RipplingHurst

I took the strong magnet inside the Trendnet Wi-Fi antenna and use it on the antenna that came with a portable USB HDTV Tuner. I put the Fusion RT 5 Gold PCI on the car, only because it was laying around the house, and I wanted to check on the reception. I live around moutains so I knew that close to home it would be hard to get HD anyway, but I manage to get one station, poorly. I bet that close to San Francisco I'll get better reception, but I'll probably ditch this anyway for a SlingBox solution, if and when I get internet in my car at all times.

Anyway, this is how the antenna is fixed on my rear deck:

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

MP3Car.com

 

Ricksastar

I am looking for a similar set up as yours... how does the GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H AM2 AMD 690G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard run? how fast is that?

RipplingHurst

The board itself is fine, I used an ECS and had lots of issues - very peeky with memory. This one is very stable, I already tested all the memory banks I have and pretty much could use every combination.

I like the fact that you can limit the graphic subsystem power consumption, I've never seen that before in a mATX board, maybe the more powerful one does have it. You can limit the board to 100w, 75, 50w (my current setting), 25 watts, etc.

I play .mkv (h.264) files, 1080p/720p, flawlessly, with very little cpu use. That's a bonus, I though I would have to downconvert everything (again) to play on the car. This way, although I have large files, still, less time converting things specifically for the car. I'll probably think more about that as the need arises in the future.

It only has only one serial port, on board, that I have yet to make it work. It has lots of USB ports, which is useful for one side, but I suspect it also increased my boot times, apparently it takes forever to double check if there is something connected to each of the 10 ports (I'm using six of these currently).

It also defaults to the DVI-D/HDMI output, so it gets a little more time to detect the analog VGA/S-video/Component side (I have to use the VGA with the Xenarc). This wrecks havock with the Xenarc's auto detect signal sometimes. If you use the auto av-2 for the backup camera, you might find that the drivers thinks that the vga was disconnected (since the Xenarc is displaying the AV2 input), and then goes to the dvi/HDMI. I'm still strugling with that, but I cannot say for sure it's not my particular setup, or if is a board issue.

When I add more monitors for the back seats I'll probably buy a converter (DVI-D to VGA), a simple dongle won't do.

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

turbocad6

hey, what's up... first I'm seeing of this thread, looks like you came up with a good solution for your screen loking good man, keep up the good work

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MY NEWEST INSTALL:modded infiniti fx with big screen

first windows carpc install........my liquid cooled LVDS screen :D

Caelric

That HDTV antenna, it came with your HDTV USB tuner, or is it something that you bought separately? I ask because my HDTV PCI card that I use did not come with an antenna, and I have not found a decent antenna yet that isn't too big for my needs.

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2005 Infiniti G35 6MT Coupe Black/Black
Core Duo CarPC
CarDomain page

RipplingHurst

Thanks, Turbo, a compliment coming from you is worth a lot!

Thank you very much!

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

RipplingHurst

Yes, it came with another tuner I had, the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950:

http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_inf...acturers_id/10

According to the site above,

10 miles is not much, and haven't yet tested at that distance, but 4times that. Not good enough. But when close to the city, I believe it will be good enough, I've seen reviews using the card with notebooks inside hotels, saying the antenna is good enough for all the local channels.

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

RipplingHurst

Monitor install: I just bent some metal brackets from the OEM unit to make some room for the Xenarc, which is actually smaller than the stock OEM.




Nice fit, great! In the picture below you can see the OBDpros unit, to gather information from the ECU about the car state, etc. Also it can clear the "engine light" thingy, if needed (I needed already, when I plugged the battery back without the radio/a/c unit connected...The OBDPros unit is the black box with the blue sticker below the monitor.



This is the view from below, at the top, again the black box is the OBDpros unit, and the black box with the WHITE sticker is the PAC Audio unit, to get the signals from the computer and send it to the Headunit. Here is the pic:



I used double side tape to fix those to the metal brackets that were already there.

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

MP3Car.com

 

RipplingHurst

I used the 2MP Logitech Quick CAM pro 9000, with Carl Zeis 2.0/3.7 aperture, and rightlight technology, great for dark/night scenes. Also HD video to boot (960x720). The microphone is great, i did some recording with the open windows at 40mph, I could hear everything clearly later...

As it turned out, though, this camera ended up working better in the back seat, but this I save for another post, since the one who will replace this will have similar functionality, only better outdoors. The fast Carl Zeis lens worked much better in the high contrast back seat, to work as a baby cam (since I have a newborn, who rides facing backwards). Really, this "rightlight" tech is not hype, it did work better in high contrast situations (say, sunny outside, dark interiors). Anyway, here is my first attempt.


http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/we.../3056&cl=us,en


Camera facing the passengers:



Rotating towards the front, standard view. First, rotate the rearview mirror slightly towards the driver's door:








Rearview mirror back in place, camera fully tucked behind.




Outside view:





The circular led on the camera faceplate looks extremely cool when lit (it is optional, you can disable that with the software). Can't wait to record my first conversation with the authorities, and I'm sure I'll post many cool real world situations wherever I met them: this camera will work non-stop from the moment I turn on the car, recording the last 30 minutes of everything it captures continuously, archieving it whenever I hit the appropriate button.

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

MastaCheeb

That camera is pretty slick...I really like the capture properties...Very similar to the technique used to film the "Planet Earth" documentaries.

I need to adapt the same technology to a shoulder mounted unit in order to document the wealth of random people I come across....

...Keep up the good work!

RipplingHurst

I couldn't make it without the Capture! software, got it here:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/soft...recording.html

Today is a sad day: 100F+ (39C) here in the bay area, my carputer didn't work. Too hot? How? What?

My hunch is that the DSATX gave up...The hard disks are rated for 60C-70C operating, so it can't be that. I doubt that inside the trunk it can get higher than 50C.

I'll have to investigate that. That sucks man. All the car electronics work fine, not mine...

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

RipplingHurst

Well, this is the first video recorded on the car with the DVR functionality. A family picnic at the Mt. Diablo summit, 3,849 feet, all recorded by the USB Cam referred above:

This was the first test for the DVR software I use (Capture!, found on these forums). When the computer boots up, it starts recording the front USB feed with no input from me whatsoever. It records up to 10 30min files, after the 10Th is finished, it erases the first one and starts all over again, or it starts a new one when the computer boots. For now I chose to compress the video in real time with the FFDShow codec, DivX. By mistake in the config files, I was too conservative on this one and the video was recorded at 320x240. The top resolution for the camera is 720p, but I think I can record 640x480 DivX. I'll try 720p later, must give me good blow ups for things like license plates, etc, but I'll dare not compress that in real time. As long as that does not hurt my I/O subsystem, taxing my HD with the huge files, I don't care. I have a 500GB HD there for things like these anyway.

So here is the video. I edited the original 45 min to 8 min, and as I said before, I didn't pick up the sound right (lots of wind noise from the A/C, feedback, I think the levels were wrong, have to check that later), so I changed the soundtrack.

This is video, 8 min lenght. My host re sized it to 1MB/sec when converted to flash, it looks much better playing from the computer. I guess with youtube it would be worse, what do you guys think?


P.S. to admins:
I couldn't again embed the videos, according to my host, one of those codes should work, still, no luck. I don't want to give you more work, just to make sure it's supposed not to work anyway.
The "regular" code:
<object width="678" height="506"><param name="movie" value="<A href="http://babi.phanfare.com/video/3;40424211;"></param><param">http://babi.phanfare.com/video/3;40424211;"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://babi.phanfare.com/video/3;40424211;" width="678" height="506" wmode="transparent"></embed></object>

Java:
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="<A href="http://babi.phanfare.com/video.js?v=3&id=40424211&width=678&height=506&wmod etransparent=1"></script><noscript><object">http://babi.phanfare.com/video.js?v=3&id=40424211&width=678&height=506&wmod etransparent=1"></script><noscript><object width="678" height="506"><param name="movie" value="<A href="http://babi.phanfare.com/video/3;40424211;"></param><param">http://babi.phanfare.com/video/3;40424211;"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://babi.phanfare.com/video/3;40424211;" width="678" height="506" wmode="transparent"></embed></object></noscript>

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

Caelric

Not bad at all! By the way, what song is that that you mixed in?

I'm referring to the first song, BTW.

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2005 Infiniti G35 6MT Coupe Black/Black
Core Duo CarPC
CarDomain page

RipplingHurst

Thanks,

Which one? First, the Bravery, "Time won't let me go", and then Hot Hot Heat, "Bandages".


I also managed to get the RRearth to work for me, good.

Now I think I can move this on to the completed worklog.

Cheers,

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

RipplingHurst

My host can be a bit slow, and I'm not happy with the quality. So I just uploaded the video on Youtube, FWIW.

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Worklog - 07 Infiniti Fx35 Carputer

Worklog – 06 Infiniti M35 Carputer (sold!)

MP3Car.com