Naters M3dia Player

My car has no navi... It's one of the things I really wanted in my car. It's nice to just look down and see where you are. There have been many times where I missed my turn and didn't know the route to turn back around. With an in-dash navi, it's easy.

A BMW retrofit kit for the e46 M3 is expensive! As all things BMW are... Even used ones run close to $1000, thats right, $1K! For 10 year old electronics. I was even thinking about looking for a totaled car that I could strip the navi out of it, and then sell the car off. But that seems to be a lot of work, and may not turn out very well...

So I started thinking about what would be the best way to get a navi in my car. I looked at car pc's (mp3car.com), which looks awesome and have great potential, but it seemed like a lot of work to get something that I would want.

I got a big screen phone (DroidX 4.3") thinking that I would just use that as a navi/radio/etc... in there. But I don't think that is an ideal setup. Then I thought about tablets, as in Android tablets. The potential is amazing! Thus I started my research.

The B&N Nook Color really caught my eye when people found out that it could be hacked. And then when B&N said they would release the SDK! Sold. The android development community is huge and growing fast. This idea has been in my mind for a few months now, but I was never really sold on it.

Then I was reading about Bluetooth OBDII scanners. I thought that this would be kind of sweet when connected to a tablet. Easily have access to all that data! I am an engineer, I LOVE DATA! But I was not sure how well it would work with a tablet. There are a few apps that say they work, but they are from small developers. And I don't want something that will cause me any problems.

Then today came the Pièce de Résistance:

Last year Garmin released the ecoRoute OBDII scanner for the Nuvi GPS units. And just the other day, Garmin released the Garmin Mechanic Android App that communicates with the ecoRoute.

This is a top company making the hardware and software. This is the last piece to make it perfect. But I am drifting from the original navi idea... So I was thinking about using the GPS in my phone for the navi. But then the set-up would require my phone a little too much. So I went online and quickly found Bluetooth GPS receiver modules!

So here is the idea:

1) Root DroidX so that I can activate the Wifi HotSpot feature

2) Get a Nook Color and install Android Honeycomb

3) Buy a Garmin ecoRoute

4) Buy a Bluetooth GPS module

5) Install the Garmin Mechanic app on nook

6) Install the Google My Tracks app on nook (for track days!)

7) Install Google Navigation app

With this set up I can have easy access to all the OBDII car info, stream media over the internet to my radio, have a navi with logger capability, and tons of other features because I have the Android market!

Now we are talking! And I would have and Android tablet!
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GERMANY!

So once again I found a super deal on airfare! I am taking about $350 RT!!!

So Karen and I have quite a bit planned which I will share in a few days.

I will also be posting more since Google released a Blogger app for Android.

Nater

Making the IPTV Move - #5

I finally got my first bill in the mail on Saturday! Here is how it looks:

The previous bill was for two months and this is what it included:

1. Cox TV Basic Package
2. TV Expanded Service
3. Sports Package
4. DVR Fee
5. DVR Service
6. High Speed Internet

The total bill was $261.16 or $130.58 a month!

After using my current setup for the last month, my new Cox bill is $45.99!

That is a savings of almost $85 a month!!!

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Making the IPTV Move - #4

There has been some interest in how I watch live sports. My original plan was to use an HDTV Digital antenna and get the local channels. But no worky... Luckily just as the World Cup was starting, PlayOn updated their software to stream ESPN3! Check it out:



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Making the IPTV Move - #3

So here is my current IPTV Experiment setup works. I like it so far! Don't look at the two black cables coming out from behind the tv... I was trying out a few things when I made this video.




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Making the IPTV Move - #2

So I have had a few people ask me so far what/how I am set up to watch tv without cable. So in this installment I will illustrate my current setup. Below is an illustration of how I have the computer, PS3, and TV all working together:

I leave my computer on at all times and I am currently running the PlayOn Media Server and the Windows Media Server. The computer is wired by CAT5 (thank you pre-ran home network wiring!) to my Playstation 3 which is connected by HDMI to my TV. To make browsing tv easier on my PS3, I bought the Logitech Harmony PS3 Adaptor off eBay for $40 shipped. This allows me to use my Logitech Harmony One universal remote instead of the PS3 game controller.

So that is how the whole thing is set-up currently. Now onto the important thing, what can we watch!

Streaming from my computer to the PS3 via PlayOn (listed is not channels, but videos from listed websites):

1. HULU (tons of tv shows at your finger tips!)
2. Amazon Video-On-Demand
3. Comedy Central
4. CBS
5. ESPN (not ESPN360, or now called ESPN3...)
6. CNN
7. YouTube
8. MTV
9. TLC
10. Discovery
11. Syfy
12. DIY
13. HGTV
14. PGA Tour
15. NBC
16. MLB.tv (have to buy subscription)
17. NHL (have to buy subscription)
18. Pandora

Streaming to my computer via Windows Media Server:

1. My pictures
2. My own videos
3. My music
4. All ripped tv shows and movies

Streaming from the Internet to my PS3:

1. NetFlix Watch Instantly Movies
2. NetFlix Watch Instantly TV-Series

So far I like it a lot. It takes a little getting used to since you can't really channel surf... You have to pick a show you want to watch. But I think with better utilization of the Hulu and Netflix Queue, we should be able to get a routine down.

On a side note, I did try to use a digital antenna and get the local channels. This would work great since all tv station broadcast in digital, so you can get local channels in HD over the air. But since we live in a valley, and too far from SD and LA, we don't get a clear reception. This would make the tv channel surfing much easier, and our whole experience much better. Oh well...

In the next update, I will show a video of how well this actually works!

Nater

Making the IPTV Move - #1

So I am making the move from Cable TV to using only the internet. I feel that with normal cable tv, we just watched what we wanted to, but paid a ton of money for stuff we didn't want. I thought that there was an a' la cart law passed that required cable companies to only charged for what you wanted, but I just don't see that coming any time soon... Thus last night I drove 30 miles round trip to drop off my cable box at COX in Oceanside.

Here is the plan that I am looking to roll out and will document, since I know some people are also interested in this. I am going to be turning my current computer into a media server, which I will rip all of our DVD's to and stream media from. I will be using my PS3 as the portal to the internet on my TV. I will be trying out a few different pieces of software, mainly using PlayOn to stream Hulu, and hopefully GoogleTV in the Fall...

In my next post I will outline my current set-up and how its all working together currently.

Nater