Consumer electronics makers are racing to find new offerings, from wireless music downloads at gas stations to digital TV, to entertain American families when they're stuck in traffic, driving home for the holidays, or just out for a ride.
Some of the efforts to transplant digital media technology from PCs and home entertainment centers are still on the drawing board, companies said at a technology conference here Monday. But other changes are likely to start appearing in new cars and SUVs as early as next year.
Prospective buyers of new vehicles should expect to see larger LCDs, up 2 inches from the current standard size of 5 inches, that will appear in more places around a vehicle's interior. In a few years, manufacturers hope to switch to organic LEDs because of their improved color quality, response times and viewing angles.
What's new:
Consumer electronics makers are racing to find new ways to entertain American motorists and passengers, like offering wireless music downloads at gas stations, and building more and better LCDs into sport utility vehicles.
Bottom line:
Among possible stumbling blocks: How do you bring three-dimensional, movie-theater-type sound to a car? And what about upgrades--do you have to rip out the interior of your SUV every couple of years? Still, some changes are likely to start appearing in new autos as early as next year.
"The car is an extension of your home network," said Kumar Ramaswamy, an engineer at Thomson, one of the largest manufacturers of electronic components. "It's like having another room. The car can get (video) from your computer. It can get it from a TiVo device that's sitting next to your television set."
Even with average U.S. gas prices topping $2 a gallon, Americans seem unwilling to break off their long love affair with the open road. Federal government statistics show that the number of miles driven in passenger vehicles has zoomed from 1.97 trillion in 1970 to 2.5 trillion in 1980, 3.3 trillion in 1990, and 4.3 trillion as of 2002.
Digital video may be perfect for those long road trips, but it's still unclear what the best mechanism will be for transporting hefty video files into a dashboard hard drive. A full-length movie can be many gigabytes, a stretch for all but the speediest home wireless networks. And running Ethernet cables along the driveway may not be entirely practical.
The digitization of cars is not limited to video. Car owners are beginning to demand the same high-definition sound they enjoy from their Dolby 5.1 home stereo system--which has five channels of normal audio and one low-frequency channel that DVDs use for floor-thumping special effects. So too can new audio discs, in DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD formats, that offer significantly better quality than the venerable CD.
Six-channel sound, which uses rear speakers for a three-dimensional, movie-theater effect, is tricky to do in a vehicle. The seats aren't positioned properly, the speakers are too close together, the recordings were designed to be played back in living rooms, and road noise is always a problem.
Still, said audio engineer Henry Blind, more creative use of digital signal processing (DSP) technology will make it possible by inserting minuscule delays that trick the brain. Video games with three-dimensional effects are also of increasing interest among vehicle owners, said Blind, who works at Visteon, a $918 million auto products maker.
"Just as stereo replaced mono and CDs replaced vinyl, DVD and DSP are replacing the two-dimensional world of stereo with a three-dimensional one," Blind said.
Avoiding a Napster-on-the-road
Not only will your car download video wirelessly, but you might be able to buy online music or video games without leaving the driver's (or passenger's) seat. "We are moving very quickly to this world where I can have everything I want to listen to right now," said Richard Lind of Delphi, a $4.6 billion Michigan company that sells navigation, video and satellite radio systems.
Before long, Lind predicted, consumers will be able to play a "video game downloaded at the last gas station" or enjoy the "ability for vehicles to communicate with each other as they go down the road."
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