Hello all and please forgive the ignorance. I searched around but with the massive amount of information, it was hard to get answers to the below.
Before firing away, let me just explain the intentions as that will put this all into perspective : First and foremost, my 99 Range Rover came with a phenomenal system but did not include the factory navigation. That prompted the initial hunt for what has now become a potential large project. As a "hater" of aftermarket navigation systems just being thrown on a dash, my goal was to make the finished product look as close to factory as possible. The more like this, the better
My car came like this with a cubby box instead
Initially, I thought a double din would be my best bet. Problem is, the area where the OEM nav sits isn't even close to deep enough for anything with the depth of a standard head unit. It needs to be no more than a couple inches deep. So I looked around and found a bunch of individuals who had done carputers with thin screens which worked just fine... like so
Looks nice and factory so let's try and imitate that. But a carputer is wayyyyy too invovled. So I thought, what about installing a navigation like TomTom. That lead me down a path of looking at Navigation units with back up cameras (4UCam : http://4ucam.com/ ) which ultimately lead me here.
OK, so with that said, here are the problems.
1. The factory head unit in the range rover is rather complex. People often b*tch and moan about the integration of aftermarket units because there are some peculiarities with the wiring and amp. If you're technical, this will help elaborate: http://www.rangerovers.net/rrupgrades/entertainment/headunitadapt.html
2. As a result of 1, I'm interested in just adding navigation, a back up camera, bluetooth for phone, and an AV source independent of the head unit. That seems like the easiest way to go about with the project. My thought is that, with the AV input, I could just hook up an apple composite out cable and hook up either my iphone4 or 160 gig ipod to the cable and could display movies on the screen. For sound, I would simply use the cassete deck found in the head unit and one of those tape to 3.5mm headphone jack adaptors for $1 off ebay. Would then get the image on the screen and the sound through the car stereo.
3. If I did the above, I could use 4UCam's setup no problem but it runs about 400 bucks or so for their units. It also would require, should I want to listen to my ipod through the car stereo, that I buy a seperate adaptor that plugs into the cd changer in the trunk... that costs around 150 bucks and can be seen here : http://www.incaripod.com/Vehicle/Range_Rover/ICD_Direct_Control_iPod_Interface
In other words, to get ipod music, ipod video, bluetooth, gps, av in (for watching movies), I would buy a 4ucam (400) and a cable (150)... that's a pretty penny. However, it would have a lot of functionality.
Then I was told about AVIC and the 5000s in particular. It's thin enough that I could install it where the cubby hole currently sits and offers a lot of very nice functionality. However, I'm not sure if it's best for "my situation". Onto the questions.
1. How hard is the initial installation of the included Amp? I read it requires professional installation and splicing wires. I don't really feel qualified for that and the parrot adaptors I keep hearing about... well they don't make one for Land/Range Rovers. Yikes.
2. If I was able to get the amp hooked up properly with the head unit, how does the ipod functionality work? Would I be able to select ipod under AV sources and then have it play music through the car stereo? Can I play music and vids? What about additional iphone aps like netflix? Could I display them up? How about the entire iphone via TVMirrorOut programs?
3. For power, is it realistic to think that I could hardwire the unit to the car with no major issues? My goal is that I would flush mount it on the dash like seen above and not really ever mess with it again. I would lose some functionality (SD card, unplugging the unit and taking it with me on the road elsewhere, etc) but I don't really care. If I can have a nice in car unit for this car, I'm happy with it exclusively sitting like that.
4. Could I wire the unit to the parking brake so that movie watching and all that good stuff would work? Looking around, the answer seems to be a loud and clear yes, but I just want to double check 
5. For wiring, I have heard that the avic amp thing can plug into a stereo head unit via rca... given that, I guess I could use this : http://www.incaripod.com/Vehicle/Range_Rover/Range_Rover_Auxiliary_Audio_Input_Interface
Please let me know what you guys think. I'm sure I will come up with quesitons, but that should be fine for now.
This is the other option... not as sexy but I wouldn't be tying anythign into the head unit which would be easier (though I would need to spend another 150 to buy a cable to hook up ipod to head unit)
