Freeview Fitted to E39

[camera doctor 25]

Just had a play with this over the weekend.

Purchased on Ebay, came nice and fast, free shipping.

Ebay Auction

First thing you need to do is do the AV in Mod to your Video Module - Plenty of threads about how to do that on here and other forums.

Then the DVB-T box simply plugs into the AV in, there is a IRed remote sensor that you can run to the front of the car, and the two aerials sit by side windows of my Touring, I guess on a Sedan you could put them on the rear Screen or Parcel Shelf.

Here is PRIME TV ( if you look close you can see the PRIME Logo )

Program Info ( Moire pattern is from camera, pic is clear in car )

EPG - this is a little hard to see on the 16:9 screen as resolution is not the best on this 10year old LCD

Teletext works, if anyone uses that

Apparently you can plug a USB pendrive into the unit and use as a PVR too !!

It also has 3x Composite Video Outputs, so you could drive the front screen plus 2 headrest LCDs for the back seat passengers.

Also has HDMI output if you wanted to put in a bigger or clearer LCD, or if your car does not have the BMW screen.

Reception seems not too bad, considering Timaru is not the best yet for DVB-T, I would guess it would work even better in the bigger centres. I am off the CHCH this Saturday, so will see how it goes there.

[M5V8 337]

i'd be interested to know how it goes....

[hybrid 1043]

Thanks for posting

[camera doctor 25]

i'd be interested to know how it goes....

The pics are the unit in my car, so it goes great !!

[sp8s 1]

Clever little begga aint ya

[BM WORLD 1283]

the picture quality isn't to do with the lcd resolution ,

.its to do with the composite input being used , and not a s-video , component or hdmi input being , which your factory screen doesn't have.

so all the digital imformation is converted down to a rgb type signal then converted to a s-video type signal then down to composite signal.

so its like tring to empty the bath through a plug hole rather than cutting the bottom of the bath out

then going back the other way.

nice upgrade though when the analog signal gets turned off.

would be interesting to see if you can break into the signals from the factory tv tuner and see if there is a rgb or digital signal going to the factory screen

[Neal 544]

Nice mod , getting ready for analog switch off plus another video input

e39 e46 x5 mk1 video module or bm53/54 tuner module to screen is RGsB. Note sync on green which cuts down choices.

[nordschleife 0]

Interesting.

What do you mean by AV in mod? Hooking up the Aux in or moding the VM / Radio module to play in stereo?

If it's the latter can you please post a link?

[Crazy Dave 0]

So Greg, where did it come from and what do they cost?

Are you only up in Christchurch for Saturday? It would be good to catch up but I am in Johannesburg and dont get back into ChCh until Sunday afternoon.

BTW - South Africa has one of the highest rates of BMW ownership I have ever seen in the world. Must be 1 in 20 vehicles on the road seems to be a BMW. I am putting feelers out to see if the wreckers have parts that I can get shipped to NZ ( like MkIV nav units and ULF modules )

Just had a play with this over the weekend.

..........................................................

Reception seems not too bad, considering Timaru is not the best yet for DVB-T, I would guess it would work even better in the bigger centres. I am off the CHCH this Saturday, so will see how it goes there.

[jochen 4]

the picture quality isn't to do with the lcd resolution ,

.its to do with the composite input being used , and not a s-video , component or hdmi input being , which your factory screen doesn't have.

so all the digital imformation is converted down to a rgb type signal then converted to a s-video type signal then down to composite signal.

so its like tring to empty the bath through a plug hole rather than cutting the bottom of the bath out

then going back the other way.

nice upgrade though when the analog signal gets turned off.

would be interesting to see if you can break into the signals from the factory tv tuner and see if there is a rgb or digital signal going to the factory screen

Remember the resolution of the screen: 400x240

So HDMI is simply a waste of time

What will improve the signal hugely is if you can feed it RGB, because the native screen has RGB.

Remember the native screen also uses sync on green, so an adapter will need to be used.

And if you feed it RGB, you loose the nav control over the video: ie: tapping into the RGB lines directly, and the nav won't be able to switch the video from TV to nav to show you the navigation instructions.

[camera doctor 25]

Dave - Sorry was only in CHCH for Saturday, up to see the Motorhome Expo

See the Ebay link in my original post for cost and seller.

nordschleife - I am using the AV inputs on the Video Module

M5V8 - Worked great in CHCH. Used the Auto Tune to tune in CHCH frequencies, and it also picked up a few Radio Stations that do not seem to be available in Timaru

Reception was definately better when car stationary, but I may be able to improve this by position of the aerials, and hey, you should only be using while stationary

Picture quailty is actually pretty good, it is just the text on the EPG that is hard to see, whihc is as much to do with the small font size, which does not seem to be able to be changed.

[jochen 4]

Reception was definately better when car stationary, but I may be able to improve this by position of the aerials, and hey, you should only be using while stationary

Why not use the built in TV antennas?

Add a T-piece with a DC-blocker (available from most satellite installers) to the existing TV antennas

The DC blocker should be fitted so that the original antenna amplifiers continue to receive their DC power from the video module, and they can deliver the RF signal back to the new DVB-T tuner as well as the old video module

The existing on-glass TV antennas, tuned and engineered for best reception, should work better than any stick antenna inside the vehicle

[camera doctor 25]

Why not use the built in TV antennas?

Add a T-piece with a DC-blocker (available from most satellite installers) to the existing TV antennas

The DC blocker should be fitted so that the original antenna amplifiers continue to receive their DC power from the video module, and they can deliver the RF signal back to the new DVB-T tuner as well as the old video module

The existing on-glass TV antennas, tuned and engineered for best reception, should work better than any stick antenna inside the vehicle

That did cross my mind

Where abouts would I connect to the aerials, and can you elaborate on the DC blocker please

Thanks

[Crazy Dave 0]

The DC blocker is just a capacitor in one leg so that the DC feed from one tuner does not see the DC from the other. Only one of the tuners (original one is probably preferable) needs to feed DC up the coax to the Antenna amplifiers.

Running two tuners off a single antenna system will lower the signal into the tuners by 3dB (half signal) but this will hardly be noticible except in weak signal areas.

I was thinking about this tuner (or one similar) and was contemplating using the built in antennas.

Im also off to China next month so I was going to see if I could find these tuners over there.

That did cross my mind

Where abouts would I connect to the aerials, and can you elaborate on the DC blocker please

Thanks

[jochen 4]

That did cross my mind

Where abouts would I connect to the aerials, and can you elaborate on the DC blocker please

Thanks

Example DC blockers:

http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/product/940483/SZU-14-DC-BLOCKER

Here's one with SMA connectors:

http://www.minicircuits.com/pages/dcblk.html

You want SMB (same as the TV tuner antenna connectors at the tuner)

Here's a local NZ supplier:

http://www.supremeantennas.co.nz/view/conn...-dc-blocker.php

And another:

http://www.tradetech.co.nz/shop/Outdoor+Ae...or+Filters.html

The ones with F connectors are cheap at $5 each.

Connect to the antennas at the tv tuner. Adapters will likely be required to convert from the native SMB connector to whatever you will use.

Edited October 5, 2011 by jochen

[nickrout 0]

I love this mod, but what you really want is mythtv in the boot, so you can pause live tv and catch up at the lights

[Crazy Dave 0]

I love this mod, but what you really want is mythtv in the boot, so you can pause live tv and catch up at the lights

I sent Greg a PM asking if you could record to USB drive, and as an extension to that be able to play back on other devices, put movies on the USB for playback in the car, and pause and catch up live tv on the memory stick.

I did not get a reply, but hey, we all get busy.

Hint Hint Greg - did you get a chance to play with this.

[camera doctor 25]

Dave,

I did reply to your PM, but have not had a chance to test yet - been absolutely swamped at work, starting early, working nights etc

I need to do a wee job on the E39 tonight after my Rotary meeting, so I'll try to remember to test for ya

Cheers

Greg

[camera doctor 25]

OK,

Finally got a chance to check this. It seems to save the files with extension .pvr , which does seem to be proprietary ?

My Mac will not recognize it, but I have not tested on Windows yet ( have wrong USB key with me today )

However, I did find that the unit will happily play .avi and mp3 and jpegs

Will try the .pvr after lunch, it may work on VLC player......

[camera doctor 25]

Ok,

Tried on windows, it seems to crash my version of VLC

Plays on Media Player Classic ( Not Windows Media Player ) video plays but no sound.

Seems to be .elu .idx and .ini files created too, maybe MP Classic is not looking at these correctly.

[hybrid 1043]

try installing a codec pac ... not sure whats 'cool' in codec packs these days ... im not down with the kids anymore.

[tmase 19]

This link has some information on the .pvr file format, scroll down to the second entry.

This converter is rumoured to be able to convert .pvr files. I don't know of anything that is plug and play for that file type or of a codec pack that would help.

This may be of some help too.

[Crazy Dave 0]

I just happen to be in China at the moment so tried to find these units. They are not for sale on the local market, however I phoned the factory and they shipped me 2 units overnight for $NZ 104.00 each

Ok,

Tried on windows, it seems to crash my version of VLC

Plays on Media Player Classic ( Not Windows Media Player ) video plays but no sound.

Seems to be .elu .idx and .ini files created too, maybe MP Classic is not looking at these correctly.

[gadgetman 0]

Worked well for me using VLC on a Win 7 box

[Crazy Dave 0]

I just happen to be in China at the moment so tried to find these units. They are not for sale on the local market, however I phoned the factory and they shipped me 2 units overnight for $NZ 104.00 each

I fitted one of these units to my E39 touring a couple of days ago. It works really well. I'm using the supplied antennas at the moment until I can get the correct connectors to make adapters for the OEM antennas. I was thinking of putting in an antenna splitter and feeding both tuners, but I cant see that I will be using the Analog tuner much now.

The unit plays MP4 videos and MP3 audio. The only problem is that the input to the tuner is mono and so MP3s are naff. Someone mentioned feeding the audio into the amp. Either into the Tape inputs or the CD inputs. Im just wondering where the easiest place is to access these inputs.