Customer Reviews

Pair of TAN Headrest 7" LCD Car Monitors with Region Free DVD player USB SD Inc. Wireless Headhones and 32 Bit Games

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

After reading everyone's reviews, my wife and I decided to buy this unit -- what a mistake! After less than three months of only occasional use, one unit has stopped working entirely. We used it less than 30 minutes a day 4 or 5 days a week. That's it! And there were no small fingers touching it because our son is only one year old and too small to reach the DVD player. Because one unit broke, we turned on the second one, which had not been used since it was installed, only to find that It didn't work either. And did I mention it's never been used? What an absolute piece of garbage. And although we were aware that there was no warrantee on this product, our previous experience with Amazon sellers have always led to some sort of agreeable settlement with faulty merchandise. Not so with this seller, EliteAutoSoundSales. After informing them that we had obviously received a lemon, we received a curt email back from them saying it's been over 30 days and the return period has expired. Don't buy this product -- especially from this horrible seller. Now that I look back on the other reviews, I see that most of them focus on how easy it is to use and how it looks good -- but very few of them comment on the longterm quality of the player itself. I was fooled -- but please do not make the same mistake I did!

The DVD players are sturdy and offer dozens of functions not found on OEM systems. The guts of the DVD players are clearly marked Sony. The tan head rests are well constructed and they match the leather in our Navigator. They play DVD-Rs and Video CDs with no issues. Movies can also be watched from a thumb drive or an SD card in several different digital formats. Some MP4s will play, others won't. The head phones have two channels and work perfectly with either DVD player. Video quality is surprisingly good, especially after changing the default setting of PAL to NTSC. Basic functions are on the front of the DVD player, but advanced functions require you use the remote control. The 32 BIT games are for children over 10. The 8 BIT games (optional) are old 1970-1980s arcade favorites and the younger kids love them.

Installation was easy taking about 90 minutes to do a professional level job. The pre-installed Power and Video/Audio-Out line runs down one post of the head rest while the Video/Audio-In line runs down the other post. The cables dropped through the back of the seat and were easily routed down the side of the seat and beneath the center console (comepletely out of sight). I removed the back panel of the center console where I connected the Video/Audio cables and tapped off of a cigarette lighter power cable for the 12VDC. The cables are very long giving you all kinds of cable routing options. End result was an OEM style DVD system that costs $1000 less.

My Tv's only lasted 3 months! Just after the 90 day warranty had expire the two Tv's stop working. Moreover, there is no manufacture warranty since the Tv's are fake. I contacted Sony and they are investigating the issue. Stay away they are fake copies!

After reading those positive reviews, and ignoring the one or two stars which complain the down sides of the seller and products, I thought I might not be that unlucky to get a one with problems, and bought a set. I installed it by myself following the manual's instructions. One of the DVD players worked fine, the other worked for the first 3 hours, then the screen turned to uneven light color stripes, no more images. After it was turned off and turned on the second day, it worked for a while then stopped working. The problem repeated again and again. I contacted the seller via emails reporting the problems after 5 days I received the product. The seller replied with claiming that because it was installed by my self and not a professional installer, they did not take any responsibility. I asked them to show me where such rules were written down either in the warranty or manual, then no response any more. The fact is, in the manual it is clearly written down that the product is so easy to use that they recommend the user to install it by themselves. In no place that you can find a sentence saying that you need help from a professional installer and show seller the receipt when it is a defective product. Fortunately, I kept it much less than 30 days and got the right to return it to Amazon.com.

Seems like you get a lot with this package. However, when you start taking into account some of them don't work, or work properly, it really boils down to very little. We've had this set for over 6 months now. First, the setup is not for an amateur. You either need to have this professionally installed, or know a lot about wiring yourself. We did it ourselves, and although we thought we knew plenty, there really is no way to do it yourself in a professional-looking way. It doesn't say this outright in the description, but you cannot just plug this in to your car's lighter plug and be ready to go. You have to wire it yourself into the car's electrical system. Pain in the butt. And to hook the two components together so that you have the functionality it brags about of sharing one DVD with the other screen? NOT user friendly at all.

Second, DVD menus are inaccessible for the most part. You just have to pop the DVD in and it plays what it wants. It will pick up where it left off when you start up again, but sometimes it just won't play at all anymore and the only fix is to take out the DVD and play another one. Then MAYBE your original one will work again, when it feels like it. It is very unpredictable. One of our DVD movies will only play the bonus features and not the movie. And again, no title menu to access to fix it. Very odd.

Third, the "wireless" game remotes don't work at all. I mean, AT ALL. Just throw those in the garbage. And even the wired ones are pretty useless. It came with 4 and within a week we were down to one. They are cheap and break very easily.

So, as far as having a DVD system in the car with two separate players - it's great. But keep in mind all the bells and whistles this promises are irrelevant. Would I buy it again? Maybe. Wish I could have spent less on it. Would I get excited about all the extras again? No way.

Installation was actually easier than I thought. There are a couple of YouTube videos that go over the steps for a generic player (no this one) - but the theory is the same. The two big issues are getting access to the cables inside the seat (access under your seat covers) and wiring up the power.

The seat cover access was quite easy, once I worked out how to do it without damaging the seat. The power was more difficult. Instead I decided to hook it up to a generic cig lighter with some tape. The cables are very long, so a few cable ties came in handy to tidy things up.

The quality of the players is very good. We've had a number of external portable car players, and all of them have broken or failed to play disks. These players are far better and all disks play fine. They are already region free, so they play our collection of region 2 disks out of the box.

The only issues so far...

These are Chinese players. The manual in the box is written in very poor English. This leads to a bit of trial and error to get things to work. The on-screen menus are pretty good, so this is not really a problem.

The supplied earphones are very good, but are based on IR transmission. These suffer from some reception problems and some background noise. It looks like they have the capability to be wired, but I haven't tried it yet.

The other problem is the support for SD Cards. Firstly, these players do not support SDHC, so the cards are limited to 2GB. There is a USB option, so a thumb drive can be used at a larger capacity. It's also not clear which video codecs are supported. MP4 H.264 at 240 lines does not seem to work, this need further experimentation. If I work it out I will post an update.

The headrests arrived about 3 days after I had placed the order. They were brand new in original packaging with no brand name of any kind on the factory box. They are well-made, sturdy and attractive. The metal posts have adjustable widths so that they would fit in a variety of seats. The instructions are very vague, but we installed them ourselves after finding out that a local car audio shop would charge $200 for professional installation. It only took us about 2 hours to install and that includes unhooking the car battery, and tucking all of the extra wires under the seats.

We removed the plastic backing off of the backs of our front seats in our Chrysler Town/Country minivan. We fed the long wires down through the seat backs and under the seat so that they came out from under the front of each seat. We removed the plastic cover off of the front console and wired both headrests into one of the power outlets in the console. Before touching any wires, we disconnected the negative terminal of the car battery. We wired the blue wire from the power outlet to both red wires from the headrests. Then we wired the black wire from the power outlet to both black wires from the headrests. We reattached the car battery and both DVD players were fully operational. We also hooked the a/v out cables from one headrest into the a/v in cables from the other headrest so that both kids can watch the same DVD. Even though there is no brand name anywhere on the headrest or unit, there is a part inside the DVD player that reads "Sony". We are very pleased with the high quality picture and overall product.

Vehicle: 2006 Toyota Rav4 Limited (side airbags in front seats)
Installation: Professional (cost, 2.5hrs labor ~$125 total)

**UPDATE**
After having these installed for about 2 weeks, the passenger side unit failed. The longevity of these is highly suspect, and given the complex installation (I had mine professionally installed as noted above), I can't see self-troubleshooting this issue. If I had to do it over again, I'd buy something better. Steer clear of these, unless you want to roll the dice.

**ORIGINAL REVIEW**
Comments from the installer:
1. These posts are the old style. The newer units come with screw in adapters. This type will not allow a tight fit, nor allow the headrest to stay up with notches.
2. These units will vibrate unless you secure them to the seat with some kind of epoxy. But then, you won't be able to raise them (which won't function properly anyway with the sleeve adapters).
3. You paid a great price for these, even given the limitations.

Comments from me:
Everything he said was true. The units work as advertised, and the looseness of the posts is noticed, but not horrible. I hardly notice.

The sound quality of the IR headsets is laughable. I would not waste any time using these. Situated directly in front of the unit, there is clear distortion. Move right or left even a few inches and the sound signal is lost. Clearly, you will be using different wireless IR headsets, wired headsets, the internal speakers or the radio transmitter. The other 3 options seem fine. I can't comment on radio transmitter in urban areas - the signal will probably degrade.

The video quality is OK. Not stellar. Comparing quality to the factory unit in our 2010 Sienna Limited is very noticeable. Expect to get what you pay for here, but that said - the quality is still acceptable for the application (keeping kids quiet!).

All in all, 3 stars is because of the mounting post limitation, wireless headset audio, video quality and installation instructions. You're paying for a 3 star product and you're getting a 3 star product.

Bought this a few years ago. The kids use the DVD player often. Have not tried the games, but the graphics are poor. I recomend this product. One problem - the wireless headphones are not built for kids. They are a bit bulky.

I purchased these in January 2010 and they stopped working in June 2011, so you get what you pay for. I had them professionally installed (don't have them professionally installed...it is a rip off and costs almost twice as much as the headrests themselves). Only the dvd player worked. I could not get the usb port to do anything and the wireless headphones that came with the set stopped working after 1 month. I did not try the video game system, but I expect similiar results (ie won't work).

The remote worked perfectly and once I purchased better quality wireless headphones for my children, it was a dream come true. They were kept entertained and I was able to listen to the radio. A win-win in my book! Here is a link to the headsets I purchased from Amazon as well. the second set of earphones are for smaller children, but only work on one channel, channel A.

Audiovox IR2CFF IR Wireless Dual Channel Headset
Kidz Gear Wireless Car Headphones For Kids