NESA NSC-909 9 inch LCD Overhead Monitor/DVD/SD/USB

Product Details
Manufacturer: NESA
Distributor: C-KO
Website: link
Typical Selling price: £499.99 plus fitting (from £25 a head for wireless headphones)
Flip-down nine inch TV screen with DVD slot, extra rear mounted AV input, as well as SD card slot and full size USB port for use with memory storage sticks. Screen has Infra Red transmitter and unit can send the stereo sound to the car radio by wireless FM modulation. An extra screen can be connected via AV outputs. There are twin dome lights sharing a single on/off/auto-door-switch control. Simple controls on the unit, while most detailed control is effected through the On screen Graphic User Interface and the remote control.
– Nine inch TFT LCD screen with lower and swivel mount
– Built in side-slot vacuum loader DVD deck with high temperature DVS loading mechanism
– Plays DVD, DivX, DVD-R/VCD/SVCD/CD-DA/CD/CD-R/RW/MP3/DVCD
– Electronic anti-shock flash memory for last position of disc retention
– Resolution: 1920 x 234H = 449,280 pixels
– PAL/NTSC formats supported, auto selected
– Aspect Ratio: 16:9 widescreen
– Brightness 400NIT
– Can display as Widescreen, Normal Pan-scan and Normal Letterbox.
– SD Card reader and USB inputs
– 48 button remote control used with on-screen GUI display
– Twin dome lights built in with door trigger switching or manual control
– Powerful magnetic screen clasps
– Built-in eight-step FM wireless Transmitter for use with car’s radio. 87.7 to 89.1FM.
– Built in Infra Red Transmitter for wireless headphones
– Dimensions: 290 x 245 x 62 (mm)
– Complete with three sets of snap-on coloured skin plates in black, beige and grey.
– RCA AV input and one output on corded leads, one rear mounted set of AV sockets
Editor review : NESA NSC-909 LCD TFT monitor/DVD/SD/USB
At first sight, it might be tempting to think of this as a direct comparison to the units you can get in supermarkets for use in the bedroom that have a TV screen, DVD and an SD slot. That would be a huge mistake as the differences between this unit and a domestic one are deep. For one, it has to be made ruggedly enough to last while bouncing around in a car and with sufficient build integrity in the bracketry and fixings to pass the stringent TUV tests to become approved for in-vehicle fitment. It has to house a powerful infra red transmitter specifically to drive headphones for rear seat users. It houses auto switched lights with the same on/off/auto settings as the car’s it shall replace upon fitment. It also has a radio station built-in that can broadcast to your own car’s FM aerial so as to get the sounds into the car’s radio system, without needing any more wires than the live and earth needed to connect it up.
Of course, the method I chose was to hook the AV inputs up, too the corded ones, rather than the extra set found on the rear of the unit as you look at it and I could also have chosen to send the pictures and stereo off to another screen by plugging in the other set of RCA outputs, also on a cord.
The mounting kit is simplicity itself, which is just as well, as fitting one of these things is not the work for an amateur car installer. Or rather, let alone the simple connections, if you can fit one of these properly in the roof of your car, then consider advertising your services professionally
I loved the simple-to-fit triple set of injection-moulded plastic ‘˜skins’ in a universally acceptable beige, black and grey shade, but fretted a little at the waste. But at least it’s not as profligate as the trade electric aerials that come with thirty yes thirty, different tops to use with any car. The rest just get binned. A whole baggie of bits. As is the case here, unless you keep the unit when you change cars, leave a hole in the roof lining and take it with to another car that needs to use a different shade skin! I would use the 909 as a £500 price-raiser at second-hand car sale and leave it in the vehicle, myself.
The screen is nine inches diagonal, and while it has the same 234 vertical pixels as the standard 336,960 pixel jobs that are the same resolution in five, six, seven, and eight inch sizes alike, the NSC-909 sports a bigger 1920 horizontal pixels. All of which means that while tiny screens look dinky and crisp and the sevens and six-point whatever sizes can look a little fuzzy, this job actually has more dots than most and thus looks sumptuous.
I hooked it up full-sexiness.
The new iPod Touch 64GB fourth gen, via the optional AV lead into the Clarion NX700E’s USB-plus-smarts plug holes in my test rig right now. The Bowers Leisure Monitor loudspeakers, driven by the Genesis amplifier and the pictures thus visible on the Clarion’s touch screen as well as on the NESA NSC-909’s. I played my digital copy of Toy Story 3, purchased as a triple pack in the Blu-Ray also containing a DVD, which is a product I have learned to love and the download time is as long as it takes to buy just one thing at a real cash register seconds flat amazing!
The Pixar full CGI is sumptuous and the NSC-909’s screen did justice to it. Rich and colourful, it has all the adjustment you need, easily done from the remote, even though it has so many buttons. These dozens of buttons are well laid out, label-wise.
You can do just about any darn thing you can think up with the DVD system, with all sorts of zoom modes and play features, more than on my posh end home deck! You choose inputs from AV1 the one on the built-in wires, or AV2 the input set on the rear, or else DVD. If you have an SD card in the slot, or fit a USB to the socket, then when it is in DVD mode, it’ll auto read the storage and show a simple generic menu screen for picking out your files. I tried a small USB stick with some tunes on it and it read it happily. But when I then put a DivX short movie clip file on it, it didn’t like it. Likewise, I tried a couple of SD cards in the slot, one with a set of ..jpeg and .mov video files and one with some .avi files as well but didn’t manage to fire any up. Whether this is because they were not the favourite sort, I am not sure but I do know that if you had the device you would jolly well find out the files it likes and use them. I was a bit sad about the not reading the DivX movie clip, though.
That said, I like the DVD mech and find it easier still to handle discs than bunches of USB sticks.
The dome lights are powerful and very white and will illuminate even the insides of big people carriers, which is as well, since that’s a likely use of the item. Considering it’s breadth of capability and stuff like not caring if you have an NTSC or a PAL DVD in the deck, it’ll multi-region on the quiet and play the bloody lot, in colour, even if its an import disc.
Rugged and handsome, unlike me, but destined to last and still look good when it’s got a few double dozen thousand miles on the clock. An easy best buy.
Overall 9.4
Picture Quality 9
Build Quality 9
Features 10
Ease of Use 10
Value For Money 9