Awesome Display For Raspberry Pi - Insignia NS-D7PDVD

On the Raspberry Pi forums I saw someone recommend this particular display for the Raspberry Pi.

This isn't a high def 1080p monitor, nor is it a touch screen, but this fits a specific need I have.

I have couple of mobile kits and this monitor nearly completes the kit I call my Beta Kit (more on that in a future article).

Basically this is a Raspberry Pi kit I can go mobile with.

Anyway, with this kit I needed a monitor, and this one fit in an art case I found at Value Village.

This monitor is the slave monitor of a dual screen DVD called the Insignia NS-D7PDVD.

I got it on Ebay with shipping for under $20.  I did purchase a smaller 4" backup camera couple weeks earlier and it sort of fit my needs but this one was better.  The screen is 7" and also included speakers.  It was used so it had some minor cosmetic flaws but in the end it did work.

The back of the display had these handles for strapping to what would probably by the back of a car seat but it did have a stand that would fold out so you could use it on your desk.

The plugs and controls were all on the right side of the display.

This was a used product and this purchase did not include a power supply and that was my first problem.  I had a 1200ma power supply with interchangeable tips, I wanted to purchase a plug with just that tip but for some reason the local Electronics Recycle place did not have one so I had to purchase 1.7mm x 4.0mm plug and attach it to a 12v power supply I had lying around.

Next was the AV input.  I have two types at home that split fromt that 3mm connector to Left and Right Audio with Video, but for some reason the one I had with a smaller tip did not work. I had to try another one I had.

I also had to add my RCA to 3.5mm Jack so I could plug it in to the Raspberry Pi.

The plug was big where I had to cut off a bit of the tip.

This allowed it to fit and connect to the display.

One thing to be aware of though is the text quality coming off the RCA plug is not that great of a quality

Click picture to see larger image that tries to approximate the display quality from the RCA adapter.

But it is workable and good enough for initial console access and the omxplayer video utility does play videos well with the occaisional video that does not have video and audio sync.

Finally you may have to edit the /boot/config.txt file and comment out the hdmi settings and sdtv_mode=0 but this did seem to work out of the box on a new image.

Over all, despite all these issues I do really like this display.  It fits perfectly in my case, has audio, and I recommend this display to anyone wanting a cheap portable display for to show someone what Raspberry Pi is.  I connect my pi to the network and connect remotely anyway.  This display gives me a way to configure the general settings before I log in remotely.