Performance Teknique ICBM-9939 TAN

Awesome

Great product, fast shipping! I highly recommend and will do business again!

Very good value for the money

I purchased one of these for my Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer, for use with a Pioneer AVH-X1500 DVD head unit. I gave this unit 4 out of 5 stars because of the value. You get a nice big screen for not a lot of money. Had I paid more (say $150+) I would have expected more and would have only given this screen a 3 out of 5.

Quick summary:
Pros:
* Very good value for the price.
* Hinges are firm and stay where put.
* Nice and thin when closed. Looks like an OEM screen (I used tan to match the interior of my vehicle).

Cons:
* No auto power off of any kind (including when closing the screen - it will stay on).
* Transmits engine noise very loud though wireless headphone IR emitters - a power line noise filter is needed.

Installation
Installation is really vehicle-specific. The screen has a thin metal plate that you mount to the ceiling, then there are 4 screws that attach the plastic housing of the screen to the plate. There are two video inputs that you can switch back and forth between, a single audio left and right input for the IR transmitter (used for wireless IR headphones which are not included), and a bare positive (fused) and negative lead for power. There is not independent wiring to power the lights. They are tied directly to the display power.

Hinge
The hinge is good and stiff, and the display stays where you put it. It can be laid back so far that screen literally faces straight down. Thus it would be possible to mount this screen on a vertical surface (a wall) and flip it all the way down 180 degrees for normal viewing (I may install one in this manner in my camper). The screen rotates to the left somewhere around 45 degrees, but it will rotate to the right a full 90 degrees.

Visual
The brightness is good enough for viewing in daylight, although of course if the sun were to shine directly on the screen it would be difficult to see. The backlighting is pretty even, but when the brightness is turned up high you can see some unevenness in the backlighting wherever there are large black areas on the screen. The resolution seems good, as it is hard to see the individual pixels of the display itself. However, the huge limiting factor with this screen, and basically any other standard screen too, is it is limited to the quality of a standard composite video signal. Just know in advance that the picture will look fuzzy compared most modern electronics because of that. In my case that is the best my head unit can output (it doesn't have HDMI, etc, output), so no matter what I'm limited to that quality. The larger the screen, the more noticeable the fuzzy quality of the composite video will be. I'm glad I did not go with a 15" display for that very reason - the fuzziness would be blown up that much more and be that much more obvious.

The backlight does show through the back cover of the screen, especially on the passenger side. Thus at night, when the screen is down and on, you can see it glowing through the back in the rear view mirror. Perhaps this is only an issue with the tan colored screen and is not as bad with the black housing. It is not a big problem, but at night you will be able to see the glow in your rear view mirror, however I got used to it quickly.

Color reproduction is decent. Viewing angle is also decent, but the picture does fade a bit as you increase the viewing angle.

Audio
The audio portion is the IR transmitter which allows listening with compatible wireless IR headphones. I used a pair from my Nissan Quest and they were compatible. The screen has two frequency settings for IR, as apparently there are (at least) two different standards for that. The default is what worked with the headphones I have. However, there is a significant issue that you will have to address if you want to use wireless headphones with this screen. It picks up engine noise really, really bad. There must not be any filtering at all in the display audio circuit, because it picks up noise like crazy (the faster the engine RPMs, the higher pitched the noise, etc). Thus if you do want to use this capability you will almost certainly have to put a noise filter on the power line to the display. That is something you may want to plan for up front while you're installing.

Power
I wired the screen so power is switched with my head unit. Thus when the car is turned off the screen automatically goes off. The good news is the screen properly "remembers" whether it was last on or off. If the screen was on when you turned off the car, then when you turn the car back on it will automatically come on too. If the screen was off when the vehicle was shut off, then the screen stays off when you turn the car back on. That's the way I feel it should work. HOWEVER, there are two big negatives related to powering the unit on and off. First, it does not automatically power off when you close it. It will happily stay on while closed, possibly running down your battery, without you knowing it. In the daytime it's not possible to know whether the screen is on when closed since there isn't an indicator light. That's a major negative in my opinion. Second, it will not automatically power off when there isn't a video signal. In other words it doesn't have any kind of "power saving" mode (at least not in the 10 minutes or so I've left it on to check). Thus it is pretty much a must to wire the screen so it is turned off along with your head unit, otherwise it's going to get left on unintentionally from time to time.

Power consumption
I measured power consumption at 1.1 amps (12V) on, and .04 amps off. That's pretty conservative - a deep cell battery like in my camper would run the screen for 100 hours continuous. However, it still draws too much power to be directly powered by a head unit's amp power output. You will have to use a relay if you want your radio to switch the screen on and off. In my case I simply wired the screen power to the ignition as I had plenty of amperage to spare. Same end result since my radio isn't smart enough to tell the screen to only come on when the video output is in use.

Lights
I don't have much to say about the lights. There is one LED in each of the two lights, and they have to be turned on and off manually. There is not separate wiring to allow them to be automatically powered when your vehicle dome light comes on. I did not check to see how easily they could be modified to be powered independently of the screen itself for use as a dome light replacement. Just keep that in mind if you wish to use it in that way. Also, I don't know that they would be a good dome light replacement - they certainly are not as bright as the OEM incandescent dome light in my explorer (which I retained as it is further back).

--Dan

awesome

Almost completely covers up the hole left by the factory screen in the Honda Odyssey. There's just a small crack between the edge of the screen assembly and the opening in the head liner. It does partially block my view from my rear view mirror so I may have to move the mirror down a little but it is nice to have a screen twice as large as the factory garbage. works great with the avh-x3500bhs. I'm thinking about adding a ps3 or something to the system now...