i got it all hooked up. I put the audio into the front output and the video to the video and then turned it on in the setttings the only problem is now i cant control the volume from my headunit or the converter box..what could that be?
Do you guys actually get reception while driving?
I didn't think that it was possible to receive a TV broadcast while in motion, I thought you had to be parked somewhere...
i jsut got mine hooked up and i dont get good receptino while driving but my antenna is in my trunk and im looking right now for a diff antenna to try out. My last car had alot better of a signal while driving
i got it all hooked up. I put the audio into the front output and the video to the video and then turned it on in the setttings the only problem is now i cant control the volume from my headunit or the converter box..what could that be?
you answered your own question. you put it into an output... instead of an input...
if you have an iPod:
you have to get an AV splitter... or 3 separate Y cables, and connect everything that way... when you want to listen to the iPod you have to switch it every time on your unit.
if you don't:
just connect it to AV1...
It should be possible to disassemble the tuner box and remove the IR sensor. Then just solder in some longer wires for it and mount the sensor anywhere in your car. That way the tuner box can be mounted under a backseat or in the trunk.
i jsut got mine hooked up and i dont get good receptino while driving but my antenna is in my trunk and im looking right now for a diff antenna to try out. My last car had alot better of a signal while driving
If your antenna is flat enough try mounting it on your rear deck where it meets the bottom of your back window. The defroster elements could interfere, but should be better reception than in your trunk.
I'm REALLY looking forward to doing this install!! Come on coupons! 
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.
Just use a power inverter first to test it out. Wouldn't that work?
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
awesome... please post pics when u get a chance
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.
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 
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.
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.
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. 
This TV tuner and antenna I saw on amazon looks like could work in this setup. Any thoughts on that?
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.
I've discovered another way to get Live TV on the AVIC, and it only costs $10 IF you already have
1. An iphone with data plan, and the AV cable for your AVIC
2. A computer with a TV Tuner
If you have these things, you can use a program called ORBlive to stream Live TV, as well as any movie files and music on your computer, to the iphone, and use TVOut to get the picture on the AVIC display. I set it all up last night and tried it out in the car this morning, streaming to the iphone works great but the program I was using to get the video output on the screen, screensplitr, was very slow. I'm going to try TVOut, another iPhone TV out program, and see how it goes. The quality is not as good as it would be using a TV tuner, but that might be different if I had a better internet connection at home.
Advantages over the DTV tuner:
-really easy to set up, nothing to install
-gets any channels you get on your PC
-can also stream recorded TV and movies from your computer
-no worrying about antennas/reception
-you can take the iPhone with you and watch TV anywhere you want
Disadvantages
-Requires iPhone with data plan and solid 3G connection
-Requires always-on PC with TV Tuner and broadband internet connection
-Quality is about equal or slightly higher than a youtube video
-iPhone TV Out leaves a lot to be desired
Hi,
I just installed the Artec T3AP converter box w/ this antenna:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0283642608
The installation was easy, and the antenna fit in great in the head panel between the roof and the head board. The reception with the antenna was just as good as with my home antenna. The only problem was once i started moving, even at 5 mph, i would lose the digital signal. Its really neat though in that it works well when you are stopped. I will install the converter box in my glove box so that way I can change channels when i need to. ANyways, if anyone has had any luck getting this to work WHILE the car is moving, just post it up.
nice thread, wouldnt have ever thought to do this. I admit i still wouldnt if it cost me much, but i already have a 800 watt converter installed in my truck and just sent off for a coupon so looks like all i need to do is buy a antenna and a RCA cable. So for 10-20 bucks i can have TV in my truck I can handle that
If you have an ipod, i would recommend connecting the TV to the AV2 input on the front. I know its not as nice looking, but you can make the wire so you only plug it in when you need it (basically when you are not moving since the tuner wont work while driving). I tried splitting my AV1 input w/ the ipod, but it degreaded the audio volume and i got alternator induced noise. This is the cable i got:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0042584144
its retractable, so its super nice in that you can just retract it away when you dont need it
I had one of the first Kenwood touch screens YEARS ago (think pre-navi) that had a TV unit that came with it. and to tell you the truth, I was never impressed on the reception that it got while moving (and this was pre dtv) b/c the signal would fade in and out depending on the area i was driving in (like lots of trees or buildings). and most of the other in car TV stuff i have seen myself was never much better except for a direct TV unit that i saw one time that has an auto tracking sat dish but that dish enclosure was a little too big for regular cars (my friend was with a race team and they had one on the car transfer truck). But even that would loose signal on curvy roads (the tracking system could not keep up then).