2013-10-20 Added a removable 15″ monitor between the seats for the kids to watch on long trip.
These days, technology gives us iPads, Android pads, Windows pad and all portables in between, we can just hang these 10″ pads in the back of the car for the kids to watch movies on long/short trips. The only thing different is the wonderful BOSE stereo system in the car is not used and it’s proven to be a great addition to the watching movie experience – even the kids notice it too.
Since I’ve installed the analog TV tuner in the car to watch OTA ATSC TV, there is an extra input AV1 which can be connected to the inexpensive NETBOOK we had many years ago which is too slow for modern technology. This NETBOOK has 500GB of hard drive, which can store about 450 movies/videos @ 1280×768 or 1024×768 resolution @ 1200 kbps coding and still come out beautifully.
The goal is to put this NETBOOK in the trunk, close to the analog TV tuner – we will need that can communicate with the pc (netbook) in the trunk wireless.
Since the video input is RCA, we need to get a VGA to RCA (composite) CONVERTER and not these VGA to RCA cable (not that simple) – 3.5mm audio to RCA cable.
Audio out from headphone jack, USB to power the converter (left), VGA out (top right), USB remote receiver (right). Yellow cable (video), Red & Black (audio) to AV1 or AV2.
Button up everything to look nice – Run the cables and converter behind the felt cover.
The best way is to place it flat on the trunk under the net because we do have to turn it on manually until we figure out how to turn it on without using the power button.
SETTING UP THE NETBOOK
All laptop goes to sleep when the lid is closed, we need to modify it so that it doesn’t.
Now we can close the lid without putting the PC to sleep. The toolbar icons are small in 7″ screen, UN-CHECK use small icons in the tool bar to make it larger and CHECK auto hide the taskbar.
Now, all we need is to mount a 15-17″ monitor between the front seats for the kids to have “A8L BOSE theater system” experience. Got to love the “L”.
2 Comments
i have a 2004 A8L and want/need to hardwire my phone to the stereo, and came across this video… how did you tap into the stereo, and doing so, how did you get the nav screen to play the video also? that’s a pretty cool trick!!! thanks for the time and answer in advance…
Ian,
If you want to display movies, videos on the screen, you need the FBAS (connector + circuit) on your MMI head unit and video cable. You also need a TV tuner to connect the Video sources: laptop, dvd, video player, back up camera, etc.