Minivan DVD screen ghosting or rolling band effects

[merscwog]

I have an '03 Honda Odyssey, and am having problems with the auxillary jacks and displayed video.

I did a search in this forum, and found another thread about Minivan and DVD player issues, but the solution isn't going to work in my case. It's a factory installed Rear Entertainment System (RES), and while it works great for the installed DVD player, using the auxillary jacks in the rear seat produces a terrible video image.

I tested with a VCR also, but my main objective is to get a Nintendo GameCube to function acceptably for long trips.

I tested 4 different ways, and got 3 different undesirable results.

1) AC power from garage socket, video only plugged in.
2) AC power from garage socket, video and audio plugged in.
3) DC power from lighter adapter, video only plugged in.
4) DC power from lighter adapter, video and audio plugged in.

Case 1:
Pro: Very crisp image, but 1 ghost image.
Con: The 1 Ghost image shifted to right about 2 millimeters, so text is blurry.

Case 2:
Pro: None
Con: So many ghosted images, it looks like everything was smeared to the right. Text and images are ugly.

Cases 3 and 4:
Pro: No ghosting, as text and images are crisp.
Con: Rolling bands moving diagonally down the screen that are very noticeable in static images.

I have not tried using a power inverter yet, though if anything, I would suspect worse results than from the lighter adapter (and it also seems like a waste to convert to 120V AC then back to 12V DC as that's what the GameCube's power brick outputs).

Honda says that by their definition, the problem is with my "after market device" -- it's not compatible with their "proprietary system" -- although they don't supply anything themselves that would use the auxillary jacks. Fine, legally they don't have to help me, so I've exhausted that avenue of support. Service techs tested 3 other Ody's and they exhibited the same behavior as my vehicle, so it was chalked up as "normal", and they had no idea what to do, and said they weren't allowed to work on it any more unless I could convice Honda to acknowledge there was a problem. Aside from the "we'll pass the information on to our engineers", there isn't going to be any acknowledgement of a problem.

Suggested solutions are extremely welcomed, although I cannot put in shorter cables, nor mess with the flip down LCD grounding without risking voiding my warranty, as I'd have to take parts of the interior apart. On a different forum, a suggestion of clipping the ground sleeve on the RCA connector for the video cable was recommended as a test solution. I'd obviously do it on a short couple inch extension cable, but am concerned about static discharge somewhere causing permanent damage to either the GameCube or the entertainment system itself.

Now, it could be RF/EF interference, but it seems odd that I don't get that problem when using an AC power source. Maybe I'll pillage an old monitor for the magnets on the video cable and see if that makes a difference when using Dc power.

I'm leaning towards a ground loop though, but am not aware of a cheap solution to solve the ground loop interference problem from the 0Hz - 6MHz range (as the old balun trick for cable only operates at 54MHz and up -- as that's what the baluns are rated for).

Getting rid of the ground loop for the audio is a very inexpensive thing ($15 or less for a ground loop isolator), but finding a ground loop isolator for the video signal which operates up to 6 MHz instead of 100's of kHz involves $100+ devices.

Now, if somebody is aware of a ground loop isolator device that actually works up to 6MHz, even though it's for audio (although the ones I could find specs on the highest topped out at 200 kHz) I would purchase one of those to see if it by-passes the problem.

-merscwog

[merscwog]

Well, I see there aren't any responses, but I've done some continued testing of the problem.

1) Camcorder with A/V out cable.

2) Digital camera with special RCA video out cable.

Both were used on battery power, and both exhibited a ghosting problem (the Camcorder being worse once the audio connections were also plugged in). They produced equivalent images with only the video cable plugged in to the aux ports.

I'm not even sure that putting in a video ground loop isolator will help much, but there isn't much else that I can try to help deal with this horrible ghosting problem.

I know there are some people on this board who have dealt with ground loop issues, and I'm almost certain that's what this problem is. Any suggested solutions?

I'm running out of ideas, and $100+ for a video ground loop isolator is pretty expensive, especially since I'm not certain it will help the problem in this case.

-merscwog

[BJ_M]

this may help you

http://www.epanorama.net/documents/groundloop/video_isolation.html

[merscwog]

Yes, that is a good information site (and one that I've frequented often in the past several weeks)

Unfortunately, all of the currently listed solutions cost $100+, and those are for the passive devices that aren't guaranteed to work in my situation.

In fact, the most reasonable device I've found is the Jensen VB-1RR, so if anyone has any experience with that, I might consider coughing up the cash to see if it works.

Thanks for the link.

-merscwog