"Hey, check this out," I said to my buddy, as he climbed into the passenger seat of my car.

I turned the key in the ignition, and the 7" monitor of the Alpine IVA-D900 I'd recently installed motored out of the chassis and into position.

"That," he said without a moment's hesitation, "is the coolest thing I've ever seen."

After spending a couple of weeks with this mobile-video masterpiece, I've got to say that I agree. It is the coolest thing I've ever seenand heard. It's a marvelous system for your DVD movies, a top-of-the-line CD player that'll breathe new life into all your discs and MP3s, a terrific AM/FM receiver, and the ideal centerpiece for your comprehensive, multi-component audio/video system.

And it's incredibly easy to use. For all the IVA-D900's power, for all the system expansion it allows you to enjoy, the controls (including the wireless remote) are intuitive, elegant, and take little time to learn. You're given more time to enjoy the system, because you don't have to worry excessively about learning how to use it. In short, it's more than worth its purchase price.

This review will tackle some of the more prominent features of the IVA-D900. But as you read it, keep in mind that this system has a lot of capabilities.

Even when not playing a DVD, the monitor is both useful and cool.

The Ooh-Ahh Factor
Simply from an aesthetic point of view, the IVA-D900 is one incredible receiver. Even when the system is closed, it looks pretty good sitting in the dash. The faceplate features classic Alpine styling, instantly recognizable by the three green, illuminated buttons.

When you open the monitor, it won't take long for you to hear the chorus of wows from your passengers (especially the ones who are seeing it for the first time). There's something inherently cool about watching a monitor automatically slide out when you start your car. You can set the monitor to open and close automatically when you turn the key on and off, or you can choose to open and close it manually. I ended up preferring the automatic setting — if for no other reason than it never failed to induce a grin when I started the car, touched nothing, and watched the monitor motor out on its own. However, I did find the manual setting useful when I had to take my car into the shop for a quick fix; I didn't have to worry about the monitor getting in the way of what the mechanics had to do.

The monitor takes up surprisingly little space. In my Taurus, the center air-conditioner vents are located immediately above the oval face in which the receiver sits. I fully expected the monitor, when in its full upright and locked position, to cover them, at least partially. Much to my pleasant surprise, the monitor sits right underneath them, as though it were made specifically for the car.

One of the great features of the IVA-D900 is the fact that you can adjust the monitor's angle (it would be ideal if you could adjust it horizontally, too) to work around any equipment in your dash, and to provide the best viewing angle. If the monitor does cover something — climate controls, for example — with the push of a single button, you can lay the monitor out flat, make your adjustments, then restore it to its original position by touching the same button. Very convenient.

The monitor's picture is nothing short of breathtaking. Alpine uses a whopping 1.15 million pixels to deliver a picture that's sharp and readily visible, even when the sun's doing its best to try and wash it out. Not only do DVDs look spectacular, the background wallpaper and screen savers both look elegant and inviting.

The IVA-D900's looks are rounded out by the system controls. The rotary control knob, for making level adjustments, the illuminated green "Source," "Band," and "V-Select" (or video source) buttons, and the convenient soft keys all add a tasteful simplicity to the design that cleverly disguises the power and complexity of this marvelous receiver.

My favorite part of the faceplate, however, has to be the small, red "Disc In" indicator. Whenever you have a disc loaded in the deck, a little red light shines to let you know it — great for somebody like me who has a knack for trying to load a disc when there's already one in the receiver! Simple, you say. And that's true. But it's attention to detail like this that makes the IVA-D900 something special.

Do good looks alone justify spending over $2,000 on a DVD receiver? For some, sure. Regardless, considering how good a receiver the IVA-D900 is, the looks become delicious icing on an already near-perfect cake.

Watching DVDs in Your Car
I have to admit, prior to installing the IVA-D900, the concept of watching DVDs in the car struck me as a bit odd. Sure, backseat video keeping the kids entertained on long road trips makes perfect sense. But front-seat, in-dash capability, especially when you can watch it only when parked? A little strange. Until I put my first movie on.

Perhaps it was simply the novelty of the situation, but I must confess the undeniable, giddy pleasure I felt popping a DVD into the system and letting it rip. I'd seen plenty of in-dash video systems at various car shows, but there I was, watching my DVD in my car. The picture resolution was tremendous and the sound was fantastic (trust me: hearing a movie soundtrack in a space as cozy as a parked car is definitely a treat). It was an absolute blast.

For safety and legal reasons, you must be parked to watch movies on the IVA-D900. When you install it (the details of which we'll get to in a bit), you have to make connections to your vehicle's emergency brake and foot brake leads. To engage the video capability, you must press and hold the foot brake, then engage, disengage, and re-engage the emergency brake, and finally release the foot brake. My first impression was to find this a bit of a nuisance. But as I became entranced by the DVD that was playing, I realized what an intelligent precaution this routine is: it'd be too easy as a driver to be distracted by the screen, and become a menace on the road. The multi-step engagement system makes it pretty difficult to "cheat" the installation; Alpine's done a great job simultaneously providing top-notch entertainment and preserving on-road safety.

The 3-D spectrum analyzer moves in time to the music.

The 7 Faces of the IVA-D900
The IVA-D900's motorized monitor is definitely an all-purpose all-star. When the vehicle's in motion and you can't watch movies, it doubles as the system's display, letting you know what's going on at all times. This is a quick look at the many modes of the receiver's monitor.

• Movies
  As noted, the IVA-D900's 1.15 million pixels work together to provide stunning image resolution for such a small screen. DVDs look fantastic. In fact, if you look at the screen through a magnifying glass (happily, Alpine provided us one a few months earlier for just this purpose), you'll see in sharp relief just how incredible this picture is, especially if you have the chance to compare it to other mobile video monitors. Such sharp detail in such a small space is really something to behold.
  
  
• Screen savers (3)
  You can set the display to revert to a screen saver when you're not making system adjustments. There are three types that work well with different types of music: one with a rendering of a subwoofer that gives off appropriate sound waves during bass hits; one that accentuates the higher frequencies with patterns of geometric shapes; and a three-dimensional spectrum analyzer (my favorite) that's much more engaging than your standard row of dancing graphs.
  
  
• Source display/control
  Each source has its own information/control display. For example, when you're playing a CD, the display gives you all the necessary information, such as track number and elapsed time. The system will read and automatically display CD Text, if it's been programmed onto the disc you're playing. You can also manually enter the titles of CDs and radio stations (up to a total of 100). The titles show up in a scrolling display in the center of the monitor.
  
  The source display also tells you the functions of each of the soft keys that are on the monitor's base; the functions of these keys changes depending on the menu you're in, which makes system control quite easy. For example, in radio mode, page 1 of the display lets you use the soft keys to enter and switch between your radio presets. Page 2 gives you the option of seek and manual tuning. The soft-key system is designed to be used primarily by touch, so that you can keep your eyes on the road. It's so intuitive, in fact, that I was able to navigate through the system without looking in only a matter of minutes. The illuminated "Band" button on the faceplate lets you switch from FM to AM; the "Source" button, in conjunction with the rotary knob, lets you scroll through and choose the source you want to play.
  
  
• Navigation
  For the purposes of this review, I didn't try out this feature, but the IVA-D900 is compatible with an optional Alpine navigation system. The system connects to the hideaway box (we'll get to that in just a moment), and displays all information, such as the map and visual turn directions. You can also program the navigation system to interrupt the music you're playing only when necessary, so you can listen to any source you like without missing important directions.
  
  
• Backup camera
  I also didn't test this feature, but you can connect a backup camera to the system. When you do, you simply connect the lead from the IVA-D900 to your vehicle's reverse wire. When you put the car in reverse, the screen displays the image of what's behind your vehicle. The IVA-D900 will even automatically reverse the image sent by the camera, so it'll look perfectly natural on screen, and you won't have to compensate mentally for a reverse image.

Supreme Sound Control
Sound control has come a long, long way from the simple bass and treble controls found on old, shaft-style receivers. The IVA-D900 is equipped with Alpine's state-of-the-art Bass Engine Plus system. It is, in a word, comprehensive. And awesome.

Once I'd gotten familiar with system operation, I decided to play with the Bass Engine. As with watching movies, you have to be parked with the emergency brake engaged in order to modify all Bass Engine settings. I thought this to be very inconvenient initially, until I realized the scope of what you can do; for safety's sake, it's best only to be able to do this while parked.

Bass Engine gives you parametric control over the bass and treble. You can select the one bass and one treble frequency you'd like to emphasize, then adjust the Q-factor (the width of the frequency band you modify) for each of these frequencies. You're also given the option of engaging a high- or low-pass crossover, and can even adjust the level and phase of an amplified subwoofer you have connected to the IVA-D900's subwoofer preamp outputs.

And then there's the digital time correction. In a nutshell, this allows you to trick your ears into thinking the center of the soundstage is in a particular spot in the car by delaying the signal output from certain speakers. The length of the delay depends on how far you are from the speaker in question, and where you want to the soundstage to "appear."

In practical terms, when you play with the digital time correction, you can almost see the lead vocalist, for example, moving across your dash as you increase or decrease the delay in the right or left speakers. This isn't like simple balance control; you still hear all the audio information on a disc, rather than isolating the signal that goes to a specific side; it simply sounds like the focus point of that audio information shifts as you adjust the time correction.

I played with the digital time correction for a long, long time, getting the center of the soundstage exactly where I wanted it. I tend to drive with the window on my side down, so invariably, because of wind noise, I end up hearing more information from the right-side speakers. Adjusting the time correction just right compensated for this mismatch, and now the sound is ideal for the environmental conditions.

To get the settings just right, you can also go to Alpine's iPersonalize section at www.alpine-usa.com. There you can register your IVA-D900, which gives you access to Alpine's iPersonalize services. You can enter the distance from the various seats in your car, and the system will calculate the ideal digital time correction settings for you. It's well worth taking advantage of this tremendous service.

The IVA-D900 also gives you Alpine's exclusive MediaXpander, which "fills in" frequencies that are often left out as a result of compression. It's got several settings for both CDs and MP3 files — it's especially useful for MP3 files that often suffer because of excessive digital compression. For the most part, MediaXpander does add significant sonic fullness. I preferred using it to overcome road noise (especially with the windows down); it added a depth and fullness that I could both hear and feel, even with plenty of wind whipping through the car. When parked and watching DVDs, I tended to prefer it off so that the sound seemed more natural. All in all, though, I found it a beneficial feature.

System Expansion and the Hideaway Module
By itself, the IVA-D900 is definitely a workhorse of a receiver. But it really earns its stars when it reveals just how many options for system expansion it opens up.

The in-dash head unit consists of the monitor and the DVD player. The bulk of the work is done at the IVA-D900's hideaway box. There you'll find the tuner and all the receiver's inputs and outputs.

And believe me, there are plenty.

The hideaway box fit neatly under the passenger seat.

The hideaway box (which fits snugly under most seats; see the next page for a discussion of the installation) is simply loaded with inputs and outputs. Dedicated inputs include one for navigation (for a compatible Alpine navigation system with an RGB video output), an input for a backup camera, and an Ai-Net CD changer or Alpine XM Satellite Radio receiver input. On top of all this, you get three separate auxiliary audio/video inputs with RCA connections. This means you can add components such as a mobile videocassette player and video game system, just to name a couple. Taking vacation video? You can watch it immediately just by plugging it into one of the auxiliary ports.

There are also two sets of auxiliary audio/video outputs, giving you the option of connecting up to two rear-seat monitors and two sets of wireless headphones (if the monitors don't have audio inputs or external speakers).

Now, here's the best part: when you have two rear monitors and extra video components hooked up, you can run up to three different sources at the same time. It would be possible for you to enjoy, say, XM up front, while one rear passenger watched a DVD, while the other played a video game. Simultaneously.

And setting up the multi-source system is easy. With the touch of a button ("Rear Select"), you get the setup menu. Using the rotary knob and soft keys, you can either link the rear monitors to the front source (if you're parked and want the same movie on in front and back), or to their own independent sources. The process literally takes only a few seconds. Like the rest of the IVA-D900, for all its complexity, the controls for these functions are also remarkably uncomplicated.

The IVA-D900 looks right at home in the Taurus.

Installation of the IVA-D900
I was pleasantly surprised by the low level of difficulty involved in installing the IVA-D900. For the most part, it installs exactly like a standard in-dash receiver (it fits most dash openings quite easily), with, of course, the notable exception of the hideaway box.

The hideaway box receives the main power and ground connections; the in-dash unit, however, also must be wired to constant power (so that it'll remember the monitor position and certain bass engine settings) and ground. The ground was easy to find, and I was able to tap into the constant power lead that also powered the hideaway box. Of course, thanks to the Crutchfield harness I used, wiring the hideaway box was incredibly simple.

The in-dash unit connects to the hideaway box with a single control cable (it's just a bit wider than your average antenna lead). It also connects to a DC-to-DC converter (that regulates the power flow), which is a small, metal box, about the size of a cassette case. This I was able to tuck in an open space behind the dash.

The last two wiring connections I had to make were to the emergency brake lead, and the positive brake light lead. As noted earlier, these connections need to be made correctly for the monitor to function properly. The emergency brake lead was extremely easy to find in my car: it was attached to the pedal bracket (the Taurus has an emergency brake pedal rather than a center-console handle). To make my connection to the brake light as simple as possible, I ran a lead to the trunk, found my positive brake light lead with a multimeter, and tapped in there. Very clean, very simple.

The hideaway box fit perfectly beneath my car's passenger seat. I ran the wiring from the main harness and the in-dash unit under the carpet to the box's location. The box itself I secured using a strip of adhesive Velcro. I chose this method because this installation isn't permanent. A mounting bracket, however, does come with the hideaway box, giving you the option of securing it with screws (which, of course, requires some drilling).

Overall, the installation only took me about three hours, and that included removing my old receiver. In what seemed like no time at all, I was up and running, enjoying the thrills of in-car DVD entertainment.