[mrwalker]

OK I did search the forums a fair bit but I didn't see anyone installing video in a Wagon R
So here goes....

Requirement:
Vehicle primarily used by wife with 2 kids at the back for in-city trips or occasional longish drives. Thinking of the video setup to
- Keep the kids occupied
- Upgrade capabilities of existing audio system (esp USB, Aux In)
- Add some zing to the almost 6 yr old car!

Budget: 15K ideally

Existing ICE Setup:
- 6 yr old Sony Explod CD receiver, no USB or Aux In
- 4 Sony speakers (typical 2 front, 2 back in 5th door setup)
- Roof antenna

Future ICE Setup (Proposed):
- Retain speakers and antenna plus wiring. As sound quality OK and budget limited
- Add Sony MEX-DV1606U (Quote Rs 11,800). Cheapest decent quality brand HU I could find that has
- USB/ Aux In video play capability
- Range of video formats supported esp MPEG-4 which really trims video file size
- Thereby making it viable to carry kid's short animation videos in a USB stick
- Add roof-mounted LCD (display only) once again cheap but decent quality, dealer had
- 9 inch Voyager V-9X: Quote Rs 7,500
- 7 inch ProSound : Quote Rs 8,500
- 7 inch Necvox : Quote Rs 6,500

Setup Options Rejected
1. Not in favour of headrest mounted as
- more likely for LCD to be damaged by the kids
- can't tilt down to face kids so viewing angle would cause picture quality loss
- Will need to install 2 which would break the budget AND the Sony MEX-DV1606U has only one video out. Dealer suggested forking this output but doesn't sound like a good option
- Wiring via headrest and seat seems more likely to break during use/ maintenance

2. Not in favour of DVD player + LCD monitor combos as
- Difficult for wife to control while driving
- decent quality branded ones will break the budget
- Cheaper ones don't have USB video play capability which is a must-have.
- Some are also battery powered which creates painful charging business.

Buy Back:
- Old Sony CD Receiver (no Aux in, USB): Rs 1,500 quote

Questions:
- Can I do better than the Sony MEX-DV1606U with this set of reqmts and budget? For example is there one that doesn't have a CD/ DVD but only USB, AUx-In and Radio?
- Sony website lists a set of 'approved' 3rd party USB pen drives for this model that are all low-capacity. Only high-capacity USB sticks approved are Sony. But can I use some of my existing ones, e.g. a very nice 8GB Transcend with the player?
- The manual says something to the effect that video-playback will work only if hand brake engaged and there is a wire that is supposed to be connected to the hand brake. How is this to be bypassed as clearly the driver can't see the roof mounted video!!
- 9 inch LCD seems right but Voyager V-9X intrudes into rear-view mirror by an inch. But the holder is much larger than the screen possibly because I think the same one also houses their 12 inch LCD. Can I get a good compact 9 inch in 5-6 K so as to hit the overall 15K budget (after adjusting for buyback) with some nego?
- Good dealers in Pune for this setup.
- Any flaws in my thinking re headrest mounted or DVD player combo LCDs?

Thanks!

[ramie2400]

first of all the prices you stated are exorbitant way to expensive.Secondly if you try to hook up LCD screen with the MEX1606 i can bet you the screen will have alot distortion and poor quality output except the Necvox screen.

Also the player is not capable of playing videos thru USB until you spend hours in decoding to the correct format which will take ages.

Sound Quality wise i would give it 3/10 as you will hardly hear any sweetness of the head-unit,lack of mids and hardly any noticeable highs playing in your songs will always remind you for the purchase :d

I would suggest find the JVC kd-dv7404/05 or 06 all the 3models are same except for cosmetic color difference.with 3 preout 5-band eq,24bit - DAC.

The drawback of this player is its dated and does not have a music media search feature,probably the only head-unit in India Ive come across can play anything and almost everything via PnP thru USB..Thanks

Ramie

[mrwalker]

Thanks for the reply Ramie.

Re prices, how much of a discount should I be getting over the printed price on the box for these products esp. JVC and Necvox?

Re sound quality, its not a big deal as the constraining factors would be the existing Sony speakers and the fact that WagonR sound dampening isn't the greatest..

But the problems re having to spend time re-encoding to the correct format that the Sony player can play would be a real drag.. I had a closer look at the Sony MEX-1606U specs, their MPEG support is "MPEG-4 Simple profile". From some hunting around this seems to correspond to the MPEG-4 Part 2 standard and implementation codecs include DivX, Xvid, QuickTime and Nero Digital . So looks like H.264 and AVC codecs are not supported which makes the whole MPEG4 support a little pointless...

I went to another store and got a quote of Rs 11,900 for the JVC KD-DV5506. Comparing this to the KD-DV7506 mentioned in your mail the main differences I could see were
- Additional sound outputs (2nd line pair, sub-woofer) in 7506: Which doesn't seem a problem with my very basic speaker setup
- 7506 is DiX Ultra certified while 5506 is just DivX certified. From Google I see "DivX Ultra ensures support for the creation and/or playback of enhanced DivX video, which includes video menus, chapter points, slideshows and other media features"... Well I can live without that
- 5-band EQ in 7506 vs 3-band in 5506
- 7506 has the ability to direct disc/ folder select and skip fwds/ backwards.. And something called Dual Zone function, all missing in 5506

Overall the KD-DV5506 looks like it can do the job for me..

He also showed me a couple of LCD screens. They are marketed by AutoCop and made by a Korean co (URL: www.xm.co.kr)
- 8.5 inch LCD TFT: XCM-850: Quote Rs 7,000
- 10.4 inch LCD TFT: XCM-1048: Quote Rs 8,000 (multiple AV input)

Even the smaller one obstructs the rear-view by an inch or so, so I need something a little more compact, but still 8.5-9 inch ideally.

Apart from Necvox are there any other brands you would suggest where I can get an 7-9 inch LCD within budget?

I would like to very much stay within the budget as I'm getting cold feet at spending anything more than that on such an old car... And when this one is sold will be hard to re-use this system as all new cars (top-end) come with an inbuilt sound system...

[mrwalker]

No joy...

Saw the Necvox 9 inch roof mount RE-9269.. Seems like a good product and also quite compact so wouldn't interfere with the rear view mirror's view.

But its all (player + LCD) much more expensive than I expected, without exactly what I needed (MPEG4 H.264/ AVC support)..

And the use case is looking a little weak, do I really need the kids watching video on longish drives?? Maybe not...