Recommend me a TV/DVD for a boat...

[Jain]

Right, before I get a flaming for not just indulging in the lost art of conversation over a nice bottle of red instead, the only likely programmes viewed on this TV are likely to be In The Night Garden, Postman Pat, Fireman Sam and Thomas the Tank Engine. OK, and maybe Top Gear possibly.

However if anyone can recommend me a TV with the following attributes, I'd be grateful...

Bulkhead mounting
Durable, not going to break on a boat
12V/240V options
Some kind of built in aerial or solution that does not involve the effort and expense of a masthead dish thing
Built in DVD or ideally Blu-Ray player (for Thomas and the Dinosaurs DVD)
Headphone port (so I don't need to listen to Ringo Starr's dulcet tones)
Compact...around the 20" mark should be fine

Thanks in advance!

[CYO Admin]

Source of the post Right, before I get a flaming for not just indulging in the lost art of conversation over a nice bottle of red instead

Yeah, we don't do that here. Welcome to the best boating forum on the www

[tomschauer]

Most any LED TV with the DVR meets your spec. except the 240volt and built in antenna part. They all have the mounting holes on the rear, so you can bulkhead mount. Most are 120v with a transformer to 12vdc. A European model may be 240v- 12vdc. I don't know about the head phone jack, but a smart tv will have Bluetooth, so you can use BT headphones. I doubt you will find any sort of built in antenna, and if so I would think it would be useless anyway unless you were docked next to a broadcast antenna. You can buy some pretty small amplified antennas that will work indoors.

[km1125]

Personally, I would not recommend a built-in DVD player. You'll get a much better unit if you get an external, and it's easy/cheap to get an external one with Blu-Ray.

I do have a combo unit in our aft cabin and we constantly have issues with playing some DVDs that will play fine on other units.

[SplashyLady]

X2 on separate units - more flexibility and better quality than an all-in-one. I would go with a Samsung TV with a separate amplified antenna and a Sony 6700 BluRay player. I've used Samsung flat screens on my boats and found them very durable - buy a mount that suits your needs. I have one with an arm that swivels out into the rear sliding door if I want to watch from the cockpit instead of the salon.

The Sony 6700 is nice and also has very good WiFi capabilities and built-in Netflix and cast capabilities - it's quite small and you can use it either horizontally or vertically.

There are some nice flat digital amplified antennas out there for about $25 you can mount almost anywhere - check Amazon or somewhere and see what you like. The omni-directional amped antennas work better on boats IMHO.

Most electronics today use 12 VDC base voltage with a switching power supply so you can run 120 or 240 - but check first and you may need a new plug.

Good luck and enjoy the show!

[waybomb]

I have nothing to add to what's been stated, except, Welcome Aboard!

[denpooch]

I went with a Samsung 32".
Also mounted one of these behind the tv/bulkhead. Works well on the hook. Smart feature makes it work very well in a marina. Good hunting:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=indoor+hd+an ... _sb_noss_1

[Cooler]

Oddly enough, Harbor Freight has a number of mounting brackets at great prices. A bracket that turns and spins allows you to mount in one place but watch from several seating angles. I also agree with getting separate units. I bought one with a DVD player included, but it struggles with many DVD's.

[buster53]

OK, let's talk about the 240v option. You don't say what boat you have, so I can only guess...you may plug into 240v shorepower, but most likely, it is split into 2 circuits of 120v each. I could be wrong but I seriously doubt that all your electrical outlets are 240v.
Again, depending on what boat you have, even the appliances (AC's, stove) may even be 120v. Even if you have a bigger boat with major appliances needing 240v, your outlets will still be 120v.

I suggest adding your boat model, year, length, to your profile. Cuts out a lot of the guess work.

[Tireless]

My boat is 240 from the shore. Everything runs on 120, buster53 raises a good point. Any TV will do, just pick make, model and size.

As for a source, I have cable at the dock and I also use wifi and connect iPad to the TV to get Netflix. Some folks are using wifi and a streaming device and watch everything they need. A popular streaming device up here is a Red Rhino. Just not a great idea to use cell phone as a hot spot for watching television, uses a lot of data. I also have a digital antenna on the boat and that gives me 3 channels, if I was closer to a major centre I would probably get more. These antennas are not expensive.