Could you live with composite instead of vga?

Chronic13 · 05-09-2005, 04:22 PM

I got a nice deal from bestbuy on their jensen indash dvd player, but its a composite connection. I know its not the best unit but I had a psp and got to upgrade to that for free. Now obviously the dvds would look fine, but would you be ok with it for gps? I want my install to look professional, but also hate the current sizes of the indash vga monitors, as they stick out alot, and it would mean I have to try and sell this while buying an indash lcd and a new radio head unit. Just wondering what you guys thought as a personal pref. Thanks

I realize its mostly preferance but I wnated to see what the general public thought.

hanzacra · 05-09-2005, 04:28 PM

Reading text would be a pain, and you'll definitely want to replace it if you're thinking of any serious PC use. Occasionally you need to edit .ini files, etc in-car.

Cris · 05-09-2005, 04:29 PM

VGA looks a lot better in general Windows surfing. Can't say i've used GPS on a composite screen before, but from what i've read on this forum, it's pretty readable.

xdjxklusivex · 05-09-2005, 04:34 PM

dont do it for gps :-D

if ur really good with electronics maybe you can buy a lilliput and swap out the **** and use the indash and still have the dvd work and all but ioNO if its possible :-D

Enforcer · 05-09-2005, 04:49 PM

Noooooooooooooo! don't go with composite.

nuff said.

DarquePervert · 05-09-2005, 04:58 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Chronic13

I got a nice deal from bestbuy on their jensen indash dvd player, but its a composite connection. I know its not the best unit but I had a psp and got to upgrade to that for free. Now obviously the dvds would look fine, but would you be ok with it for gps? I want my install to look professional, but also hate the current sizes of the indash vga monitors, as they stick out alot, and it would mean I have to try and sell this while buying an indash lcd and a new radio head unit. Just wondering what you guys thought as a personal pref. Thanks

I realize its mostly preferance but I wnated to see what the general public thought.

People want a screen with a VGA input for clarity, plain and simple. That's not personal preference. That's fact.

Bugbyte · 05-09-2005, 05:03 PM

Your font size will need to be in the neighborhood of 18 points to be readable with clarity. Not that you can't read smaller fonts, but in general television production, a readable caption or title needs to be about that size to ensure it is readable on a television screen. And that is what you are buying, the equivalent of a television screen.

With GPS, you could likely zoom in close enough to make it readable but you may find that your extremely close in on the map.

Try it out yourself! Hook up your PC to a televsion set and run your GPS software. If you don't have the right video card, many laptops have an S-Video output and you can try it from that. If it looks okay to you, great!

Cris · 05-10-2005, 05:06 AM

My back monitors are composite, and except for videos, you can't really use them. I run the GPS program today, and watched on them...you can't see much...the text is very unreadable.

stevieg · 05-10-2005, 05:15 AM

I used to have composite. I couldn't live with it. Total waste of money.

meddler · 05-10-2005, 06:57 PM

Absolutely not. I tried a composite monitor and it looked *****

NiN^_^NiN · 05-10-2005, 07:06 PM

I used a composite screen and it was fine

but it was a 7.6" lcd and i changed the skins to have scanline and alot of other stuff to make it look good.

But i got a VGA screen instead.

Get the composite screen if u don't have the money for the vga yet and then u can use it as a rear monitor once the vga comes in.

if u don't wanna use a rear monitor then save up for VGA

matthewtoney · 05-10-2005, 11:54 PM

Like many said already in this thread, if you're planning on doing any sort of "PC-type" things with it, then you will NOT be happy with the composite monitor. (I've not tried doing GPS with one but I expect the result to be similar)

I use composites myself, but my CarPC runs XP Media Center 2005 100% of the time (for access to pictures/videos/music/recorded-tv, etc.) - since it's designed to be viewed on a TV to begin with I find it incredibly usable on fairly low-end composite LCDs. Like I said in the subject, it all depends on what you plan on using your CarPC for...

Chronic13 · 05-12-2005, 03:31 PM

Awsome thanks guys, love the first hand experience answers, just what I was looking for.

Sonicxtacy02 · 05-12-2005, 03:46 PM

high quality composite + EZMagnifier was ok for me til i got a deal on my touchscreen

Tidder · 05-12-2005, 04:11 PM

Eh, I use a playstation screen with VGA input, quality is about that of a good composite screen. I don't do much PC type stuff with it though, and wrote my own frontend for winamp, with big buttons, big text. Fine for what I do. But I don't do GPS either. Fonts are hard to read, unless they are freakin' big. Like windows extra large fonts theme.