kindly support-workers who wouldn't be a lick of help if something went wrong with such a system.

Is there anything that somehow gives a DVD a ruggedness comparible to a VHS cassette - i.e. can be set down less than gently, not repackaged properly, and inserted into a player without too much care as to aim - without compromising playability? Or barring such, some ultra-cool way to circumvent the problem that requires only occasional access to the DVD media itself and allows movie selections to be made from a very graphical source?

Bonus points for the solution that keeps the experience closest to using VHS, for the sake of my brother's very habit-driven lifestyle.

Thanks in advance to anyone who has any ideas.

posted by chudmonkey to Technology (14 answers total)

Can he remember the order of dvds put into a multiple dvd player?

It all depends on training - his personal level and cognition and function will determine what sort of system you get.

It seems to me that some lengthy training with your brother of the dvd system would be useful - one with a remote control, and certain buttons on the remote taped over and others color-coded, would be a good solution.

Training is more important than technology choice in my opinion.

As regards ruggedness, I'm not aware of such a solution. The solution described here would require carer intervention less frequently, at least, and would be relatively cheap for you.
posted by By The Grace of God at 2:51 AM on December 19, 2005

When CD-ROM drives were new, some had the discs encased in a plastic box (I thought it was called a caddy) - with the box being pushed directly into the player much like a VHS cassette. I've often been frustrated by the disappearance of this, especially given the advent of rentable DVDs which frequently skip due to fingerprints all over the disk.

Doing a bit of searching I see that DVD RAM disks for videocameras come this way, but initially I can't see suppliers of DVD movies in caddies, or indeed DVD players which accept them, but something tells me there *must* be something out there.

I'll keep searching, but hopefully this might jog someone's memory!
posted by nthdegx at 2:55 AM on December 19, 2005

I don't think sticking to VHS as long as absolutely possible would be so bad. Get one of those combo VHS/DVD things.

Or maybe you could slip the DVDs into some kind of cartridge like those 6-cd changers. I just don't know if they make players like that... google fu says, kinda.

Or, Sony makes a crazy 400 DVD changer that you or the support-workers could stock. Pioneer makes a 301-disc one...
posted by fleacircus at 3:14 AM on December 19, 2005

When I saw your post, I was thinking media server with on-screen menus, but I can see why you'd reject that as impractical.

Completely blue sky here, but if I were going to do that, I'd take the opportunity to completely rethink the user interface... how about empty product boxes with embedded RFID tags? Toss the box onto a receiver, and the movie starts playing. Take the box off, the movie stops.

Back down to earth, is your brother going to be able to play the film once the DVD is in the drive? DVD menus aren't standardized, and you generally have to navigate via the remote. If not, and you go with discs, you're going to have to spend some time stripping back the junk until all you've got is the movie, and it plays on insert.

Have you tried contacting experts at this stuff, and asking them? I'm not sure what you'd call them, but I guess they're the people you call in when grandma's getting on a bit, and they install a stairlift, walk-in bath, TV remotes and phones with XXL buttons, stuff like that.

I'm kinda surprised a ruggedized DVD system doesn't already exist, considering the number of DVD discs I've seen trashed by careless kids. It's a really interesting problem. I wish you luck finding a solution.

Hmm. I wonder if fleacircus' 400-disc changer accepts Sony's S-Link protocol.
posted by Leon at 3:40 AM on December 19, 2005

You can make backup copies of DVDs that you already own by using a PC and software. Strip them of UOPs and menus and copy the main feature along with primary audio (don't select DTS). You will end up with a movie only copy without a menu that will play from the beginning of the movie. If you combine a bunch of these with a DVD jukebox player along with a binder with color copies of the DVD box art this may work - as long as operating the DVD jukebox can be made simple enough. You can find information on backing up DVDs via videohelp.com.
posted by plokent at 6:37 AM on December 19, 2005

Maybe get him a mega-changer, one of those childrens remote controls (http://www.weemote.com/, more for the big buttons than anything else, since you hadn't mentioned if he had difficulty with remotes) and then print out and laminate a report from DVD Profiler with the box covers and associated positions in the changer. No text required.
posted by softlord at 7:02 AM on December 19, 2005

The Pioneer 301 disc changer is great (the F727), but does not have the kind of visual interface you're talking about - it's all text. The Sony 401 disc changer (the cheaper one) is AWFUL. While it purports to let you do visual browsing of movie titles by screenshots, the interface is so slow as to be totally unusable (several seconds to load each screen of 5 or so movies).

However, I believe that some of Sony's higher-end models do have serial ports (is that S-Link?), so if you're so inclined, you could probably hack up a PC connection to remote control it via some barcode or rfid thing as indicated above.
posted by Caviar at 7:57 AM on December 19, 2005

I sent this along to the DVD-List to get the pros’ opinion (mail me directly and I’ll forward responses), but obvious options include:

1. A player that uses caddies.
2. A tray-loading changer with a large target area. Mine always shows two complete DVD recesses. It might not take too much fine-motor control to half-arsedly hit one of them and scoot the disc into the recess.
3. A player with a pop-open lid, like some boomboxes today.
4. A combo laserdisc/DVD player, whose central recesses (12", 8", 5") provide a large target area (Pioneer makes one).
5. A slot-loading player. Depending on his control or spasticity, pushing a disc a little way into a small target may be easier than holding a disc and hitting a larger target.
6. Find a good-enough player and build a large columnar scoop with an angled platform around the top. It should be just slightly wider in diameter than a DVD. Find a way to open the tray (shouldn't be that hard – attach something to the Open button). He could place a DVD on the angled top, which would then slide into the column and down onto the waiting tray.

For storage, I would consider something like angled shelving with discs not stored in cases. Have the attendants drop by occasionally and, with permission, store and rotate them.

Navigating menus will not be an issue 99 times out of 100. Nearly all studio DVDs simply play when you press the Play button; many will play if you simply do nothing for a long enough time.

If it is at all within his cognitive function, work on improving his literacy.
posted by joeclark at 10:44 AM on December 19, 2005

thanks joe - I was gonna do the same thing.
posted by forallmankind at 11:20 AM on December 19, 2005

Response by poster: Joe, What do you mean by "a player that uses caddies"? Can you suggest some examples?
posted by chudmonkey at 1:43 PM on December 19, 2005

I currently have a chipped xbox with some movie-watching software on it... you can probably get everything you need for around $100.... (then how ever much you need for a hard drive...)

It's possible to navigate the whole thing with a remote, and the remote is RCA-compatible, so almost any remote would work (I'm thinking the larger button remotes...) If you throw a 250 gig hard drive in the xbox, you'd be able to rip DVDs from a PC to the xbox and be able to store nearly 350 dvds on it... on a 3 year old PC, you can rip 2-3 DVDs a day, so you should be able to keep ahead of his viewing.

I keep lots of tv-shows on my xbox... easy to navigate interface (arrows and a select button for navigating, standard vcr stop, play, FF, RW buttons for playing video...) means that even really little cousins can figure it out....
posted by hatsix at 3:48 AM on December 20, 2005

A day later I still haven’t found an external DVD player that uses caddies. However, DVD-List suggested a new PS2, which are allegedly top-loading.
posted by joeclark at 11:01 AM on December 20, 2005

At least some of the Panasonic DVD recorders seem to be able to play DVDs in cartridges (they call them cartridges now, not caddies, so maybe that's why your search didn't turn anything up). I'm basing that assumption on the fact that they have some cartridge discs listed in the accessories for some of the systems.
posted by Caviar at 11:46 AM on December 20, 2005

DVD recorders/players that take caddies tend to be Panasonics, like the DMR-ES10 and DMR-E100. Those seem to be obsolete models.

This would definitely require a visit to a store and an attempt to play a DVD-Video disc in one of these with a caddy. Note that they still might be tray-loading even with caddy compatibility, which may scupper the deal.
posted by joeclark at 12:00 PM on December 20, 2005