With a couple of long car trips on tap this summer it was time to address the backseat entertainment options for my 21 month old. He’s an antsy ball of energy that would rather run his head into the headrest over and over than be subject to a car ride longer than 4 miles.

Brandishing my iPhone and a streaming Netflix account like a sword in battle I felt confident that a solution was only a Google search away. What I discovered, however, through perseverance and several trips to multiple electronic stores is that one can never realize exactly how little the customer service people actually know.

The good news is the easy solution exists – but there is a lot of noise out there and plenty of ways to get tripped up along the way. The goal of this article is to save a few trips to the store and a few headaches to anyone who comes after me who chooses to pick this fight.

Goal
The goal, at the outset, seems simple enough.
“To harness the ability to stream Netflix and Videos from the iPhone to an external screen in the car while keeping the iPhone and screen charged.”  To be clear – I am not looking for a custom installation job here – just a temporary ad hoc solution that can easily be removed when not using the car.

Simple Enough. And here’s your grocery list complete with my Amazon referral link to help pay for all of the gas I used getting to and from Best Buy and Radio Shack to make this thing work:

• Griffin Component Video Cable for iPod
• Sony DVP-FX970 9-Inch Portable DVD Player
• Case Logic PDVK-9 7 to 9-Inch In Car Portable DVD Player Case (Black)
• Belkin Dual USB Car Charger for iPod (Black)
• Female to Female 3-RCA Coupler

If your car only has one Cigarette lighter then you’ll need a splitter not unlike this one:

• BESTEK Twin 12 Volt 24 Volt Input Car Cigarette Lighter Socket Charger Splitter 150W with Dual USB Ports (black) MRS152UV-3

Let’s break down picture style:

1. Plug the iPhone into your car charger
2. Plug your video cable into your iPhone.
3. Get your AV out capable CD player ready with the included RCA plug adapter
4. Connect the griffin RCA outs with the CD player’s RCA outs with a female-to-female connecter
5. Set the case up in the car, hide the cables, and you should be about ready to entertain

End result? Exactly what I was looking for…  iPhone streaming Prison Break (season 2) via Netflix to the Screen in the car while everything remains plugged in and fully charged.  Mission Accomplished!

Here is the setup: