Hack36.Tune in TV in the Car

Hack 36. Tune in TV in the Car

With the right antenna, the TV tuner card in your PC can expand your viewing choices and entertain your passengers.

While many in-car TV systems are available, in-car computers expand the options even further. A computer-based TV system can combine the functions of playing, recording, and archiving TV programs. With digital video recorder (DVR) software, passengers can have all the latest TV features that they've come to expect, such as being able to pause and rewind live TV.

There are many systems for tuning TV broadcasts in a computer, ranging from external USB 2.0 TV capture systems to built-in TV/FM tuner PCI cards. The USB units are sometimes better, because they don't have to deal with signal interference inside the PC case. However, the features and video speeds are better on the PCI cards. PCI cards (such as those from http://www.hauppauge.com) are also good because they integrate FM and TV tuning and have built-in MPEG encoding capabilitiesessential for soft personal video recorder (PVR) programs, so that you can have TiVo-like features on the road. The Hauppauge units also have some of the best Linux driver support of any card on the market for their PVR series.

The trick to picking up good TV signals in the car is a good car antenna. If you have ever seen the small wings on the trunk of a limousine, you've seen one type of TV antenna for vehicles. However, you don't have to install an external antenna to pick up TVthere are many antennas that can be mounted on the inside of your car.

You can pay from around $10 to $100 for an in-car TV antenna, depending on the quality of the model. The easiest to install are like in-home rabbit earsthey have two antennas that stretch out to the left and right, and these can be mounted high in the rear window.

During your antenna search, you will see the term diversity . With a diversity antenna, you mount two antennas in different places in your car. Receivers can then choose which antenna has a better signal at any given time, providing better reception than with just one antenna.

There are two main connectors for antennas. Conventional antennas for homes use what is called an F connector. In the U.S., this connector is commonly referred to as a coaxial connector. This is the same connector type that screws onto the back of TVs, cable boxes, and VCRs. However, many car TV systems use a 3.5-mm connector (like a headphone jack) instead. Your car TV tuner most likely uses an F connector, so make sure that your car antenna has an F jack. If it doesn't, you can buy a 3.5-to-F connector, or build one with parts available at Radio Shack.

If you can, get an antenna that comes with an amplifier, either integrated within the antenna housing or as a separate 12V device. It's an inexpensive addition, and given that the TV tuner on a car or in a computer is probably less sophisticated than a TV set, you need all the signal strength you can get.

With a starting cost of less than $10 for some antennas, it's cheap and easy to test out the reception of your in-car computer television. If you find you need a better signal, you can go to a more expensive internal or even external-mount solution.

Now that you have TV in the car, you need a PVR so that your shows are waiting for you when you get in the car. For more information on setting up these PVR features on your PC, see "Put a Video Jukebox in Your Car Theater" [Hack #70].