Easiest way to play MPEG/AVI etc in car?

[MidnightGTR]

Heyas.

Ive got a new online hobby of collecting music videos on my comp, and was thinking about how much effort and money would be involved in setting something up in the car to play em.

I know the little 7" or whatever screens are pretty cheap these days, made in china shit or whatever I dont want fancy brand name shit, just something cheap that works, what do you guys recommend and who should I buy it from?

Secondly what would be the easiest way to play them, im thinking a laptop would be a ass to have in my car, and I like my ps2 in the lounge room im thinking I will just have to convert the mpegs into a dvd cd and find some sort of dvd player to hook up to the car, what would you guys recommend there? preferably something small so can fit in the glovebox or somewhere easy.

I could get a friend to hook it up for me, but wheres the cheapest places to buy a small screen and dvd player?

Any advice is appreciated guys, I know little when it comes to audio

[Jay95R33]

How about a player that will play AVI, MPG, DIVX, DVD, MP3, and a heap more stuff. Is small but comes with a 40/60gig hard drive, outputs all types of format (HDTV, PAL, NTSC), doubles as a portable hard drive, and costs (with the hard drive) $310..

Well that's what I got anyway, the thing is awsome.

Check it out :

http://www.airlinktek.com/english/prod_mg25.htm

Do a search on 'mediagate mg 25' there's a few places that are selling them now. I got mine from www.itbox.com.au

http://www.itbox.com.au/catalog/product_in...a49d2fafd8c96c9

J

[paulr33]

Hey MidnightGTR,

I have a 7" LCD TV Carrozerria (Pioneer stocker from Japan) which came with the car. I wasn't too fussed about using it but found its controller box and cranked up a normal dvd player (home one). Found out it needs NTSC, yadda yadda yadda, so went look for a cheapo home brand car dvd player to do NTSC I was keen on a VIRCOM i think it was model for around 850 it had detachable face, remote, NTSC and PAL, input output 5.1 audio all the usual bizzo.

Then I found an el-cheapo Zylux DVD Player which was $330 brand new from JB Hifi (stocker audio retailer [in vic anyway], i think your in nsw?). The unit fits in a 1 DIN unit however it has no brackets/mouting kits. In my S2 R33 it pokes out a little bit because its hitting something at the back of the DIN area (no idea what) so it doesnt fit 100% in and you'd have to drill holes in the caseing or something so you could screw it in. That being said it comes with Remote, 12v DC and ac adapter power.

It doesnt have detatchable face. The remote sensor is moveable (it has a sensor block thing on a cable) so you can mount the unit whereever you like and just have the sensor on your dash. It does NTSC and PAL. has on screen setup menu (fairly basic) and does usual functions such as stereo / mono, im pretty sure it does 5.1 and also has fast forward skip etc. Also plays any dvd / vcd / svcd / mp3cds and even it plays mp3 files on a dvd image. I simply tapped the 12v DC into the cigarette lighter main power so it was fused as well and it works fine. When playing a movie if you turn the car off it will not save where it is upto it will simply just start from the begging when you power it back on. If you press the power button on the unit and "turn it off" then turn the car off it does save where it is upto in a movie/dvd. All in all the unit is a fairly good cheapo solution to car entertainment.

Supports almost any media type, I'm yet to find a media that wont play in it. The unit firmware or code I think is a little buggy like I've had situations where a certain DVD will just not play or eject, it will just try and load it and lock up, only fix is to kill power and turn it on, whilst turning power on hammer the eject button and it comes out straight away before it spins the disc up and goes into the stupid loop again. It plays fine with travelling, ie bumps in the road etc, doesn't have an AUS handbrake lock device/setup so you can watch stuff when you like.

The unit can also be used at home (with its 12v adapter) if you are feel like testing with it what not.

[paulr33]

that thing jay posted looks like the goods, being able to just add movies without burning media would be sweet. how does it work in terms of car power and turning on/off with the car jay?

[Jay95R33]

G'day Paul,

Yep, works well for that kind of stuff (watching without burning). And instead of having to save a 4.4gig dvd movie, you can just backup it to Xvid which is only 700meg

The unit runs off of 5v DC (comes with it's own AC adaptor), but doesn't come with a DC-DC adaptor, but I just popped down to DickSmith and bought a DC-DC adaptor that plugs into the cig lighter for $25. The adpator has switchable voltage outputs (3, 4.5, 6, 9v) and the unit works perfect on both 6 and 4.5 volts.

The things I'd like to change about the unit is that you can make up a play list to play a heap of MP3's or movies which is cool, but once you turn the unit off the play list is lost (it's not saved), and when your watching a movie and you turn it off it doesn't start from where you were etc..

It does have something about resuming, but I'll have to look into it further.

It's firmware upgradable and they are bring out new firmware every 3-4 months so it can play other types of media too - the last firmware upgrade let it play WMA files So maybe they'll make it so the playlists can be saved

I use this unit heaps in the lounge room and over mates places too. Really easy to set up and with the mega high res video output and the digital audio output it damn great

J

[MidnightGTR]

that mediagate looks like the way to go, now just gotta find a lcd screen. thanks heaps for that jay, saved me alot of messing around.

I remember reading ages ago that there are generally 2 sizes, 7" and 9" or something and the bigger was better for the few extra dollars, is 9" the way to go or am I thinking of 5" and 7" or something.

thanks for your post too paulr33

[dangerous_daveo]

that mediagate looks like the way to go, now just gotta find a lcd screen. thanks heaps for that jay, saved me alot of messing around.

I remember reading ages ago that there are generally 2 sizes, 7" and 9" or something and the bigger was better for the few extra dollars, is 9" the way to go or am I thinking of 5" and 7" or something.

thanks for your post too paulr33

Dude just wander down to JB, see what they have down there. Be smart and take a disk along just to see what the quality is like. Last time I was down there they had some pretty big screens (for inside a car) going pretty cheap.

The other option I can think of is getting a cheaper laptop, and somehow fixing it so when you open your glove box the laptop opens??? Its something I've wanted to do for a while. Have a looky in to it anyway.

[Jay95R33]

If you've got a spare DIN spot try and get yourself a cheap indash screen. Or even a cheap indash TV

But the common sizes for indash are 6 and 7 inch. I think the 9 inch ones are the roof mounted ones.

J

[Jay95R33]

Just about laptops in cars. There's a heap of good software that is basically made for incar laptops.

Here's one good example;

http://www.mediaengine.org/index.php

The great thing about laptops in cars is GPS navigation - for a pretty cheap price if you look in the right places...

[MidnightGTR]

I think ill be grabbing me one of these mediagate things soon, just what im looking for.

Ill have a look at JB also but coolpc have a 7" flipout lcd that fits in a din for $350ish here, only thing is I dont have a spare din I was thinking of just replacing it with my headunit but the mediagate has only 2 channel whereas my mp3 player has 4x 50w I think