BMW Rear Headrest Entertainment System (Vizualogic BMW Branded)

[jacobwo]

Looking for members that have this installed in their X5s. Here's what I have, in case anyone is wondering:

http://www.xoutpost.com/articles/x5/e...nt-system.html

Hopefully someone in the San Diego area. I pieced together this "kit" by finding the headrests with pre-installed screens on ebay, then buying all the necessary other parts from BMW. Went to have it all hooked up today, paid over $400 for the install (which included wiring it up to work with my TVonNAV kit so that I can have one source on the Nav monitor and the other playing on the headrest screens and installing a PS2 in the glovebox and running my Dice harness into the cabin and coming into the glovebox as well.

However, when all was said and done the monitors powered up only a blue screen shows up. The signal from the TV tuner/PS2 doesn't come through on the screens. The shop swapped out the BMW-branded monitors in the headrests with the Vizualogic ones they had in the shop, and they worked fine, picture was great. The monitors had Version 1.4 on the back of them. My BMW-branded ones have Version 2.0. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I called Vizualogic, and of course they can't me much of anything, because the kit is BMW-specific and they can't sell me a single part from it or tell me much about what is wrong with it. However, he did tell me that my screens were bad when I told him that they came one but were just blue.

I'm pissed. Anyway, on to the next part. I arrived home late tonight and decided to play around with it a bit. I orded the 3 Pol Auxiliary adapter, so I decided to plug it in, grab my portable DVD player and plug that in to see if it would display on the screen. That worked. At least on 1 monitor. So, obviously the monitor isn't dead, or at least 1 isn't. Not sure about the other one. I couldn't get the driver's side to display the DVD picture, and I couldn't get it out to plug it into the passenger side and see if it worked there, trying to investigate if it was some sort of a connection or the monitor itself.

Anyway, reason I'm posting this. To do more troubleshooting, I'm wondering if anyone in my area has the kit. I'm in Oceanside, CA, but looking for anyone in the San Diego are that has this, so that I might be able to plug in my headrest to your LCD cable to check to see if it works. I have a feeling that it's either something with the install itself, or something with the Software version that the screens are running on. Is there anyone who can help me with this, or offer me any help or ideas as to how to figure out what is wrong? BTW, I have this installed in my 330, but it's the same exact kit for the X3 or X5.

Any help would be much appreciated, TIA.

[jacobwo]

Bump

[acedeucy]

If you need the BMW install instructions or BMW Manual, I have both and can help you in that fashion. If you need technical assistance with it, I work with several of the dealers and can posibly point you in the right direction.

-Law

[jacobwo]

Originally Posted by acedeucy

If you need the BMW install instructions or BMW Manual, I have both and can help you in that fashion. If you need technical assistance with it, I work with several of the dealers and can posibly point you in the right direction.

-Law

I have the owner's manual and install instructions - provided by you awhile back actually, as well as getting them from a couple people on www.e46fanatics.com. But yeah, it's technical help I need, I guess. I used to have some connections at Harloff BMW, but it was sold to Autonation and is now Encinitas BMW. So, if you h ave any local dealers here that you have any connections with, let me know. I need to try to test the screens on an already installed set up in an X5 or X3 or something, or get the dealer to try and troubleshoot it, but I don't wanna be forking out a bunch of money to them when I don't know what the problem is and I just paid over $400 to have it installed.

Local dealers around here I know of are Brecht BMW, Encinitas BMW and Continental Motors. Any chance you know of anyone at any of those? Your help is greatly appreciated.

[acedeucy]

My connections at Brecht are Brenda Kaluza (Parts Manager) 760-745-3000

Encinitas BMW - Mac Ngyuen (Parts Counter)

I have nothing for you at Continental Motors.

[jacobwo]

Originally Posted by acedeucy

My connections at Brecht are Brenda Kaluza (Parts Manager) 760-745-3000

Encinitas BMW - Mac Ngyuen (Parts Counter)

I have nothing for you at Continental Motors.

Cool, thanks. I actually know Mac. I don't think he has much pull, though. I know Larry Coble better, and he's the Parts Manager or Assistant Parts Manager. Maybe he can do something for me.

[TerminatorX5]

Jacob,

if you have a video camera, you can try to troubleshoot the connections yourself - sacrifice one RCA cable that you can plug into a video camera and the other end you can try to see if the video signal is coming out of the TV tuner, if that signal is traveling up to your 2-port monitor IN, if it is coming out of the 2-port monitor switch and if it comes to the monitor itself. this way you might be able to pinpoint the culprit and take it from there.
Let me know if you need the pinouts from the TV module

Since both monitors did not work while connected to the car, and one of them worked when connected to another source, chances are that something does not agree somewhere. Normal video signal is pretty much standard, regardless of the SW versions.

Another minor thing - are your monitors PAL/NTSC/SECAM switchable? Are they switched to a correct standard? Are they autosensing or you have to manually switch the standard? Is the TV tuner switched to a correct standard? the tuner and the monitors have to be in the same standard... For a US spec PS2 you probably need everything in NTSC format.

I suspect that playing with the settings will resolve your problem - i had similar problem: when I bought the car, it had two aftermarket monitors in the headrests, no DVD player or other stuff. When I plugged a portable DVD into the IN, I got the blue screens... After two days of playing with the settings, somehow I managed to get a picture... It is working fine since...