Congrats on the new car.

I just spent the last 4 years in product development consulting for a car video manufacturer. Forgive a long answer, please.

1) There are 2 basic classes of auto DVD player on the market.

- Japanese head-unit-made units, very high quality and reliability. Alpine, Sony, Eclipse (no MP3 though) each have these. Usually slot-load. Alpine's single-disc and DVD changer are both this type. Sony has one unit that looks like it's from the same OEM as the Alpine, then has a DVD changer that you shouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole (terrrible audio performance). The good ones in this class go for $300-600.

- Made in Korea/China/Taiwan units relabeled. MUCH cheaper, some have OK relialibility, often tray-load but some slot-load. Some have cruddy audio performance. Some have TV Tuners onboard (not a reason to buy one, TV tuner proformance in a moving car is not good). You can see these out there for as low as $99, but they tend to cluster around $150-250.

Not all the DVD players in the latter group are bad. It's just hard to predict, because the Chinese and Korean makers sell these to anyone with a PO book, and really don't do any of the custom production that we expect from a supplier. Their approach is "these are cheap, do you want one? Oh, you want a change? Screw off, we got plenty who will take this as is!" Trust me, I'm paraphrasing for brevity, but that'sthe conversation in a nutshell. Their QC varies a lot.

So the Myron and Davis, the Audiovox, the Rosen, the IconTV, the Directed, the Pyle, Boss Audio, Blaupunkt, some Clarion, all of these are straight off the shelf from one of several makers, and it's impossible for you to predict the quality - of the HW or of the audio (whichis often awful). They often have more than one unit, which have zero design commonality. Why? because they are worried about their supply chain.

For instance:

The Alpine 5210 has a suggested retail of $550. Blaupunkt is selling one with a price of $79 on Crutchfield.

How come there is such a disparity? Part of it is multiple layers of distribution - the product does get stepped on a couple more times. But a lot of it is the cost of being made in Japan or by a Japanese company - the QC, the actual PAYING of Dolby and the DVD consortioum for a license, stuff like that.

So you can buy a common DVD player and get OK performance and probably OK audio. But if you want the best (your words), I'd probably get the Alpine 5210 - even though it's a lot more money than other DVD players. Other choices I'd consider are the Sony DVX11A single-DIN, the Clarion VCZ625 changer, the Pioneer XDVP90 changer, and that's all I can think of right now. The Eclipse DV3101 is a great player, but lacks MP3 ability.

DO NOT BUY ANY OTHER SONY, OR ANY OTHER CLARION, and expect similar performance. You won't get it.

2) It is possible to install video off of the front panel. It's usually illegal, and it's also a bad idea, but it is possible. I have had good results with this:
http://www.tvandnav2go.com/index.html

3) Other things to consider:

- how to get audio from the DVD into the HU. Research that topic in this section, I've seen it answered. Also check http://www.janixworld.com/x5/AUX_Input/

- R seat IR headphone support. If you want the rear seat passengers to get infrared headphone audio WITHOUT installing a big black tumor in the back of your car, you better make sure that you get a headrest set with an IR *transmitter* built in. Many have an IR *receiver*, but you need a transmitter. I beleive that the SAVV preinstalled BMW headrest units have this, and I know the Directed MW units do. Contact me if you're looking for these.

- LCD video performance. Ironically, almost all 7" LCDs for cars available are 1/4 VGA resolution - Xenarc makes a 7 that is better, but most are right there at 234 x 400.

In the 7" size, I am not going to tell you that upgrading from 1/4 VGA will get you a drastically noticeable picture improvement. In the headrest, brightness and contrast are more important than resolution. When you get bigger than 7", the resolution will matter, because the pixels get farther apart - but in the 7" size, I'd be OK with the 1/4 VGA LCD's out there. the Xenarc that's 1/2 VGA doesn't have an IR transmitter, anyway.

- overall audio performance. If you are willing to install video, you may also decide to upgrade the audio system. We have just completed a high-end audio system in a 2005 X5. Please let me know if you have any questions about that. Hope I've made some sense, but please feel free to ask any questions that come up : )