Is it possible to hook up a extra monitor like the 700v to the the Alpine W205 and be able to display the gps maps the the LCD monitor. I know that the unit itself will be displaying the maps but I thought that maybe there was a way to have it display on the 700v LCD monitor. Was planning on installing the 700v where the original Navi goes. So the question really is if the W205 has an video output to where I can have the 700v display the maps when I want it to do that.

 

yes you have an output option

 

I do not have a Blackbird installed in my W205 yet to see if that opens up that option, but currently I can either put the AUX input or DVD on the AUX output. If you use a GPS that has RCA output (including yellow), then the answer is yes. I think it would really neat if after the Blackbird is installed, the option to have it displayed on the AUX output.

This system is designed to have a AUX output in the back seat. With out the TR7, you can play the DVD on the AUX output but will not get the display on the W205 screen (Which so much clearer than the factory screen). I don't believe it would you put the blackbird on the rear screen.

Here is a link to the pdf manual that may list all the output options.

I know for sure if you get a GPS unit that has RCA output (like the Garmin GVn 52 Black Box GPS Navigation System) and plug it into the AUX input of the W205, that would work.

Such a nice head unit!

 

I can't speak for the W205, but I have the W200 and yes you can output video to an auxilary monitor. However you cannot output the navigation screen to an auxilary monitor. Now this only applies to either of the Blackbird units if they are hooked up to the W200. If you are using a different nav unit, then you could run the yellow video into the headunit and then output on the second monitor, but really, what would be the point as you wouldn't be able to control the navigation from the auxilary monitor. I have thought about this too and if you are wanting to use the factory installed pop-up screen to display your navigation and not have the same thing displayed on the W200, then you would not be able to control the navigation directly, you would always have to bring the navigation screen up in order to play with zooming and lookups and what-not. To me it would be cool to have the dual screen setup with the top monitor displaying the navigation from the Alpine unit, and then having the Alpine headunit displaying video or ipod info, but it won't happen with the W200. I don't know if the W205 allows this option, but my guess is that it doesn't allow you to output the video from the Blackbird navi to an auxilary screen. I'll go through the W205 manual on the Alpine website and post back to find a definitive answer.

I know that the older Alpine single-din flip out monitor headunits allowed the navigation to be displayed on an auxilary monitor, but this was ahead of the blackbird's time and only applied if you were using the NVA-series of Alpine Nav units. Head units like the CVA-1005/1006, and IVA-D900 could do this. These units also allowed a complete duplicate of whatever the Alpine headunit was showing on the screen, to be displayed on an auxilary monitor, and this even included the on-screen button icons that corrisponded to the physical buttons below the monitor.....really pointless to have these displayed on an auxilary monitor as you couldn't actually press the buttons that these icons were refering to because obviously they wouldn't exist on the auxilary monitor. But I suppose that this was Alpine's way of easily and quickly adding this feature to the unit. But it seems that when Alpine introduced the next generation of headunits, starting with the W200 and D100, they got rid of this feature. I wish they would bring it back as having the ipod info displayed on the headrest monitors, for example, would be really neat to have again.

*UPDATE: I just looked at the user manual of the W205, and as far as this function goes, it's the same as the W200, so No, you can't output the navigation info to an auxilary monitor if you are using one of the Alpine navigation units. They only options that are given for "rear seat entertainment" to be displayed are DVD(referring to the built-in DVD drive of the W205) and AUX(or whatever other name you decided to call AUX as it can be changed between a few different names for example...TV). And the AUX is referring to any video source that you have plugged into the yellow VIDEO-IN cable. That's it. I so wish you could output whatever is displayed on the main window of theW200/205 to an auxilary monitor, but oh, well. We'll see what January brings when Alpine announces their new products at CES.

 

Thanks for all your replies. I was looking to use the Blackbird 2 with the W205 and wanted to know if those gps maps would be able to display on the other monitor. I just thought it would be kinda easier to look at at that position, but I guess that's not possible. One more thing, If I plan on using that monitor for viewing dvds I won't need to mod the W205 for video play while driving right, since I would be connecting the monitor as if it's a rear monitor, correct?

 

Yes you can view it on the AUX output, but odds are you are not using your AUX out AUDIO, so no sound (with out a TR7 which is cheap) installed. Or you can take RCA patch cable and take the AUDIO OUT into the AUDIO in, but then, you'd have to switch back to the DVD control to control the DVD. PAC TR7 is your friend, GRND, POWER, IGN and two other wires that hook into the W205. The TR7 comes with default settings for the W205.