blueiedgod Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 Does anyone know if there is a DC powered digital converter box so that I would not need a DC/AC converter? Probably not because Converter Boxes are meant for indoor use with a TV...so you probably won't find a DC one since all houses are AC. I am sure if one were to open one of those digital converter boxes, one would see that there is a transformer and a rectifier inside. They probably run on 5V. One could just oslder wires to the board and power it through a voltage regulator or a simple resistor. This is a great idea! I am going to try it out once I get my coupons (second time) lost coupons from the last batch. Luckily, they allow you to re-order now. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LucienEp3 Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 Just use a power inverter first to test it out. Wouldn't that work? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
N2ROW Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 Im using a diversity ant. comes with a preamp. It hides in the headliner. I purchased it 4 years ago for my passport with a build in TV tuner flip down monitor. It works fine for my Honda Civic with the ft90 with a digital recvr to av2. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gte534j Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 has anyone tried to use their car radio antenna (no one responded to the previous post on this)? I would think that should work well and be a very neat installation, no extra antenna to mount. Also, are there any sticker type antennas available that you can mount to your windsheild, it would look kinda like your rear window defroster? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gte534j Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 did some searching and found the best box to use for the car: http://www.ezdigitaltv.com/Artec_T3AP_Pro.html it has 12V cigarette lighter power and RCA outputs and is super small. So you can just hook it up to the back of the AVIC and it will work very easily. Its $50, but with the $40 coupon, its $10. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
d12dirtydozen Posted March 27, 2009 Report Share Posted March 27, 2009 Hey megaman...any way you can take pics? I have a box too and would like to see how it looks. Also pics of the screen Quote Link to post Share on other sites
wnclivin Posted March 30, 2009 Report Share Posted March 30, 2009 has anyone tried to use their car radio antenna (no one responded to the previous post on this)? I would think that should work well and be a very neat installation, no extra antenna to mount. Also, are there any sticker type antennas available that you can mount to your windsheild, it would look kinda like your rear window defroster? Car radio antenna doesn't have the correct type of connection (co-ax). You'd have to find a splitter to allow your car antenna to connect to the back of the AVIC and to the tv tuner. As far as I know they don't make those. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
lsumykul Posted April 1, 2009 Report Share Posted April 1, 2009 ok, so here is the deal, i purchased the RCA digital converter from Walmart and got a 20 dollar antenna fron Target and ran the converter through a power inverter for the time being. it all works great, im a decent distance out of Houston, Tx and still get 25 channels. While moving the channels are a bit glitchy, but i think that has to do with the cheap antenna i purchased...going back today to exchange it for a better model and will hopefully get better reception. The quality of the picture is perfect, looks just like my Direct TV in my house. All thats left to do is run splice into my IR wire on the box and run it to my dash and hide it, im also going to splice my inverter to an accessory line so itll only come on when the truck is running. Ill post some pictures along the way just to give an idea of what im doing here in case you guys are curious at all. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
vb1215 Posted April 1, 2009 Report Share Posted April 1, 2009 awesome... please post pics when u get a chance Quote Link to post Share on other sites
spaceywilly Posted April 1, 2009 Report Share Posted April 1, 2009 ok, so here is the deal, i purchased the RCA digital converter from Walmart and got a 20 dollar antenna fron Target and ran the converter through a power inverter for the time being. it all works great, im a decent distance out of Houston, Tx and still get 25 channels. While moving the channels are a bit glitchy, but i think that has to do with the cheap antenna i purchased...going back today to exchange it for a better model and will hopefully get better reception. The quality of the picture is perfect, looks just like my Direct TV in my house. All thats left to do is run splice into my IR wire on the box and run it to my dash and hide it, im also going to splice my inverter to an accessory line so itll only come on when the truck is running. Ill post some pictures along the way just to give an idea of what im doing here in case you guys are curious at all. Just make sure that the box doesn't lose the stored channels when you take away power. It would be a pain to have to scan for channels every time you get in the truck. Definitely post pics/video if you can do that, I'm tempted to do this... if there was a tv tuner that had a built in dvd player I'd be all over it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
wnclivin Posted April 2, 2009 Report Share Posted April 2, 2009 Sup everybody. Found a great deal for a free 12 volt dtv tuner. Someone posted the link for it above, but I found this store has it for free now with the coupon. Go to http://www.freetvsignal.com and look for the Artec T3AP Pro. Very small and has analog pass through. I just ordered mine and it was free, including shipping, with a coupon. Today I went to Kmart after reading some positve reviews about the Zenith dtv tuner. It was a nice unit, somewhat larger than the Artec seems to be. Connected to a simple UHF/VHF un-powered antenna. The problem I had was with power supply. I first used a 100watt cigg lighter plug power converter and noticed tons of white static moving on the screen. I then powered the unit with an extension cord from my house...the static was less erratic but moved upward on the screen in one fat bar over and over. Finally I used a new 400watt Black and Decker power converter with a GE amplified antenna. The static was MUCH improved over the 100watt converter, but still present. To further investigate this static, I un-installed everything and connected to my 42" plasma inside the house. Perfectly static-free, but detected fewer channels than in my vehicle. So to get around the whole power converter static issue, without spending a lot of money on a pure sine wave converter, I began searching for a 12 volt powered dtv tuner. Looking forward to installing this one...more info to come Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SuperH Posted April 4, 2009 Report Share Posted April 4, 2009 ok, so here is the deal, i purchased the RCA digital converter from Walmart and got a 20 dollar antenna fron Target and ran the converter through a power inverter for the time being. it all works great, im a decent distance out of Houston, Tx and still get 25 channels. While moving the channels are a bit glitchy, but i think that has to do with the cheap antenna i purchased... Actually, that most likely has to do with a combination of Rayleigh fading and the Doppler Effect, and their impact on the pre-buffer of digital signals. You essentially lose your buffer when you drop your signal parity as you move. The DTV converter boxes have basic digital tuners that are meant to be utilized in a fixed location; they do not do the complex mathematical calculations required to compensate for different types of fading or the general Doppler Effect. There are some mobile HDTV tuners developed, but at this time the technology is highly proprietary, and thus the chipsets are costly to implement. This happens because, unfortunately, ATSC 8-VSB used in terrestrial broadcasting wasn't designed with the mobile issues in mind. Analog reception just happens to work. HD Radio, another digital technology, WAS designed with mobile reception in mind, so the signal buffering algorithm is set up substantially differently. Same with satellite radio -- but mostly, satellite radio works due to the antenna design on the satellites and the automobiles; you have a direct line-of-site in most circumstances. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SuperH Posted April 4, 2009 Report Share Posted April 4, 2009 http://www.artec.com.tw/ehtm/products/t3ap.htm These boxes are small and they have AC-DC power adapters. The unit itself takes 12VDC in; this means that you could hypothetically engineer a hardwired solution. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
trrocks03 Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 Hey guys, So I just installed all the necessary components to have TV with the 90bt. As some other member have posted, I do not get good reception while driving. The reception is average when sitting still. I got the RCA brand converter box, the RCA $30 amplified flat antenna, and a black&decker 200 watt inverter/converter. It is all wired into the car under the seats, with the antenna in the trunk. Some people have said the reception is going to be bad while driving, due to the digital format of the signal. I was just thinking it was the antenna, but you have a point. I haven't tried it out on the highway yet, but I will today. If it doesnt work well, I will try another antenna, and if that doesn't work, I might scrap the whole idea. If these can't pick up signal well on the move, then they aren't worth the $100 of the entire project. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Deezflip Posted April 9, 2009 Report Share Posted April 9, 2009 This TV tuner and antenna I saw on amazon looks like could work in this setup. Any thoughts on that?http://www.amazon.com/Pyle-Digital-Atsc ... pd_sbs_e_5 bump...I'd like to know more about this too. Looks very tempting. I'm curious if it has a better "moving" reception than the homemade DTV boxes. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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