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Hello all. I am looking for suggestions on installing an XBMC set up in a vehicle. A little background.... I have 2 boys with special needs and currently use and XBMC installation on an original xbox to their TV to play their favorite shows (all 120 Muppets episodes) to a tv in the house. We are buying a new wheelchair van for them and I would rather have an XBMC installation in the vehicle than a dvd player. I envision a roof mounted LCD panel with an Apple TV set to automatically boot to XBMC and auto load their playlist. The apple TV is probably a bit of overkill (I would love to use a raspberry pi instead) but I do not know of another better way to go. So I am looking for suggestions on powering and mounting the equipment and making it as automated as possible Ideally we would start the car and the thing would random play the muppets. Another question is how to do speakers for just them (headphones wont work) so I can listen to the radio while they hear their shows. Any and all suggestions welcome and appreciated.
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2012-04-28, 03:25
(This post was last modified: 2012-04-28, 03:26 by Ned Scott.)
I started to look up some info for you about how one might go about powering an ATV2 via 12 volts, and then it hit me.. for the price of the ATV2 + LCD + everything else you might need, you can probably get an iPad 1st gen for less. I know iPad 2's sell for as low as $350 refurbished, so the first gen should be well under $300. You'll get a 10 inch screen, which is bigger than most flip-down screens for cars, have the same hardware abilities as the ATV2, easily powered via 12 volt car adapters, has internal memory to store videos, can connect to a USB hard drive/memory, and it even has it's own speakers (plus tons of speaker accessories should you need more volume, like these clip-on speakers:
http://www.jr.com/rca/pe/RCA_SP10/ )
There's tons of iPad mounts for cars, including ones that basically turn them into "flip down screens", and that would be all you would have to actually "install".
Just a thought.
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iPad seems a sensible suggestion as Ned says. That was you can move them out of the car easily etc (leaving valuables in a car has been a big no no for me).
Though were you maybe thinking of one bigger screen between the two of them?
Flirc now has a forum: forum.flirc.tv
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A quick google showed used iPad 1's going for under $200 in good condition.
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I really need to stop reading the forums, now I want XBMC in my car, lol
