DVD800 to modern android conversion

[zzattack]

Recently bought a 2009 insignia with factory fitted DVD 800. In my previous car I had a flagship model pioneer so even if it's a nice system I have to consider it a downgrade.
The Chinese MTCD systems seem to offer a lot of value with 8-core 2GB and a nice capacitive touchscreen for hardware and a nicely customizable android 6 OS on the software side. That at a $450 USD price point seems very interesting, perhaps even more so since that seems to be kind of money I'd need to spend to upgrade the DVD 800 with DAB+. Or a rearview camera, heh.


Now I've done a fair bit of browser research on these units and every seller seems to insist these systems only 'work' on CD-300/CD-400 systems. The 'reasons' for this vary from "size not fit", "gps not compatible" to "can-bus decoder is different" of which only the can-bus argument seems somewhat plausible. Eventually I stumbled upon this nice forum where some retrofit experts seem to hang out. You guys have proven that upgrades to the DVD system are possible and now I'm wondering about the inverse, or rather, how both systems differ on a hardware level. Anyone able to shed some light on this?

[Rusty2009]

If you want to fit one of these Chinese units you need to change the wiring & get a cd400 panel.

The only reason they don't work on a navi setup is due to the wiring.

[zzattack]

Easy enough with a schematic I suppose. Would you be able to advice where these can be found?
Is the difference in panel significant or would it likely be possible to remap the button functionality?

[Rusty2009]

You would need the CD400 buttons as it's totally different inside in terms of the curcit board etc

[zzattack]

I understand. What kind of protocol is used for communication between the modules, pure canbus or something more proprietary? If it's simple can data I can probably build an adapter in a day or so, might be worth the effort.
Any idea on where to obtain the wiring information I'd need?

[pedrojose]

You would need the CD400 buttons as it's totally different inside in terms of the curcit board etc

i pm'ed you!can you help me with the loom?i already bought an cdc400 panel!

[Kubiiik19]

Hi, have you done this project?
I am working on the same project in this time... I would like to have any hints

[zzattack]

I researched a lot about android units and the end conclusion for me is that they suck in the areas I care about most. Those being sound quality and radio reception.
I've designed some development hardware that lets me talk to all the buses (CAN/LIN) between the various components but haven't gone further than that yet.

[Kubiiik19]

I researched a lot about android units and the end conclusion for me is that they suck in the areas I care about most. Those being sound quality and radio reception.
I've designed some development hardware that lets me talk to all the buses (CAN/LIN) between the various components but haven't gone further than that yet.

For me is android unit, like android phones ... If you buy cheap with 2 or 4 cores and 1 gb ram - it is shitt. But 8 core with 4gb ram is totaly different story. I have android unit in my another car and don´t have any issues with sound or radio reception.
p.s.- the one of most important thing is software (dx forum have great support for theese units- many custom rom´s and aps)

[zzattack]

For me it's not so much about the raw computing power and memory it has. It's about the tuner quality, audio processing and screen/build quality. All of which are areas Chinese vendors economize on
Let me give you some examples.
With DAB tuners, the audio streams contain metadata that indicate alternate frequencies, including FM ones, on which practically the same content is broadcast. Using this knowledge, a secondary tuner, time-alignment and volume matching, it's possible to catch intermittent reception and fill the gaps seamlessly with audio from another source. Pretty nice, but not so easy. There's chips that can do all of this, iirc NXP makes the best ones but they're not available to just any manufacturer. No way a Chinese maker will consider putting something like this €25 chip in their radio because there's €3 chips that can also receive DAB audio, so they see no point.

I've done some research on audio paths on high-end pioneers and some Chinese models. On the pioneer, all audio streams are kept in digital i2s streams for as long as possible. There's a mux component near the end of the graph, and after that comes the DAC and gain control. At every step of the process, audio is kept digital as much as possible, so there's no possibility of introduced noise. Cheaper radios will often route analog signals wherever they need to go, mix at the end and apply gains over a signal that has gone through a few components already as analog. The pioneer is just better engineered.

Also integration between apps on premium brands is just better. Chinese will never have android auto or carplay. For Americans, SiriusXM, Aha, Pandora, HD Radio... it either doesn't exist or is implemented too poorly for actual use. I'm not sure if Chinese units got any better in this regard recently but another thing I always liked about expensive radios is how they will implement subtle navigation instructions when the nav map isn't opened. Think of a small interruption on the USB player like a bar on top or split-screen for the duration of the nav instruction. On the other hand, you're able to freely add or remove APKs from the play store so that's a big plus for Chinese units.