DVD + Blu-ray are becoming antiquated IMO. Great that you can screencast directly to the monitor. Also, you can save videos offline on a tablet and send to the screen via HDMI adapter. That’s our plan. We don’t personally own any physical content anymore

 

 

I own like 4 dvds. I have hundreds of downloaded movies, including all the disney movies for my daughter/future kids. Not a problem for me, but i'm sure others cough*texas911*cough will have a problem with it haha.

 

Connect an airplay device via HDMI. That’s maybe the only thing you can do to make that little FHD panel useful.

 

8-Track -> Cassette -> CD -> Streaming Music

It is just the evolution of car electronics.

Maybe the most interesting was the car phonograph player.....

History of obsolete car audio, part 2: Record players - Hagerty Media

A historic flop, but one not without a lesson.

www.hagerty.com

 

Interesting...I kind of just assumed it had a built in disc player, but at least there's a 110v outlet and HDMI port conveniently located behind the center console to hook up an external device to play the discs.

I don't know how convenient the outlet and port will be after they start putting the fridge/freezer in the Platinums though.

 

No dvd player not an issue for me. As long as I can cast Netflix/Hulu/etc to the LCD then I will be happy.

 

My new laptop didn't come with a disc drive either. Then it dawned on me I haven't used the drive on my old laptop for years.

 

As long as I keep sufficiently fresh Vaseline on the mainspring of my Edison Cylinder and Victrola disk phonographs, I can seemlessly listen to any of the media (2 minutes on the Edison, and over 3 minutes on the disk player) in my collection without continuous winding! My new Edison Diamond Disk player even has a long use sapphire stylus that keeps the grooves in the thick records in relative decent shape. I hear they should last 100 plays or more without severe degradation in sound quality! Oh how I love this new century!

 

Getting rid of disc players of any kind is the right choice for 2021 and beyond - it simplifies the internals of the head unit. It should have died out 5 or more years ago. Those formats are not meant for cars anyway. USB, SD cards, and stream casting are what matters in this generation.

 

Intentionally Deleted

 

Interesting... does that mean new car OEM stereos are no longer coming with disc drives for CDs either? If vehicles are going to a full disc-less entertainment solution, rear, front, or both; then it should have onboard storage options so that you can load up your music, movies, and images. I just don't want to have to rely ONLY on an external player like a phone or tablet.

 

You can load up anything you want onto a thumb drive and leave it in the car with all your movies and music. Even hard disc drives are a thing of the past. Everything is now stored on flash memory.
And since you can get USB drives with over 1 Tb of memory for under $50 bucks, Who needs DVD. But if you did want to bring your collection of movies with you which i can understand, just plug in you own player into the 1700 watt outlet and go to town.

 

Using a chrome cast is working for me but for longer trips I'll probably use my micro USB or lightning to hdmi cords and one of my tablets and or phones as the device. A USB port would definitely have been nice. Downside with chrome cast is it uses data while streaming.

 

Wait, it does? If I downloaded a show or whatever off Netflix and used Chromecast, what's the data being used? I've only ever used chromecast at home with WiFi and never considered this possibility.

 

I’m using an old iPhone with an HDMI Adapter, which works great. I download videos at home to apps like Apple TV, Disney+,Prime Video, and Netflix (update: had issues with netflix but that was fixed when I updated the app). Then in the car I plug it in and don’t need internet for the kids to watch. Note that you have to buy the $45 Apple Brand adapter for the apps listed above to work. The 3rd party adapters that cost $10 will only work with YouTube or other free apps (it’s something licensing related)

 

We got this van in late November and are really disappointed in this feature. The rear seat entertainment system should come with a sticker that says, "Only compatible with higher end Samsung phones."
From my testing and my dealership's testing, you have 3 options with this system...
1) Use one of the higher end Samsung phones (the A21 and below don't support Miracast)
2) Use an Apple device and the special cable from Apple (with which I've heard reports of mixed results)
3) Subscribe to the Toyota Data Plan for $20/month so you can use a chromecast

Suuuuuuuper lame. I've spent many many hours testing, trying, talking to Toyota support, and taking our car to the dealership. Our dealership has been great but Toyota support (Levels 1-3) have basically just said that this is the way it was designed... my interpretation is that they designed a system that is only works for a small percentage of the buyers out there and they aren't arming their sales people with that knowledge so they can end up with really unhappy customers.

 

Yes I must say the casting options are pretty frustrating. I couldn't get them to work. I only plan on using the rear entertainment system during long trips so I think the lighting/HDMI adapter is the best solution for me. I can sync some content locally on Netflix, Prime, Plex, etc for the times I do not have internet access. It's not worth the trouble of setting up a separate streaming solution for the rare times we will use the entertainment system.

For some reason, I could not get Hulu to play through the HDMI adapter. I wonder if there's some copyright protection that blocks it from playing externally.

 

Not the most integrated solution, but could you just buy a cheap DVD player and hook it up via the HDMI cable.

Something like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Player-Region-Output-Included-Supported/dp/B08319XH53/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=12v+dvd+player&qid=1612563331&sr=8-3

 

Not the most integrated solution, but could you just buy a cheap DVD player and hook it up via the HDMI cable.

Yes, you could do that, but that is pretty clunky. The kids will be kicking that around in the back, or you could string cables for it up to the front, but then it is a mess in your center console. Our van was over $50k and this feature itself was nearly $1,500... it just feels wrong to toss an old bluray player in there.

 

Just purchased an XSE today. Thinking of going this route to play ripped DVD collection:
Digital Media Player

Since it doesn’t need to be touched, once installed, was thinking about mounting it to the bottom of the “bridge” between the 2 front seats w/3m double stick tape. Will need to do a little more research tomorrow.

 

Miracast from my Android tablet worked perfectly. My favorite option so far. I can connect the tablet to my phones hotspot for internet data. Sync other content locally just in case.

 

Ya a cheap Samsung tablet seems to do the trick. Luckily for us we have a few laying around. My kids love using the TV now as they can cast whatever they want and even my 6 year old can do it. I only make sure they download whatever they are going to watch prior to the drive as to not use data.

 

If you have to take your tablet to stream, why not just use the tablet to watch?

 

Multiple kids and they don't need to hold onto the TV that is mounted on the ceiling.

 

we plugged in Roku. Works seamlessly

 

I had a 2016 sienna limited premium the video system was great had blu ray and SD card I would rip blu rays and load 20 moves on one SD and just let it play no need to fool around with menu systems etc on blu rays.

I just got a 2021 Sienna platinum wanted to get it before they put the fridges as I would never use it and it takes up space., very disappointed no blu ray.. or SD card reader. I ended up buying this I saw on an earlier post $37.99 on amazon, i just put the movies now on a USB stick
ripped still from my collection and same deal just keeps playing no stopping .The catch is you have to hit the 1500 watt button since it needs that to power it. Luckily my 8 year oldcan take the silver toyota controller to turn it on, then switch to this black controller below to go through the menu to start the menu.
This is way more steps than my sienna 2016 though which would just start playing as soon as I switched to "rear"
who wants to fool around with menu systems and devices? what a pain... my 2016 would just turn on and go... my wife loved how I set it up prevoiusly... now it's clunky.. it's just a screen.

Micca Speck G2 1080p Full-HD Ultra Portable Digital Media Player for USB Drives and SD/SDHC Cards

 

Found this on youtube what look like a dealer install option for the RES and it can play DVD. He show it close to the end of the video. Maybe for those who don't want the RES from Toyota?

 

Wow... I can't believe people are still streaming videos instead of having them stored on the brainstem cloud memory implants like the rest of us. Are you all cavemen or something?

 

Am planning to build out a raspberry pi based system with Kodi and a remote. this can then be connected via HDMI to the system and powered by a usb port. load all your videos into a usb drive and plug that into the pi and it would play them all.

 

Hi, what options did you go with and actually worked? We just got our Sienna and of course I did not know about the no DVD and CD, stinks! We bought a mini DVD player and only audio works, any idea if there is a specific kind of DVD player that actually does work and plays the movie on the monitor? Thanks!

 

any idea if there is a specific kind of DVD player that actually does work and plays the movie on the monitor?

Try a different HDMI cable. If not, the LG BP175 works perfectly for us and is only $60 on Amazon right now.