DeathMetal

G'day,

Been lurking for a while, and I'm now looking to assemble the various parts to get a carputer going. I'm not after a super dooper setup first go.

For the visuals, I'm loking at
- in-dash 7-8" touchscreen
- two cheap headrest mounted LCDs (I've purchased these screens already, and are composite, not VGA...)

I don't intend to have the movies playing at the front, that's mainly to keep the kids amused in the back. I'm mostly interested the audio (mp3/wma playback) side of things, and eventally gps navigation, car diagnostics etc.

Has anyone setup a carputer that allows rear passengers to watch videos whilst having audio playing at the same time? I invisage having the video's audio playing through headphones, whilst the music is played through the usual stereo gear. 99% of the time, it'll be just audio anyway.

From what I've read, I think I'd need to go with the two video card setup, and I assume I may need to go with dual audio cards as well. If anyone has done this and has advice, I'd be most appreciative.

My factory car stereo utilises steering wheel mounted controls, volume +/- and seek (next track), which I'd also like to hook into the carputer if possible.

My other option was to do two seperate systems, one a standard audio setup with a headunit, and a rear video setup with a cheapo dvd player, but there's no fun in that...

MP3Car.com

 

Sonicxtacy02

Its gonna take a high end system (via OUT of the question), a video card with tv-out connected to a splitter goin to each monitor in the back with software able to display different images on different screens. I can recommend an nvidia geforce mx4000 (thats the one i'm using). Now for sound ur gonna have to decide if you want to dedicate rear speakers to dvd (pointless IMHO) or go with a usb wireless headphone set (My choice). Last thing you're gonna need to decide is how ur front end is gonna carry the task. Currently i think Centrafuse is the only dual screen enabled front end. I use rr and hopefully we'll have something for that soon. For now i just use rr on my main screen and when i want a dvd running in the back i just start windows media player. The nvidia software automatically sends the dvd playback full screen on ONLY the rear monitors. Quite honestly my computer isnt up to the task at times (its just an ibm 800mhz) But with a higher end processor it shouldnt be a prob.

lez

matrox marvel does the 'video to rears' automatically too, and they are cheap, and you get a video in and a tv tuner, its just a bit of a big beast with that breakout box.

you get a choice of drivers, xp very stable but limited tuner function, NT4 advanced features but you cant change settings (ie pal/ntsc)

thats how I run, using either frodo or RR, but I dont know how to get two different audio streams playing etc.

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nigwhyrito

I could be wrong for your situation. But another frontend that I use that utilizes front and rear screens is reddeaths mobile impact. It has a split screen button. As for seperate audio I am not sure it has been talked about on here like running two versions of winamp and stuff.

DeathMetal

I'll look up those video cards, the nvidia jobbie looks like a good option. I hadn't thought of USB headphones, I'll have to research that, sounds like a good option as well.

Thanks for the advice.

MP3Car.com