couple general Audio/video quality questions

**Vladimer** · 10-08-2006, 04:12 PM

hey there, theres no official introduction sub forum so ill say hi here

been roaming around this forum for the past few weeks and decided it was time to register and start asking questions which i couldnt answer through looking or search. Drive a 01 Tiburon with an older clarion deck that came with the car when i bought it, has 300w 3way 6x9's and 230w 3way 6 1/2's Pioneer speakers powered by a Clarion 4 channel amp and a 12" Infinity sub powered by a Ultimate T3 amp.

origionally i was planning to go with a new HU, the Premier DEH-P980BT, its a brand of Pioneer but the whole car pc sorta caught my attention.

i have a few questions which i couldnt find the answer to on the site and if i did it was probably abunch of really technical names and # which i didnt understand anyways probably, i have a friend whos builds computers helping out with this once i get to the whole assembly part

alright, first off, sound quality wise, i understand that a dolby 5.1 sound car probably matches the sound quality of a good deck but car audio wise im used to have 3 sets of rca outs, front/rear/sub, now if the sound card puts out 3.5m jacks, wouldnt the signal get abit distorted by the time it reaches the amps, since it has to convert from 3.5m to rca and then split? im probably confusing myself here more then anything

second off, a car pc is pretty much a pc, but how come all the boot screens and programs for it run in about 250 colors if a pc can handle millions and screens i've looked at, vga and lcd support over a million dots. personally with the car pc screen im looking for a nice flashy background, hard to explain but when you look at a nav screen off of a nav system it usually is pretty interactive with everything, now would this be possible to recreate in flash or something else or am i stuck with lower color static backgrounds and all, hope that makes sense

and three, is there anyway to actually integrate bluetooth into the carpc so i can use my cellphone and all but its sorta intergrated into the pc so it would use the car speakers and a external mic, sorta found the answer to this in the wirless com. section but its usually something along the lines of something else

thanks alot for any help and guidance in this

**Jahntassa** · 10-08-2006, 04:53 PM

1. The only difference between 3.5mm outputs and RCAs is that the 3.5mm have shared ground. Yes, you may get a slightly better sound through straight RCAs, but the difference is minimal at best.

2. I'm confused as to what you're saying here. Windows bootscreens are basically limited to certain colors (indexed) and only a certain number of them. That's just by design. In windows you can have as many colors as you want (16.7 million). What exactly are you asking? What you see depends on the software you have.

3. Yes. Centrafuse has a program called PhoneControl built in that does exactly that.

**Vladimer** · 10-08-2006, 05:44 PM

alright, with #2 i get it now, sort of a brain fart that just started confusing me, its rather simple, computer starts up through dos so it doesnt handle as many colors on boot up but once windows is launched it goes up to how ever many colors the computer/screen can handle

right?

thanks alot for the help

**Vladimer** · 10-08-2006, 09:02 PM

i have a couple more questions but figured i'd ask them here instead of making new threads.

power wise, im planning to run an inverter for the pc and wondering what would be the better alternative, i plan to have everything in the trunk. decided to make a picture since it would be easier to explain

alright, the image on the right is how i have my system currently setup (power wire wise) 4g wire into a distribution block which turns into (2) 8g wires which give power to the amps

now with an inverter in the trunk powering a pc and whatever else it needs... would the image on the left be a better option? upgrading the power wire which goes from the battery to a 0g wire and then splits into (2) 4g wires which powers the dis. block for the amps and one 4g which poweres the inverter

or would the current 4g be enough, so it would be a 4g wire from the battery to the trunk and then split into (3) 8g wires, 1 for one amp, 1 for the second amp and 1 for the inverter

and second question, what would provide better sound quality for the money, PC -> HU -> Amp -> Speakers
or
PC -> Amp -> Speakers
cant find a definitive answer to this so figured i'd ask
and by quality for the money, i dont mean cheaper alternative, example... if setting it up for clear quality the first way would cost $400 and to get it to the same sound quality the second way it would cost $200, second choice would probably be best,

thanks again for any help on this

**blkwrx** · 10-08-2006, 10:48 PM

Why are you using an inverter?

**Vladimer** · 10-08-2006, 11:53 PM

well i was under the impression that its the better alternative... but im guessing with that question i missed something out and i guessed wrong

**blkwrx** · 10-09-2006, 12:04 AM

Motherboards run on 12vdc. I am assuming your using standard 120vac psu so basically your going from 12vdc to 120vac back to 12vdc. Also the psu's made for CarPC use can be wired to start and shutdown the computer with the ignition.

**blkwrx** · 10-09-2006, 12:09 AM

Originally Posted by Vladimer

alright, with #2 i get it now, sort of a brain fart that just started confusing me, its rather simple, computer starts up through dos so it doesnt handle as many colors on boot up but once windows is launched it goes up to how ever many colors the computer/screen can handle

right?

thanks alot for the help

If you are running Win 2000 or higher the OS does not boot from dos. The # of colors has to do with display drivers and ability of the equiptment.

**blkwrx** · 10-09-2006, 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by Vladimer

i have a couple more questions but figured i'd ask them here instead of making new threads.

power wise, im planning to run an inverter for the pc and wondering what would be the better alternative, i plan to have everything in the trunk. decided to make a picture since it would be easier to explain

alright, the image on the right is how i have my system currently setup (power wire wise) 4g wire into a distribution block which turns into (2) 8g wires which give power to the amps

now with an inverter in the trunk powering a pc and whatever else it needs... would the image on the left be a better option? upgrading the power wire which goes from the battery to a 0g wire and then splits into (2) 4g wires which powers the dis. block for the amps and one 4g which poweres the inverter

or would the current 4g be enough, so it would be a 4g wire from the battery to the trunk and then split into (3) 8g wires, 1 for one amp, 1 for the second amp and 1 for the inverter

and second question, what would provide better sound quality for the money, PC -> HU -> Amp -> Speakers
or
PC -> Amp -> Speakers
cant find a definitive answer to this so figured i'd ask
and by quality for the money, i dont mean cheaper alternative, example... if setting it up for clear quality the first way would cost $400 and to get it to the same sound quality the second way it would cost $200, second choice would probably be best,

thanks again for any help on this

I would leave the 4ga for the amps and run a separate 12-14ga line for the PC. If you get a PSU for the car environment your going to have to run a 12v constant as well as the acc/ignition line to the PSU.

There is no answer to you SQ question. Lots of people on here run their soundcards directly to their amps. It all depends on if you want to integrate a hu or not. As well as the quality of the soundcard and/or hu.

**BDVirus** · 10-09-2006, 10:49 AM

im getting the DEH-P980BT this thurs so ill let ya know about it.... got it for the phone support mainly but also b/c i have a BT tablet, and BT PDA so can use audio that way.... then im eventually gonna put a pc in there, just not right away