THE BIG PICTURE

Lucy to the Rescue

Scott Wilkinson  |  Mar 6, 2009

I'm looking for a DVD changer that will play five DVDs in succession with no intervention from the user. I have an elderly disabled mother who is terrified of going to sleep at night. She watches DVDs of I Love Lucy all night, but once I go to sleep, she can't change the DVD when it's over. I put an old Toshiba DVD changer in her room, but once the first disc finishes, you have to press Next Disc, then wait until it loads, then press Play. She cannot operate the remote.

Is there any changer that will bypass the DVD menu and play five discs in succession by itself? I tried a Samsung, which won't do this, and Yamaha tells me its changer won't either. If not, is there anyone who can modify a DVD changer to do this?

Dennis Senges

I know of no DVD changers that can do this, and I know of no one who can modify a changer in such a manner, which might involve changing the firmware. Even if you found a changer that automatically went from the end of one disc to playing the next, it would probably call up the disc menu rather than starting the program directly. Perhaps our readers know of an exception...

As for your mother's fear of sleep, I suggest trying soothing music and/or meditation CDs. At least CD changers can play discs in sequence. Even better, load an iPod with her favorite music. That will last for many hours with no pause in playback.

Now that I'm thinking about iPods, maybe you could rip the I Love Lucy DVDs to a computer, re-encode them in MPEG-4, and load them onto a video-capable iPod. That would take some work on your part, but I think they could be played back sequentially with no user intervention. I've never done this, so I'm not sure it will work. You might have to somehow delete the disc menu, but I don't know how to do that. Again, maybe our readers can offer a suggestion in this regard.

If you have an audio/video question for me, please send it to scott.wilkinson@sorc.com.

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