Elegant TYPE S

iTrader: (2)

Ok I need to here some suggestions as I've done some research. If you could build the ultimate system what would it be ?This is what I want to do. Right now I have:

Dom's Unit
PIE X3

I want:

DVD Player in the front compartment
Car PC in the trunk
2 Headrest Monitors for the Rear Passengers

Now I want the rear passengers to be able to control the car PC from there monitors. I would prefer if the monitors were touch screen. I would also like each monitor to operate independantly of one another, so one rear passenger can watch a DVD and the other rear passenger can watch the Navi Map on where we are going or browse the car pC functions.

I also want the passengers in the rear to be able to control the Navi Functions. like POI Search or input an address. And whatever the passengers in the back do I want it to not effect the front screen at all.

Please throw some ideas out there with it being the most cost effective way and also look as OEM as possible. I knwo this is going to be expensive, but I want to start building this.

Malayalee King

iTrader: (1)

you can do this with virtualization...one machine can host 3 separate windows sessions and they would all operate independently of each other and still use the same resources (hard drives, internet, what have you).

if you wanted all three to be able to have separate audio, i'd suggest tapping the front headunit into car speakers, and then wiring 2 separate audio outs (2 audio cards maybe needed) to the car pc for each back passenger.

on top of that, your passengers may need to log into the virtual sessions through the touch screen which maybe a pain in the ass.

better just get 3 computers

6MTUA5

iTrader: (2)

sounds like it's gonna be an awesome set up when you do it... keep us posted

noah82

You should be able to do everything that you listed except for sharing the GPS. There are programs that will use idling CPU and memory to create virtual desktops, but I don't think that the GPS software will enjoy being split like that.

Kennedy

iTrader: (2)

Why limit yourself to Dom's unit? If you use the avelectronics.com multi video switch, you can use 3 AV sources, and get a native TV tuner... and it'll allow your headrests to run an independent source as the Nav screen. It's like a Home Theatre receiver with multiroom capability.

I currently have:
- Ipod Nano for tunes
- PS2 in the glovebox for DVD/PS
- TV Tuner
- Mediagate in the armrest for ripped media.

and get switch between them at the touch of a button.

Just replace one of those units you see above with CarPC.

Someday I'll get those headrests done, and be able to really do it up.

BTW, met152 is YOUR GUY for this.

tejesh83

Neither the DOM nor AVElectronics unit has a high enough resolution to do carputing well. Reading any sort of text with those setups is very hard and will probably give you a headache.

You can feed RGB signal directly. This will give you higher resolution, 480x2xx (not sure of specifics), but it still not as good as aftermarket VGA touchscreen, but its should suffice. You need a relay to tap into the video signal of the nav screen, and either a scan converter or video card capable for csync and 15khz (most ATIs).

theklassic

You're nuts!

But guess what, I showed my brother your thread and he thinks its bad ass - he's just as nuts about crazy hookups. Ha!

I'm thinking out loud here, you'd have to first hook up the PC to the navi screen as well and get that working touch and all. You'd need to make sure that the pc video card supports dual display - and you'd need to set it to an extended desktop (one option) (so that you have have a separate area for each back seat person.

So you'd be splitting VGA on the card (very common now a days) and routing both left and right desktops to the Navi screen (you can toggle the display via a KVM like device), and 1 desktop to the back left, and another to the back right mons.

Additionally, you split the GPS via a software port splitter, and plug the rear touch screens into the PC. But, then you run into a problem with fighting for the mouse to control your individual screens.

--- Lots of other options here, but this is the most cost effective way without getting rediculous.

3PC's anyone?

Malayalee King

iTrader: (1)

you could install it per instance (per user), also virtual (mounted) discs/drives...i'm still with get 3 computers though

Elegant TYPE S

iTrader: (2)

Dam I didnt know this would be so complicated. 3 PC's .. haha. I might not be able to do all that I wanted I guess and have to tone down my enthusiasm. Maybe if I just allow all users to control the Car PC at the same time, meaning let it affect what I see on the front screen. Who else has ideas?

Elegant TYPE S

iTrader: (2)

I might have to get this because I think its the only unit that will let me output the navi screen to the other monitors. I could be wrong.

Malayalee King

iTrader: (1)

So i drew a diagram.

PC-A and CPU-A are for the front, PC-B, CPU-B, PC-C, CPU-C would be for passengers in back, respectively. SCR-A, SCR-B, SCR-C are the screens.

SCR-A would be a touch screen with 1 video input.
SCR-B and SCR-C would be a DVD slot loading touch screen that had 1) 2 audio inputs, 1 video input. Not sure if touchscreen slot loads exist in those slim units.

CPU-A have navigation software, 2 network cards, 1 audio out, 1 video out. Audio out would goto car speakers, video out would split to SCR-A, SCR-B, SCR-C. By doing this, SCR-B, and SCR-C can switch to see where the Navi is going. Each network card would be connected to CPU-B and CPU-C, respectively, with crossover cables. This will share the media stored on CPU-A to the rest of the machines.

CPU-B and CPU-C would have 1 audio out and 1 video out each to SCR-B and SCR-C, respectively. They would run CarPC software which would point to the shared drive on CPU-A or they would need to have media on their own machines (you can synchronize between the 3 machines so they all store the same thing or just read it all off of CPU-A).

SCR-B and SCR-C would have headphone jacks to support audio coming from CPU-B and CPU-C or from each own independent DVD playback.

So, all three screens have independent CarPC software with shared media. However, all of their mapping software would be separate and out of sync but one would be able to search for POI based on their location and enter addresses but no one but them could see it. Everyone can see DVD from SCR-A, however. Every PC with mapping software would need GPS receivers.

All three screens operate independently. One screen in rear can watch a DVD or CarPC media and the other can switch its video input to the DVD feed (or whatever you are watching on SCR-A) from the splitter.

I think this satisfies your requirements outside of cost and OEMness (well the last can be debated depending on how small your hardware is).

Also, I don't think anyone would want to go through the trouble of doing something like this but good luck!

I mentioned virtualization earlier, and the DVD stuff could operate independently, but logging each screen into the virtual session would be not be a clean approach.

...there is a lot of junk on my scanner and thats why i didnt attach a pic

caligirl2k

I know the thread is old but what was the out come ? Is it working?