Thread: Mp3Car.com Building Show Car. Ideas Please?

Originally Posted by cproaudio

I cant really comment on which car you should choose. But I can suggest on what computers the demo car should have. As for hardware, you should have at least 4 PCs all net worked together and all of the HDD shared.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...00&postcount=1
We had the same idea.

My idea is to take a larger vehicle (An older Suburban was my thought) and rework the interior to make a rolling LAN Party....

Now before you go off, hear my entire idea....

You've got to have a dedicated server, which could also double as the driver-accessible system to do GPS nav, play music, and all the other functions that we want from our carPCs.

In the back, you could have four rotating captain's chairs with an LCD overhead and a tray (similar to the ones in an airliners armrest that folds up & out) for a keyboard/mouse tray....
Perhaps have an LCD monitor overhead that would rotate with the chair....

Have a kicking sound system so that the game server could also dish up some tasty tunage for not only the gamers, but for anyone within earshot... Of course you'd have to kick up the audio to make 'earshot' be as far away as possible.

Can you imagine having this tricked-out Suburban (BLACK, of course!) with the sounds of shotguns & plasma weapons cruising through a residential neighborhood with some Rob Zombie kickin as background?

Am I the only one that thinks this could be cool, in a geeky sort of way? I'm trying to guage my twisted geekiness.

Originally Posted by StrataG

If 4 computers were to be utilized in this setup, I believe about half of that setup is completely useless.
100GB drives in each passenger computer is a waste of money. I would say no more than 20GB drives for the passenger computers would suffice. If the computers are networked, one computer should be housing all media. The passenger computers should only need program files and enough room to cache a dual layer dvd to burn (which I don't think is necessary for each computer either).

You're not thinking big here. 100GB is not alot. it only holds about 11-19 movies per drive. If you rip the DVDs into the HDDs, that's about 100 DVDs give or take that you dont have to carrry around and have instant access to.

Wifi cards for each individual computer are also pointless.

It's not pointless. In fact it's very useful. Server's WiFi can connect to the local hot spot while passanger PC's WiFi can be configured for ad hoc and play MP3s from another MP3Car nearby. or Server's WiFi can be configured for ad hoc so that the vehicle can be controlled from a laptop while passanger PC's WiFi can connect to the internet. You dont the know the wow factor you get when you open doors or roll windows up and down, lock/unlock doors, turn on headlights, honk the horn, and open/close the sunroof from a laptop 100+ feet away be cause you've never seen it in person.

GPS receivers I would say are not necessary, but I guess could add a bit of wow factor.

Each PC would have a nav software installed so each person can have instant access to exactly where they are. I dont think thats pointless. The point of having 4 PCs is every one in the car dont have to look at other's screen to get the information/media they want. If 1 of the passanger say hey check this out, s/he can also pull it up on his/her own screen.

In addition to the USB, firewire, and audio line in ports, I would definately add headphone ports.

There is no point in having 4 seperate computers capable of playing media if you can't listen to 4 different audio streams.

bluetooth stereo headphones for the passanger PCs. There's no need to 4 input sound card.

As far as the main PC goes, I would suggest getting an audio input card capable of at least 4 inputs. This would allow all 3 passenger computers to output to the main speakers as well as a line-in for a cd/mp3 player. There would have to be something setup on the main PC that would easily allow volume overrides of each line-in so people don't start fighting for speaker time.

There's no need for that All medias that needs to play through the audio system will be played at the driver's PC. If any passanger wants to see the video, it can be switched at the screen to display the driver's video.

As for the microphone setups, you would need some fine tuning of the VR program of choice so that one person wouldn't be controlling all 4 PC's at the same time. NaviVoice could be setup with different names for each PC though.

no big deal, software configuration.

The biggest problem I see with a 4 PC setup is a common display. What happens if you want to put on a movie or demostrate something and have all monitors display the same thing. The only option there is using some type of remote desktop type of program with poor refresh rates. You would need 4 KVM switches and some way of auto synching them if you wanted to.

Each monitor is capable of displaying a second VGA signal. When need to, you can have all the monitor to display the main PC's video so all 4 monitors are playing the samething. Besides I hate demo cars with 15 monitors playing the same thing. Now that's pointless. The whole idea of having multiple monitors is to display different things. If you want to display the same thing, get 1 giant screen like a 20" or a 24" flip down. That way everyone can see the same thing.

Again, this was all based on having 4 PC's which I don't think is necessary. If anything I would setup 2 PC's with dual displays and sound cards. Have two instances of a front-end running and display them to the appropriate monitors.

Bottom line is that 4 PCs in a demo car is not useless. mounting a video screen in the engine compartment is useless. Remember this is a demo car. It has to do everything imaginable. You havent seen as much demo cars as I have and you cant believe how much useless crap they do. I've even help built a couple of them.

Originally Posted by Scouse Monkey

4 PCs is a waste of time.

just use multiple grpahics cards. 2 is the most needed + xbox etc etc. YOu should have all the musics and films either on one PC or on a NAS drive and you only need one GPS as you can share the serial data out to mulitple computers either via serial splitting or via the lan.

oh and you want to use PC anywhere or something similar to control all the PCs from one.

That's for your personal car where you're the only nerd in the family. This is for a demo car where you'll have 4 or more of the world's biggest nerd hopping into the car at the same time. They all want their own ****. Besides how's reliablity of using multi graphics card. Can you gurantee the PC can handle 2 games at the same time with out crashing? Imagine how embarassing it is to have a demo car's PC crashing while showing off to the world.

a Demo car is to show people what it can do. Your ideas are so limited that once "your" demo car is done, it's nothing special, just a PC slapped in the trunk with a monitor mounted on the dash. This demo car is to show the world what CarPC can do not what it could've done.

Originally Posted by DarquePervert

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...00&postcount=1
We had the same idea.

Yes I remember that post way back then

whatever you decide, make sure it blows "megacar" out of the water. You gotta have highspeed internet in it. Given the timeframe, obviously no new frontends......i'm a fan of roadrunner.

Not to toot my own horn, but I think a Jeep Grand Cherokee, or a Commander is really a cool choice. No, allow me to explain...

Jeep put out some nice SUV's at SEMA. You could try the Jeep with the Hemi, or wait and spend more cash and get the SRT-8 Jeep...

here's the 2005 Jeep DUB Edition at SEMA.



here's the SRT-8 jeep



Both are really stlyish. Both have dashes that are really easy to take apart and mold, lots of rear cargo room aswell as under the 2nd row of seats.

Another good one would be a new accord. IIRC, they have lots of space in the engine bay for wires and aftermarket parts. Plus aftermarket parts are going to be somewhat cheaper for a more common car, but with a killer paint job the sky's the limit.