Caska Vehicle In-Built DVD/GPS

[Nicko]

http://www.gpstechnologies.com.au/images/caska/caska_logo.jpg

As some of you may be aware I went to Hong Kong to an Electronic Expo and came back with not as many products as I thought I might. What I gather is that in June when I go to Taiwan it will be a lot better as the majority of GPS manufacturer's head office are based there. One area I have been wanting to get involved in was In-Built DVD/GPS. There were more manufacturers of these devices than there were GPS products for PDAs or street navigators similarly found in our shop. I was disappointed with that but came back with some additional bits I didn't expect to do so.

I contacted Caska a few years ago and felt they were no different from anyone else. This trip changed all that with models suited to various cars. What they have done in some instances produced the surround suited to replace the radio/CD surround and make then effectively plug and play without having to chop up the original.

http://www.gpstechnologies.com.au/images/caska/dvd.jpg


MODEL CA3006 - suited to Toyota Prado
http://www.gpstechnologies.com.au/images/caska/ca3006.jpg

MODEL CA012 - suit Mazda 6

http://www.gpstechnologies.com.au/images/caska/ca3012.jpg

These units have typically 7" 16:9 ratio LCD wide screen and are either single or double din. They accept DVD for you to watch movies, GPS Street Navigation, Digital TV, FM radio, either with or without GPS, able to play DVD/VCD/CD/MP3/MPEG-4/JPEG/WMA playback. Remote control, USB port, with or without PAL/NTSC TV.

What is quite clever now is in some models the addition of a USB or SD port for music from your ipod etc.

MODEL CA4002 - 7" portable street navigator

http://www.gpstechnologies.com.au/images/caska/CA4002.jpg


We have ordered in 5 units to test.

[StormyKnight]

Very interesting...hmmm

Are you familiar with this manufacturer? http://www.roadrover.cn/e/index.asp

They also have a unit for the Prado 120.....

http://www.roadrover.cn/e/productshow.asp?id=49&mnid=19046

& a double-din unit that we believe is the same internally, just the default double-din dimensions (which is what I'm after for my 90 series Prado). Double-Din Unit (http://www.roadrover.cn/e/productshow.asp?id=42&mnid=19046) at around $AU700 + freight. I have seen other posts were they say they can load OziCE on to thier systems, but as of yet they haven't replied to my email enquires.

Now this unit is also sold in Australia here for around $AU2695....http://www.vmscarpc.com.au (http://www.vmscarpc.com.au/content/products_main/avnc/4wd/main/main.html) but the VMS unit has OziCE preloaded.

So do you know of any units that can run ozice that aren't going to break the bank? Any help appreciated.

Cheers
Richard

[Nicko]

Practically any wince device will run OziExplorer CE, this would no doubt include the Caska units. However the Caska units are for the current model Prado, Mazda 6 etc but most likely incompatible with older cars because of the wiring loom and interconnectivity with the steering wheel controls. I suspect VMS is PC based machines, something I have been looking into lately. Price wise, VMS is exhorbitant but that's what happens when you have a unique product.

I will follow up with Caska on this question of it's operating system and if it is WIN CE then I will try to install oziexplorer.

I am aware of roadrover, they seem to be making the same stuff, maybe one of them is the geniune manufacturer but as I visited Caska this year at the Hong Kong Electronics Expo I assumed they are.

[StormyKnight]

Thanks Nicko.
No the VMS units are windows CE 5.0. They are the roadrover units but with OziexplorerCE preloaded as I understand by the factory & the addition of the VMS logos here & there & a few menu changes so that the ozice is intergrated.

Cheers
Richard