The ultimate digital TV upgrade for hiline satnav cars...

[scoubix]

After much browsing, trying to uncover the ideal solution for digital TV upgrade of hiline satnav systems, this is what I believe to be the ultimate solution, one that allows to keep the whole system and genuine looks of the board monitor, while providing digital TV, DVB-T radios for those who have them in their country (I believe the UK does)...but also media player capability with USB port for keys or external hard drives, all taking place within a replacement for the original analog TV module...

Back information : the BMW hybrid module is (was) the ideal solution, but it retails for quite a bit of money. Furthermore, it's now of an old design and only provides MPEG2 video/audio decoding, which is (was) used for standard resolution TV. However, some countries are phasing out MPEG2 and will only use H264 (already used for high-definition TV) for all channels.
This is what will happen in France, starting from next april, so from then on, the BMW hybrid module will be as useless as the old analog ones. And you can bet other countries will follow suit shortly.

So as I owned an hybrid TV module, I looked for an alternative solution, and came across this one, from a small vendor in Romania :

http://mca.electricmura.ro/en/produc...ital-tv-tuner/



Basically these guys developped an alternative TV module that replaces the original one. And it provides the following :
- full MPEG2 AND H264 compatibility, for both standard and hi-def TV channels
- USB ports for media player capabilities (the unit comes with a USB male/female cord so you can move that USB port up front, somewhere within the car
- full controls from the original board monitor (whether the original 4/3 one or the widescreen BMW one)
- handles aspect ratio fine for widescreen picture on 4/3 monitor (adds up and bottom black bars to respect the original aspect ratio)
- comes with a remote control and an IR receiver which you can place within the car, if you want to access additional feature not available from the monitor controls. Quite honestly, all useful functions are available from the controls on the monitor so I've not even set up the receiver in mine)
- capability for stereo sound through the BM54 (if you've upgraded to BM54) through its AUX-IN capabilities (requires a bit of rewiring). The original and hybrid modules only provided mono sound
- uses the original antennas within the rear screen, no need to setup additional antennas
- TV-in-motion enabled, and much better reception while on the move than the hybrid BMW module.
- much improved audio quality over the hybrid module (the sound is richer and more detailed, while it sounds quite flat with the BMW hybrid module).

These guys are very helpful, when you order from them, they make sure you have the necessary requirements in your car, and the dispatch was quite fast.

The only thing to remember is that this module will not be recognised through T4, and as such, any T4 session on the satnav subsystem will fail as the T4 is not able to communicate with the video module (which makes perfect sense of course). If that's needed at some point, you can always swap your original analog module back in place.

Ah, most important thing : the cost is less than that of most BMW hybrid module, only €399...and free shipping