In car entertainment options

[MisterP]

Figured Id find out what options there are for sound and video in my new wagon.

It has a double DIN standard Nissan CD unit in there at the moment.

My perfect choice would be a decent make,double DIN unit, with MP3,DIVx and DVD video playback and GPS integrated...but has to have a removeable bit..antitheft of whatever.
DONT want a cheapie as all reports are that you get what you pay for..unless someone has one and opinions to contrary?

Options I can see are:-
1/ Replace the standard jobby with a decent Alpine/Pioneer/Kenwood double DIN unit. Good sound, but most dont have DVD+/-R reading and no screen or GPS.
2/ Replace it with a single DIN motorised screen jobby. Not many around but screen stores away so no visable screen. No integrated GPS though.
3/ Splash the cash and get a proper integrated unit (Kenwood or Pioneer or Eclipse do them I think)
4/ CarPC/Carputer......geek the wagon up!!!

Anyone in the know with this type of thing? Im investigating all options as id also like to add headrest DVD screens at some point for the kids, but Id like to add them later on when funds allow.

Naturally Im looking at the most cost effective option too!!...

Any ideas?

[Kryzaach]

Put a good head unit and a xenarc touch screen in.

Build an in car computer:



Will do all that you ask for and more..

There are specific application packages that will place all that^ desired functionality at your fingertips...

Edit:

Done smartly, all this:

The setup is 4 x 12" Electro Voice Black Label Instrument speakers, with band pass filters between ~90 and 6800 hertz. I'll see if I can dig up the plans if you want to build some youself. These filters are fairly sharp fall off and chew a bunch of power on their own... together, everything uses about 1800W that is supplied by 4 jbl 700 series grand touring amps(they don't make the exact model anymore afaik(fully bridgeable))

There are 2 x MTX Thunder Road 7512 Subs bolted into an infinite baffle enclosure that uses the car's spare wheel well(coated with 2 layers of dynamat, to reduce boom). There aren't any filters on those as the amps used are old MTX D series(I think?, they don't make them any more, and I'd have to unbolt them to read exactly what they are.) which only pass low frequency signals anyway. These use about 1000W

There are 4 x 125w super tweeters running directly of the jbl amps as well for the high end. These have inbuilt crossover networks.

There are 2 x 50w clarion 6x9's and 2 x 50W clarion splits for the front running of the (old) alpine headunit(you can't even really hear these with the main system on, they're just for use when I have to drive the g/f somewhere as she hates the big system). Tunes etc are supplied by a mac mini with a solid state main disk and a carnetix smart power supply with ignition detection. The screen for the whole lot is a Xenarc 700IDT(which is a touchscreen)

I honestly can't remember the total cost but it was under 2000 Australian dollars.

Oh, also, I have 4 farads of capacitors on the system with a 300 Amp circuit breaker.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5I2D9I020Y"]YouTube - 300ZX 3500W Sound System[/ame]

Cost less than 2 grand AU

Given that, what you want to do could probably easily be achieved under 1-1.5 K I would think...

The screen can slide back into the dash when you aren't using it and the head unit is removable so you can make your dash look uninviting pretty easily.

[Kryzaach]

If you do go down this path, this:

Mp3Car Technical - MP3Car.com

is a good place to start.

[MisterP]

Cheers for the info Kryzaach,

Got into Mp3Car last week and nearly jumped in as soon as I saw roadrunner/ride runner and there was another frontend (not free) that you could buy WITH a GPS option..only thing that stopped me was not being able to find a 2 DIN screen WITH a DVD behind. Only way I could see was to place the DVD Drive remotely using a long SATA cable or something else have it in the CarPC, which means every time changing DVD means scrabbling around under your seat or whatever.
Tempting though...I rekon a decentish system could be had for just over 1K (single 2 DIN lilliput touch screen). Was thinking of using the dual core intel board, else going with the Atom board.
Shame most of it seems to be US based..but a better exchange means a better deal I guess!