Yo,
I was wondering if anyone ever mounted a DVD Player in their car (from a computer), a USB port (to connect a USB Hard drive with music on it), or like a computer so that you can play tons of audio/video in your car? What tools would I need? I build computers all the time but when it comes to car electronics I'm not the expert for that... Anyone have like a small touchscreen for browsing and playing files or anything? i've been searching for a product like this and can't find a thing.... dunno if anything exists or if it can be done. If you guys have a cool setup could you post your setup? Thanks
there are special computers for your car i think you can buy (saw it on Pimp My Ride w/ the Scion so dont quote me on this) but i also read somewhere that the power or frequency or something (im not a car electronics expert either as you can tell) isnt up to the par that car stereos are. so you could do it, and i think its been done, but i think what it boils down to is you will play shitty music.
It has been done, a kid at my school did it in his navigator...He tore apart a Sony Vaio Laptop (with my help) and mounted that really thin moniter in the dash and put the main computer part in the dash with some fans and stuff, Pretty easy if u know how to get power to it
Getting power to it is the easy part. Just wire in a DC --> AC Converter (or you can plug it into the cigarette lighter slot if you prefer) , and you can just use the standard wall plug (Use a power conditioner as well, it will save your computer).
Actually integrating the computer with your car audio is the part where i'm scratching my head. Maybe you can get a Y adapter for your headphone jack on your laptop (like $3.00-$5.00 at Radio Shack, looks like <--that, but the one input on the left is a 1/8" headphone plug) that will allow you to hook rca cables to a 4 channel amp, and power some speakers. Don't try this without another opinion. I don't want you blaming me for a fried sound card.
Seems a good spot ot put a small form factor pc (ipx? ) would be where the stock amp is. if you remove it put the PC there and maybe make some extra ventelation but you already got power there and some stereo stuff too.
ive seen several carputer setups on my A4. People bought 7 inch touch screens and then hooked it up to a normal stripped down computer (small motherboard and so on). They hid the dvd player in the glove compartment and used a very good PC soundcard to hook up with the rest of the car audio.
I have seen an m3 with a computer in the dash, the laptop that runs the screen up front is hidden on the roof of the trunk on sliders, and it slides out so it can be used from the back, or for admin purposes...
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<--that, but the one input on the left is a 1/8" headphone plug) that will allow you to hook rca cables to a 4 channel amp, and power some speakers. Don't try this without another opinion. I don't want you blaming me for a fried sound card. 
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