Best In-Dash Multimedia Headunit

**Jekmyster** · March 21st, 2011 01:12 PM

Hi there, bit of a noob here, so need some advice. Ive read some of the forums looking for something that could help me decide, but did not find anything specific... so better ask my question...

I'm a Toyota Innova G model owner and i'm thinking of buying a new Headunit. But i'm looking for something specific and i was wondering if there are any available in the Philippine market.

You see i'm a bit of a gadget geek. Bunch of computers, smartphones, multimedia player both at home and portable ones. I'm not much into audio, but digital videos, i'm definitely a fan. I bough an archos 5 internet tablet and car mount for he innova so that i can play videos on the road for people in the car plus it also has a gps (its not that great but it works, most of the time). But the problem is that it has a small screen, only 5 inches. Then i saw that i friend of mine bough a pioneer in-dash multimedia dvd player and it had a large touch screen. Could even play other videos, i told myself that it could be the solution, but the problem was it was picky on the kinds of videos it can play.

So my question is, is there a product out there that can play a lot of video formats? Preferably with a suitable screen size? The ones i've seen on the market are mostly, mp4 player because there ipod compatible, and have divx wmv, mp3, and some have avi. But there are a lot of media out there. You have mpeg, you have MKV, you have OGG file formats, ACC, H.264 formats and the list goes on. I have the Popcorn hour at home for media players, i have the xtremer sidewinder for my portable, and i have the archos 5 also for portable but with a 5" screen, and all of these plays everything you can download from the internet. I was hoping that theres a headunit that can play the files these other gadgets could play. Input device is external, meaning the videos will be coming from either a flash disc or preferably an external hard disc, but if theres one where i can load videos on to it, that will be great.

The other stuffs are ok, if they're included like the gps and stuff, but primarily I just a good video player.

Worst case if that isn't available, can anyone recommend a good roof mount or in dash screen that has a/v RCA inputs? If there's no unit that can play all of these, i might as well use the sidewinder or archos as an output device and send the videos to another screen.

Thanks for the input guys.

**oj88** · March 21st, 2011 03:18 PM

I have a Kenwood 2-DIN HU. It can play almost all videos I have which I sourced from the Internet except mkv. I say almost all since there are still a small percentage of badly-encoded movies that it seems only VLC can open and play. But then these are few and far between.

FWIW, model is DDX8034BT.

**Jekmyster** · March 21st, 2011 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by oj88

I have a Kenwood 2-DIN HU. It can play almost all videos I have which I sourced from the Internet except mkv. I say almost all since there are still a small percentage of badly-encoded movies that it seems only VLC can open and play. But then these are few and far between.

FWIW, model is DDX8034BT.

I'm looking into the Kenwood model. It looks good. How much did you pay for it? Also how do you load the videos? usb? can it see a 2.5 portable hardisc like western digital?

I went to banawe and a shop there recommended the Pioneer AVH-P4350 dvd and the AVT EN-7210D. Both of these have roughly the same play functions as the Kenwood altho i still yet to find people who have these units for a good comparison for your suggestion. They priced these units at 25k and 30k receptively which includes installation already.

I just wish there was a place to test these units out so that i can do a proper video test of the video formats that they play.

**oj88** · March 21st, 2011 09:37 PM

Yup. It has two USBs. One is dedicated to my iPod Classic. The other is connected to a 320GB HDD. I like to keep music and movies separate.

I've tried out the AVH-P4150 and I didn't like it and replaced it with the Kenwood. I have a video of it in action here: http://m.youtube.com/#/profile?user=...HE&view=videos

Sorry if it's not too helpful.

**Jekmyster** · March 22nd, 2011 06:48 PM

Originally Posted by oj88

Yup. It has two USBs. One is dedicated to my iPod Classic. The other is connected to a 320GB HDD. I like to keep music and movies separate.

I've tried out the AVH-P4150 and I didn't like it and replaced it with the Kenwood. I have a video of it in action here: http://m.youtube.com/#/profile?user=...HE&view=videos

Sorry if it's not too helpful.

the link seems to be wrong. I keep going to a page where its a weird layout of youtube.