Updated deal on 5.6" LCD Screen w/ remote $129+4.95 S/H

[Neuroanatomist]

<< I want to know can I use this as a second display monitor for my Radeon 8500. Since the Radeon 8500 supports dual monitor, it would be nice to had this small 5" screen as the second monitor. So I can know someone message me while I am playing games, or watch dvd while I am working. I wonder is the $89 one good enough for this purpose, the $128 one is ok too..... >>



I did that case mod using that $119 5" LCD from onthegoaudio.com on my Lian Li PC65.
The 5" LCD fits perfectly in the location where the three 3.5" drives go.

link to the original guy's case mod (Max PC rig of the month):
Text

I was disappointed by how washed out and blurry the pic on the LCD is. I don't think you could really use it for anything text-intensive... but I hooked up my playstation to it and it looked ok.

As for how it will work as a second monitor for watching DVDs on a Radeon 8500, there might be problems.
On my Radeon 128 all-in-wonder, the 5" LCD screen defaults at 800x600, and this in turn forced my primary VGA monitor to also be 800x600.
I ended up just running the 5" LCD off of an PCI radeon card. This way it does not interfere with primary VGA monitor and it mirrors my secondary VGA monitor.

You might want to first try to hook up a regular standard TV to the video out of the Radeon 8500 to see how it would work.

 

[Hawk]

Okay guys, I got the LCD already (pretty fast considering I ordered last weekend and it got to my house on Thursday from Canada!).

Anyway, I guess DuffmanOhYeah already did a little review thing. How do you hook it up to power?

I haven't really done a lot with it yet, but here are my first impressions.

The picture seems a little grainy, maybe because my power source isn't good or something, not sure yet. More on that later. I didn't think color/contrast/brightness was bad though (only tested it indoors at night, so don't know about the day time in the car).

It comes with a remote (haven't used it yet) and it has all the functions that is on the LCD (volume, on/off, timer, adjust color/contrast/brightness, and there's a store function, don't know what it does). Also comes with a little stand and a cable that has a video in, two bare wires for power (12V, <1000mA). The stand in the picture comes off, so if you want to mount it with something else you can. And also, it's supposed to be able to display the video upside down and left and right...don't know how to do that yet.

There are 2 inputs, but for some reason the cable that came with it has a in and an out, and I hooked up my DVD player to the video in. It goes to the V2 (or AV), it's for people to mount a camera into the back of their car to help back up because the left and right is switched. I don't know how to switch it back or anything, and V1 doesn't seem to show up with that one input.

Timer is a shut off timer, I think 15 minutes-120 minutes, 15 minute intervals.

The place didn't give me the dual input and car adapter as promised, btw, which is why I couldn't test it out very well yet.

Sorry this is kinda long and pretty unorganized. PM/e-mail me if you have specific questions. Overall I guess this is a pretty cool toy for 133.95 shipped, but if you are looking for the best, crystal clear LCD, you would probably have to spend more money. Should go perfectly with my cheap car. =)

 

[Hawk]

BTW, this might be suitable for adding on to a case...but it is kind of thick and the width is just a tad wider than a 5.25" drive bay.

And DuffmanOhYeah, could you explain TFT and cold cathode? One of the links on this page said that the (not this one) LCD is TFT but has a "long life cold cathode backlight" or something. Is that what you were talking about?

And I ordered the 129.99 one and powered it up with one of my ac adapters (perfect, 12V, 400mA) and also used a cigarette lighter adpater with two bare wires.

 

[GnatGoSplat]

TFT is the LCD technology. Cold Cathode is the backlighting technology. A cold cathode tube resembles a teeny weeny fluorescent light bulb.
Cold cathode tube is just a light source. The only relation it has to TFT is that most TFT LCDs use cold cathode tubes for backlighting.

 

[VisionsUCI]

i'd like to buy one of these to put in my car... how would i hook it up to the cigarette lighter? could somebody post the best way to do it? i assume that no power adapters come with it.

 

[VisionsUCI]

nm....looks like they include a car adapter now!

edit: I ended up buying the combo with the "av baby" mp3/vcd player. hopefully it'll work ok... i wish i could mobilize my dvd collection, but its ok... i could use the mp3 playback capability. hopefully they'll remember to include the car adapter for the monitor as well as the mp3/vcd player

 

[Hawk]

They said that about the car adapter when I bought it too...they just forgot to include it or something. I am trying to get one from them now.

 

[acedaddy323]

looks cool but how do you plan on using it in your car. maybe navigation system?

 

[Hawk]

Well, I just bought it to mess with it, maybe figure out how to put my DVD player and or Dreamcast and Playstation in my car as well.

If I had a tiny camera I could hook it up to help me back up too (that would so cool, no more getting out of the car and checking while parallel parking). =)

 

[VisionsUCI]

i searched around for a while and found some good programs that can convert divx and dvd into vcd files, if you want to get the package with the vcd players.
i bought the package, and as it turns out, they charged me for the new model LCD screen and the receipt has on it the cheaper one. grrr... i'm calling their sales line tomorrow and hoping that they'll let me inquire about my order. the sales line is toll free, but the others are all in canada.

 

[ironlungs]

If u guys are going to hook it up in your car then i suggest getting a power conveter! If not then it's going to drain ur battery dry! I think the best place to install those type of LCD screen is in the headrest. But that will cost you some money! VisionsUci, i use TMPGEnc to encode my movies to MPEG format. Sometimes you might have to change the audio format cuz its not support to encode. For that i use VirtualDub. VirtualDub is also a good program to edit the quality of the video. After all the encoding is done(with the AthlonXP 1800, it takes me about 2hrs to encode a 700-800mb movie.) My friend who has a Duron 800mhz takes him about 4-5hrs to encode. Then i use NERO to burn the movie to a vcd disc. Theres a lot to learn about encoding and to keep the quality of the movie. exp:Bitrate rate, FPS=frames per second, etc. Oh, back to the subject of the Mobile Video in your car. I would also suggest buying a kick ass stereo system! Some companies to think about when/if you guys decide to buy amplifiers: Rockford Fosgate(2000 series models are better), PPI,SoundStream,and Macintosh(if you can afford it). my second choice of amplifiers are Alpine and Kenwood. Honestly I think Sound Stream is the best for your money! Those amps produce PURE POWER! the specs on the wattage it produces are UNDERRATED! i have a cheap amp(we'll leave them nameless) that says it produces 1000watts 2channel bridge into 1 and a Sound Stream 2 channel amp that produces 700 watts bridged into 2ohm 1channel load. The Sound Stream amp produced VERY HARD and VERY tight bass to my 2 12inch JL audio woofers! You can notice the BIG difference between the cheap amp and the SoundStream! The SoundStream would over power the cheap amp(being if 2 cars were side by side one with the SoundStream and other with the cheap amp.) i am a type of person who LOVES bass and always had a system in my car ever since i started driving. My friends always suggest my car if we were to go watch a drive in movie! well, sorry to bore you guys! but if you guys have any encoding vcd questions or hooking up a stereo/video entertainment system then email me at: getlifted420@juno.com or if you guys want those programs then email me and i'll send the link to the site. They are demo verions of the program but there ARE serial crackers out there! feelin lucky?

 

[VisionsUCI]

Ironlungs,

Thanks for the post. I actually read every word. I'm using TMPGenc and VCDeasy right now. I have Virtualdub, but since TMPGenc has worked for all my divx to vcd conversions, I don't exactly know why I would need it. I found a guide on the Internet to follow, but I'll definitely send you an email if I have other questions.

There IS one quick thing, however: Is there a decently priced color GPS that we could use with this LCD? All the ones I've seen are super expensive. Cars come factory installed with some nice GPS units, and I'm wondering how I can do the same via aftermarket. Thanks again so much!!!

 

[ironlungs]

GPS products hope that helps!? well if you have hook ups at a local store then i suggest going there! like at good guys, the employees get a 10% below cost discount once a year. ive gotten many things at good guys for some really CHEAP prices!! :