2019 Rear Seat Entertainment Question

[Flexpy19]

Still looking to pull the trigger on a new Expedition as a hauler for my 4 kids, wife and dog. The last expedition I owned was a late 90’s Eddie Bauer Black and Tan model (what a great SUV!) I went the expensive foreign car route for the past 15 years and have came back to my senses (although the Platinum ain’t exactly cheap.) Without sifting through all the threads was wondering if someone could help me understand what exactly is the problem with the RSE package. Looking at Max Platinum and typically select every option, and the kids love watching movies so the RSE seemed like a must have..until I have read some of the reviews.

Trying to understand what the issue is. Can I plug a movie into the DVD slot in the truck (assuming it has one) and just play the movie through the speakers in the car like every other vehicle made? I’m not understanding what people are saying that the sound doesn’t sync with the speakers. If it is true that the sound is sent to the screen via Bluetooth, am I understanding correctly that the screen is never truly synced to the sound of the movie? If that is the case doesn’t it make the RSE unusable? I might just need to check it out at the dealership myself but thought I would take advantage of this huge resource of 18’ Expy owners who already have experience with it. And perhaps most importantly, if this is such a big problem, have they fixed it for 2019? Thanks in advance!

 

[MostlyHarmless]

I can give you my experience. It came with the used Limited Max 302a that I bought last month. Not sure I would have specced it on a new vehicle, but I bought the spec I wanted used at a great price and it happened to be bundled, so as far as I was concerned it was a "freebie"

I have not tried to connect via bluetooth, so cannot validate the other comments on the forums. But my kids are older and therefore very capable of running the system on their own, so they are using headphones. I couldn't think of anything worse that listening to Diary of A Wimpy Kid on a road trip, so I have no intention of trying to stream the audio through the car

Using headphones, the system is really good. The menus are intuitive and there is a good selection of inputs (DVD, HDMI, USB and SD Card) The kids worked it all out with no help and no manuals, so it can't be that tricky. Stuff like resume from last play works well, and the remotes controlling both screens is useful as we can still use the system if a remote gets misplaced on a trip.

The two biggest limitations I have found are (and they are kinda connected):

- There is only one set of inputs. So only the screen behind the driver has the DVD, HDMI, USB and SD inputs. The second screen is effectively a slave. Both screens can watch different inputs and if you have movies on an SD card or USB stick then each screen can watch two different movies from the same storage at the same time. It's just DVD and HDMI which are tricky as they can really only be watched on one screen at once, or both if both kids happen to want to watch the same thing (mine never do!!!)

- That brings me to the second point - connecting an iPad, iPhone etc is not easy. You cannot just connect it and have it stream - you need to download the Ford app and remember to tag your media into the app before you travel. And even then you can only watch the same thing on both screens. If you kids have iPhones as their main media device today, it is not a great transition. I spent the first few nights downloading DVDs and iTunes movies and converting them to MP4 on a USB stick so that I had all the movies on one stick for the kids to watch. Once I had done that then the device is a delight to use.

So a good experience, with a couple of niggles. Honestly it's not worth $2,000 - you could get a couple of high end iPads for that and put all your movies on those, or other seat back equipment for much cheaper. I would never buy it from Ford. But given that I didn't pay for mine then I am really happy with it

Good luck

Mark

 

[Bow512]

I was in a similar situation. I wanted a certain combo of options and this one happened to have the RSE and was still way cheaper than what other dealers were asking without it.

My opinion is if you take your time and rip all your movies to an sd card or usb and set the system up right, it makes a great option. I bought a cheap Bluetooth speaker from amazon that sits perfectly in the cubby hole of the console that we use for rear audio (kids are 5 &3 so no headphones) and it works great and gave me the radio back up front. If you already have a sling box the Slingplayer is a neat option as well. It just uses a ton of data.

Big picture iPads or tablets are cheaper, but the RSE is always in the car and you don’t have to charge it. If mine would have been more $ than the ones without it I probably wouldn’t have gotten it, but now that I have it set up right it works well for us.

 

[Jay Mac]

Here is my take from owning a Limited for the past month.

The worst part about the RSE is the following:

1. You can't control it from the front seat. If you have young kids, that kinda sucks. The RSE doesn't tie into Sync 3 in any way. Yeah they have the Ford Play app that you can get on your phone, but you can't see anything you are navigating to while using that app from the front seat. You can try just to stream movies from your phone, but without knowing what is going on, it's almost impossible to get things right. This is a nightmare compared to the easy GMC RSE that is fully integrated into the front infotainment screen. If you have an android phone the supports Miracast, you could use that to both stream and see what you are doing since its just mirroring your phone. But not many people will be able to do that easily.

2. The Audio can be played in the speakers in the car but only via bluetooth. You have to set it up as a source just like your phone. This causes two problems. 1) You have to disconnect your phone, and 2) the audio sync is always messed up. Almost a 1/2 sec delay. I have found a cheap solution to this, but its fugly. You can buy a bluetooth to fm transmitter that you can plug into the cig light adapter in the center console, pair it with the RSE and then just tune into the FM frequency on your radio. That works great and there is no sync issues at all. But kind of a hack.

Ford RSE has some nice features like Miracast and UPNP DLNA. This allows anyone with a phone to basically stream videos to the screens. The remotes are nice and the menu system works well. The system works great basically if you have older kids in the back who can control it themselves. But for younger kids, it's a nightmare.

I do agree with what was said above. The ideal way to use RSE is to put all your media on a SD card and just skip the DVDs all together.

 

[aggiegrad05]

2. The Audio can be played in the speakers in the car but only via bluetooth. You have to set it up as a source just like your phone. This causes two problems. 1) You have to disconnect your phone, and 2) the audio sync is always messed up. Almost a 1/2 sec delay. I have found a cheap solution to this, but its fugly. You can buy a bluetooth to fm transmitter that you can plug into the cig light adapter in the center console, pair it with the RSE and then just tune into the FM frequency on your radio. That works great and there is no sync issues at all. But kind of a hack.

This is what I do with my cheap setup from Amazon.

 

[scottdm]

I did discover a setting on the RSE where you can adjust the lag for the Bluetooth. It's called lip syncing adjustment, but unfortunately it only lets you increase the lag (makes the audio further behind the video), which isn't helpful. Seems like Voxx Hirschmann would be able to update the software to delay the video so that audio would be in sync. I'll try to reach out to them, but not holding my breath.

 

[edizzle]

I did discover a setting on the RSE where you can adjust the lag for the Bluetooth. It's called lip syncing adjustment, but unfortunately it only lets you increase the lag (makes the audio further behind the video), which isn't helpful. Seems like Voxx Hirschmann would be able to update the software to delay the video so that audio would be in sync. I'll try to reach out to them, but not holding my breath.

the delay is what you want. you need to increase the audio delay to around 1650 +/-

 

[Rob18]

I found that 1410ms delay worked best for me. Thanks for the info. I don't understand why this is not in the manual.

 

[marcel]

for those ripping movies into sd card, seems like pretty good to keep a library available in the car, just time consuming. is there any specific format you use that's recognizable? Seems like MP4 is the answer

I believe I saw it supports up to 1.5TB cards which seems to store a lot of movies, specially if you rip in a quality to match the screen which I'm not sure what it is...

don't really want to carry dvd around or have an HDMI cable dangling from the screen... the other question is regarding headphones, seems like this is the only option if you want to watch different movies on different screens? if you watch one movies on both screens can I still have audio going through the speakers in the back while front passengers listen to something else in the front speakers?

 

[Bow512]

for those ripping movies into sd card, seems like pretty good to keep a library available in the car, just time consuming. is there any specific format you use that's recognizable? Seems like MP4 is the answer

I believe I saw it supports up to 1.5TB cards which seems to store a lot of movies, specially if you rip in a quality to match the screen which I'm not sure what it is...

don't really want to carry dvd around or have an HDMI cable dangling from the screen... the other question is regarding headphones, seems like this is the only option if you want to watch different movies on different screens? if you watch one movies on both screens can I still have audio going through the speakers in the back while front passengers listen to something else in the front speakers?

I ripped all of our movies to mp4 and they all work fine. I ripped from Blu Ray, DVD and digital copies and on the screens there isn’t a real noticeable difference in quality. I’m using a 512gb card and have a lot of movies on it. If you have everything ready and want to do it for free dvdfab has a 30 day trial period but it will watermark all the movies but its not a big deal. There are other options but that’s just an idea if you want to cheap out.

As for audio if you want to listen to something different up front you’ll have to use a Bluetooth speaker for the rear. I bought a cheap one off amazon (anker I think) and it fits perfectly in the cubby of the console.

 

[GSingh]

Hey guys thanks for the info so far on the RES.
I got a 2018 with the RES and it won’t recognize my rips. I converted to MP4 and loaded onto a USB but it doesn’t read.
Any suggestions?
I use a Mac could it be a formatting issue?
File size too large?
Any ideas would be helpful.
Thanks.

 

[MostlyHarmless]

Did you rip from iTunes or DVD? If you ripped from iTunes they would still be copy protected unless you use a piece of software to remove the copy protection - converting to MP4 on it's own doesn't remove the iTunes protection

Also I reduced the file size massively by using a lower resolution when I converted - you don't need 3gb/4gb HD file sizes for that size screen - I dropped them down to a Tablet format and each video is now only about 500Mb

Thanks

Mark

 

[GSingh]

Mark, Thanks for replying immediately trying to help me out.
I apologize for the extremely late reply.

I figured out the problem. I do have a program I use to remove copy protection (for my own use only).
I tried every file format possible before realizing the USB stick was formatted for my optimization on my Mac computer.
It was formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the system wouldn't recognize it.
I then formatted the USB stick as MS-DOS (FAT32) and every single one of my rips worked as the USB was finally recognized.

Thank you again

 

[Garrett]

AnyDVD converter works, but it’***** and miss. I’ve converted about 20 so far and they all seem to work (some better than others; audio lag mainly)

 

[techdude99]

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I hate creating new threads with similar issues. My '19 has RSE and I'm trying to figure it out. Without the guide from Ford and this thread, I'd be lost.

From what I can two tell (and seems to be verified in this thread), the RSE is completely separate from Sync 3.

Is there any way to connect my Galaxy S21 to use Android Auto and mirror the maps to the rear displays without loosing Internet activity? It looks like they all need to be on the same access point (FordFES-WiFi) but it doesn't have Internet access.

Thank you

 

[techdude99]

I ripped a dozen DVD's to .M4V files on a FAT32 formatted 16GB USB stick using Handbrake and the RSE only sees 5 of them. They're all by the same company, less than 400MB each, and play fine with Plex on my home system. Any suggestions?

Thanks again.

 

[Vipersinu2]

In the lincoln, the monitors can bluetooth to the main radio.

There are delay setting u have to play with if you want the voice to sync with the movie.

I didn't use the bluetooth option, b/c the sync was off all the time.

 

[explorersvt]

I ripped a dozen DVD's to .M4V files on a FAT32 formatted 16GB USB stick using Handbrake and the RSE only sees 5 of them. They're all by the same company, less than 400MB each, and play fine with Plex on my home system. Any suggestions?

Thanks again.

I ran into the same thing, i could never get more than a few videos to show up no matter how they were formatted. If you have an Android maybe look into the ford play app. you can stream content directly from you phone / sd card to the screens without the video playing on your phone at the same time, there is also a remote function in there.

 

[okiexpy]

I ran into the same thing, i could never get more than a few videos to show up no matter how they were formatted. If you have an Android maybe look into the ford play app. you can stream content directly from you phone / sd card to the screens without the video playing on your phone at the same time, there is also a remote function in there.

tell me more! We just purchased a 2020 with the rse. We have S21 ultras (android) and I would like to use android auto for longer trips but my kids are so young they cant manipulate the rse nor are they able to wear the headphones for the audio. I can't figure out how to have android auto on and the audio still play aloud through the expys speakers.

 

[techdude99]

Based on my research, I can confirm Ford's RSE (Made my Voxx International) is universally hated. Now I understand why all the Ford stores tried to steer us toward an aftermarket system. Voxx makes some great headrest systems, but this is not one of them.

Here's what I've consolidated from previous posts and my research:

1. Ford stores hate dealing with the RSE
   
2. The RSE and Sync are completely separate.
   
3. Pairing the RSE to Sync as a Bluetooth accessory (just like pairing a phone) will get sound on all car speakers but you'll need to adjust the audio delay using the RSE remote or options menu on the RSE screen while the video is playing. This will need to be done every time you start the system.
   
4. Email support is available at the following address: [email protected]
   
5. Phone support is available through the Voxx International OEM group during normal business hours M-F at 866-869-7888 (Orlando, FL)
   
6. The model and hardware version of the RSE can be found by selecting the screen tilt button on the driver's side unit. It's printed on a white sticker opposite the LCD.
   
7. Here's the manual http://www.fordservicecontent.com/F...er_information/EVOOwnersManualFord1-26-18.pdf
   
8. There is a WiFi software update option in the RSE menu but I haven't been able to get it to download any updates. When selecting, "Update," the screen just stays blank and nothing happens.