Volume 1: The Fifth Element - Mobile Satellite TV - DirecTv by KVH TracVision A5

If you're old enough to remember back in 70's and 80's while watching those Star Trek episodes with all their cool gadgets Captain Kirk used to defeat his foes and to get in contact with his crew, it was somewhat hard to imagine that we could ever produce some of the devices we have today, especially when watching a Sci-Fi episode of ST.

Surely enough, technology has seemed like it's moved for us at warp speed and we've been unlucky enough to be prisoners to some of these technological advancements such as the cell phone. So, we haven't reached the Enterprise's travel at warp speed, but hey, we'll take what we can get.

So being a little more realistic with what we were capable of accomplishing, as a kid sitting in my parents' car in the '80's, I thought how neat it would be to have television in cars. This would have certainly have made all those long road trips to our in-laws much more enjoyable and maybe I wouldn't have been so grumpy and reluctant to go after all. During this time period, the best video entertainment offered was the portable handheld TV and it's reception was good, then bad, then good, then bad...you get the picture (no pun intended), as reception varied due to changes in signal reception.

Today, with the rapid growth in vehicle !blingness!, any vehicle with less than a LCD/DVD player could be seen by today's standard, the same way we would view tape decks when the CD player came out, boring and outdated. You'll see that most mid-level to high end cars and SUVs are now offering LCD screens with DVD players as the latest form of video enjoyment, with auxillary inputs allowing Playstation, Xbox hook ups. Within a few years, these extra add-ons will be as standard on most vehicles as a CD player is today, which is inevitable as the car market becomes more and more competitive. So with all this great technology, we've always wondered why cars have never considered to implement TV tuners in addition to the DVD features for on-the-road TV viewing. Well, if any of you have ever purchased an all-in-one LCD/DVD/TV-Tuner head unit, you would know the answer to this. It simply doesn't work well and picks up average reception at best, especially when the car is in motion. So built-in TV tuners have never caught on simply for this reason, hence, in it's place, we get built-in DVD players, but as we know, doesn't offer the complete video entertainment solution as the media is limited to your collection of DVD's.

So what's next then when you've exhausted your DVD collection and get tired of storing stacks of movies in your car?

Welcome KVH's Tracvision A5 DSS.

In short, this is DirecTV on wheels or Mobile DirecTV. Quite exciting technology for car mobile as it gives the viewer the flexibility of surfing different programs, rather than inserting a DVD (that you've probably watched before). That's the good news, but there are a few limitations to the service this Mobile DirecTv provides, so we'll go through the benefits and shortfalls this offers.

First of all, TracVision (DirecTV Mobile) works in the same fashion as normal DirecTV Satellite you would get at home. You would need to have a few basic items installed before getting this off the ground. Like the home system, you need a satellite dish, a satellite receiver, remote control (in this case it utilizes an RF, radio frequency, signal to allow non-directional controls, unlike home remotes where it's normally IR, infrared, where you must point at the IR eye of the receiver) and of course, a video monitor to receive the signal. For those who have done your own home installation of their DirecTV, you'll also be aware that the dish must face the southern sky (this is for users in the U.S.), particularly aiming above the sky of Houston, Texas.

So how do these home items required translate to mobile use? For the most part, everything is almost identical in size, except for the dish. KVH understood that in order to make DirecTV on wheels practical, they had to create a dish that is streamlined, not only for looks, but also for car performance. Taking a home dish and mounting it onto a vehicle wouldn't be the nicest looking accessory for that car, cause a bit of drag while in motion and most importantly, it would have to continually rotate to maintain the signal directed towards the southern sky, otherwise, no TV.

What KVH came up with was a dish that is only 5 inches high, that laid flat on top on the roof of the vehicle as seen below:

The image above brings up the first requirement. Because of the size of the dish itself, most vehicles that would be able to accommodate this would be SUV/SAV's. Technically, it could be mounted on any vehicle, but aesthetically, it just wouldn't look right. If your car is ugly to begin with, yeah, why not add it on, it couldn't hurt, but if you have say, a BMW X5, it would be like adding braces to your teeth, yeah, making it look somewhat unpresentable to society, just kidding, but hey the most important fact of it all is, the beemer can only outrun and not outplay you.

How to turn a bare bones Honda Element into a pimped out SUV your fraternity brothers can be proud of:

The size of the dish itself measures 30.5 x 30.5 x 5.3 (height) inches. Onlookers would say it looks like a gigantic pizza box ontop of a car or a very large toilet seat. We'd say it looks closer to the pizza box. Whatever the perspective, one thing for sure is, you need a large surface area on your roof to mount this thing. There are two options getting the dish installed. One is, KVH provides the necessary accessories to mount this onto your factory roof rack (for most vehicles), or if the roof rack of your vehicle is too short or long, you have to purchase their optional mounting kit, where you literally say bye, bye to your virgin roof and drill right into it. It surely is an ugly sight to think about, but sacrifices must be made for enjoyment, like anything else in life. For this vehicle, we had to sacrifice the virgin (roof) alright and drilled her. 8 times for 8 holes. Ha, ha. Visualize that!!

Oh, one important note though, if you do plan to drill this puppy into your roof, just make sure your car is bought, not leased. Just imagine taking this back to the dealer and asking them to take the dish off the roof, uh, yeah...no chance. They'll just look at you stupid and hand you the tools.

So once you've installed the dish, set up from here on out is a tad simpler. Skipping all the wiring procedures (any good installer should be able to wire this properly), setting up this system involves calling two parties, KVH first (about 20-40 minutes on the phone), DirecTV second (about 10 minutes), this is if you already have an existing DirecTv account. Once you've done this, you're ready to go.

Services and costs:

If you have an existing DirecTv account, adding this mobile receiver would be like adding another box to your home account, which costs an extra $4.99 USD a month. Not bad for satellite TV on the go. However, if you do not have DirecTv, the Mobile Package they offer runs $41.99 USD a month. Still not too bad for what you're getting.

For you horndogs out there who thinks, "cool, I can get the Playboy Channel while I chill in the back seat" and request the front passengers to gear up in raincoats, think again. The Mobile Package allows a limited amount of channels, with no local (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc.), Pay-per-view or pay channels (HBO, Cinemax, etc.). We could understand no PPV programming, but the exclusion of the other two really bites. DirecTv's reasoning for no local programming has to do with some FCC Rules and Regulations for mobile vehicles. Each area is limited to their respective local stations (by FCC rules in the U.S.), meaning that a viewer in Los Angeles can only get local channels for this area, not local channels from say, i.e. San Francisco. Each Mobile Receiver is set up for a specific local area, in our example case here, Los Angeles and if one drives this vehicle to San Francisco with local channels (from the L.A. region), this would violate the FCC rules. It's more complicated in terms of why they don't allow one area to view local channels from another area, as it has to do with financial reasons with paid advertisement, so yeah, it's become that silly. We won't get into it, but there are ways to receive local and pay channels (legally). So those fans who want to watch their favorite local sports team on the road, keep this in mind.

For a full list of programming available, you can copy and paste this address into your url:

http://www.kvh.com/pop_ups/tcm_channels_alpha.htm

Real Results

So once you've overcome your depression of knowing you can't see your favorite Playmate in the backseat, what's there to look forward to? Plenty. Check out the thumbnails below on a few examples of what you can get.

From the front 7 inch monitor (also notice you can get local channels, but there are some guidelines to qualify, hey it's there's G4 Tech TV!!):

From the back 15 inch Widescreen LCD (Cartoon Network..Adult Swim anyone?):

Performance

Like the home DirecTv system, as long as there are no obstructions towards the southern hemisphere, you will get a crystal clear picture everytime. For long road trips with freeways that are completely open (with no overpass to block the satellite's view), expect satellite viewing as if you were in your own home. The time that one would find some small issues is when you drive under freeways that are located within populated counties which will undoubtedly have a good number of overpasses, which in most cases, would stall (image freeze from the satellite trying to find a good signal) the image for a second or two until it's in open view again.

Little Specs:

Currently, the box included in this package offers S-Video as it's highest video source output. For audio, standard RCA is the best, with KVH planning on a optical connection for DD/DTS in it's next generation boxes.

The remote control included in this is 100% RF, which means the signal is sent from the remote to the receiver through any obstructions, so the DirecTv receiver itself can be hidden.

Up to 3 receivers can be hooked up to one vehicle per single dish, so those nuts out there who want their own independent tubing time can do so and view three separate stations. Nutz!!

MENU GUIDE (Just like at home):

Images of Tracvision's DSS while on the road:

Installation

There's different levels of car installations and what we mean by this is, depending on how complex/sophisticated you want your set up to be, the level of difficulty increases to not only make it work in terms of function, but it has to look clean in your car as well. Wire maintenance and routing is key for a system with this many devices. As as simple tip to start off, always ask the installer how the video/audio and powerlines would be run, either together or separate. If he/she says 'together' well, chances are, this installer is either lazy or doesn't know how to maximize your system's performance. The reasoning for this is the more separation you have on the video/audio and power cables, the less interence you should encounter. Most car installers are not electrical engineers and only the really good ones would know the physical reasoning behind this and meticulously route each line separately to optimize the video and audio signals. For a system similar to this, there's no doubt that we'd recommend professional installation, since the dish itself is quite delicate and cannot be stored or held vertically at any point in time and it's freakin' heavy. If your roof rack isn't wide enough to accommodate this dish, then you're forced to drill right into your SUV/VAN, which is another reason why NOT to do it yourself.

So you maybe wondering, "hey this shiznitz is cool, how do I get one?" Finding a dealer who sells this isn't the first obstacle. For those married people out there, for those reluctant, 'yeah, I'd better check with the old lady first.' After that, go see your banker for a low interest loan and finally, once you've paid the dealer, go to the psychologist and ask the doc. 'doc, I need TV really bad, I had to do it. I just forked an additional 10K+ on a Honda Element.' Doc replies, 'yeah, your crazy alright, I would've taken the beemer, screw Honda, now here's my bill for $500.00, I'll see you again next week.'

Yeah, check your pulse and the total below. Loco!!

Overall Associated Costs:

- Tracvision DSS Dish/Receiver/Remote $2300.00

- Roof Rack (Cost varies depending on your vehicle) Range - $200-500.00

- Head Unit (This is the brain in your car and routes all the video/audio signals) Range: $400-2600.00

- LCD Screen (costs varies also, depending on how many you have) This set up: 15 inch LCD $1500.00

- Amplifier (Not necessary for this to work, but necessary to obtain audiophile performance) $400-600

- Speaker Upgrades (Dump the factory stuff next to the Fight Fever cartridges, they belong together) $600-2000.00

-Subwoofer (The Element in the EX line has a dedicated spot for a 6 inch Sub., replace with superior sub., such as JL Audio) $150-250.00 (Size of sub varies on vehicle space as well)

- Cables and Misc. Garbage (Don't let your cheap friends tell try to convince you that cables don't make a difference. Rule of thumb: cables carrying analog signals make a substantial difference when travelling long distances 10 ft.+. Short digital runs shouldn't (since it's '1' and '0' coding, preserving it's quality until it is converted through a D/A - Digital to Analog -convertor) make a difference, so going with the lower quality digital cables, if needed (this would only happen if you have Dolby Digital/DTS in your car), is quite alright. Gauging cost of cables is difficult, but generally, it runs about 10% of the total cost of your whole system if you want to do it right. Range: $500-1500.00

-Security - Yeah, do yourself a favor and get some protection. Bullet proof windows for all those crazy Los Angeles drive by shooters from the road rage they'll get when they can't watch TV because your head is in the way of the LCD screen. Lo-Jack and Active Engine Kill Security with no manual override (remote override only). $3500.00

-Installation - It's very difficult to find an installer that is skilled with his hands and at the same time, have a complete understanding of the technology. If it's a head unit you're installing, piece of cake, 90% of installers out there can do this without any issues, but once you dive into a system this complex, you want a clean set up with perfect wire management and also peak performance by calibrating it properly. For a system like this, there were some custom security features added as we were told, such as EVERY major device is literally bolted to the car with custom screws that are used in high end boats only, which means it's going to be a bitch to uninstall if there is a problem. Obviously, this was done for security reasons more than convenience. Normal installation for just the DirecTV runs around $500.00. For this whole set up, $1800.00. 4 Installers worked on this car for 3 straight days, totaling about 18 working hours from what we're told.

-Emergency Room at UCLA (they have cute nurses, btw) - To check the pain in your chest from overspending. $150-500.00

The 5th Element

We don't have all the data and time to go down the list of what's in this beast, but here is an overview of what this Black Box Entertainer can do:

-Independent LCD Screens 7inch/15 inch. Can play simultaneous or separate signals from DVD/DirecTV or Xbox/PS2 or any video game console that outputs RCA/S-Video Plugs.

-Independent Sound Systems - One wired, one wireless (via headphones - IR).

-7 inch Screen hacked for HD capable signal in the future.

-Set up for additional DirecTv boxes (up to 3) to play separate satellite stations on each LCD screen.

In a 'Nutshell'

Chances are, most people who buy a Honda Element aren't going to deck the car out such as this looney did, as the whole point in buying the vehicle itself is because of it's relatively good price point for a SUV, if you even call this ice cream looking vehicle that. Add in all these goodies and you could easily buy yourself an Acura MDX...well, minus all the cool gadgets you see here. It just so happens that you find the craziest things in L.A. (Los Angeles). L.A. has earthquakes, fires, floods, homicides, looters, heck, of all places they even had a tornado watch at one point. There you have it, it's L.A., land of the ridiculously savvy, vain, eccentric minded, and below all this, you have yourself a sane at the same time crazy people that make irrational decisions such as this, but hey, in a weird way, it's really fun and it works.

If you own or know someone who is sicker than this fellow, we'd love to see and hear about it.

Special thanks to Peter and Don for providing some images and information for this article.