Installing a Car Stereo

About 10 years ago, I bought a Parrot CK3100 to install in my 2003 Toyota Highlander as I wanted to be able to answer the phone while driving if my wife called me. I was unable to figure out how to install it, so I returned it. I think about a year later, I bought the car kit again and tried again.

This time, however, I was determined to install it. It turns out the tricky part of installing the car kit was the factory amplifier I had, so I decided to put in a marine speaker and put it under the center console. The install was still tricky, but I managed to get it working.

The car kit worked OK, but the audio quality was never great due to the location of the speaker as well as the type of speaker. It survived a number of phones from different manufacturers and worked decently with my iPhones. However, in the last year or so, I've found the connection less than stable and would fail to connect quite often. It was annoying, but I didn't think much of it.

Last week, I had a business trip where I had to drive to Orange County (I haven't driven for work in years). On the way up, I used Navigon for navigation; normally it routes the navigation audio through the car kit, but due to the connection issues, it didn't work well. So I turned up the volume and it continued to navigate. However, Navigon crashed and I didn't want to pull over to figure out where to exit. I used Siri to navigate to my destination and all was good (a bit hard to hear as the audio was coming out of the phone's speaker, but doable). On my way home from the trip, my wife was texting me about road conditions and since my car kit wasn't working, I had to put in a headset and used Siri to read the messages.

When I got back, I wanted to find a solution to this and started looking at new stereos (something I've never done in my life) and found an inexpensive Pioneer one. I've always heard good things about Crutchfield and their support. I ordered the unit along with all the install pieces. I spent the time waiting for the stereo to study the install instructions and they were as clear as mud. I am an engineer, so how hard could it be?

Since I had a factory amplifier, Crutchfield had a Scosche SLC-4 Line Output Converter as a recommended install accessory. Using the included wiring harness and line output converter, I wired everything up and thought it would be a piece of cake (I soldered all the connections, used shrink wrap tubing on the connections, and tightened the screws on the SLC-4.

The rest of the install was pretty easy and I was pleased with my work until I turned it on. There was static (not a hum) on the speakers and even a connection from my phone (to rule out the radio noise) didn't help. I checked all the connections and nothing helped. I studied the diagrams again and took a chance hooking all the ground wires together; the diagrams had the ground for the amp separate from the chassis ground so I had connected the ground for the Line Output Converter to the amplifier ground. What I didn't realize is that the amplifier needed to be grounded to the stereo. After this change, the stereo worked great!

There is a reason there are so many installers for car stereos; there are far too many combinations to have instructions for all of them. While the Crutchfield instructions were an OK start, they are definitely not for the novice. I was just lucky because I have a basic understanding of electronics as well as being determined.

I've learned a bit and am extremely pleased with my handy work. I'm also amazed at how inexpensive car stereos are and how much they do these days; my new stereo does everything my old one did (OK, it doesn't have a CD changer that I never used nor a tape deck that I didn't use either) and has all the pieces of a Bluetooth car kit.

Learning about Surround Sound

During our recent vacation, I happened to hear rear speakers on a 5.1 surround sound system and was intrigued by it. I'm not an audiophile nor do I have a home theater system. I do have a TV and a sound bar in our living room. So I decided to try out a Vizio 38 inch sound bar. Setting it up was quite easy and the wireless subwoofer/rear speakers fit perfectly in my living room. This post, however, isn't a review on this sound bar.

After hooking everything up, I only heard stereo sound and was confused as to why I didn't hear surround sound even though I read that Netflix (my test content) had 5.1 surround sound content. I read a bit about this and saw that there were settings in the Roku box to turn on Dolby Digital and DTS. The sound bar handles DTS and Dolby Digital, but not Dolby Digital+. I chose Dobly Digital+ and DTS only as it was close enough. Still no go; I started futzing with the TV as I had also read that my TV (a Vizio) did pass through of audio, so the Roku should pass the audio to the TV and then to the sound bar via the optical out.

My TV had PCM and Bitstream audio out. I had never heard of Bitstream, but the TV was set to PCM, so I chose Bitstream. I went back to Netflix on the Roku and magically I saw content have a 5.1 badge next to it! It was a miracle (OK, not quite). I played some content and it was pretty cool to hear the audio behind me as well as the sound through the subwoofer.

So, it appears that anyone that wants to have a home theater work properly or just have surround sound needs to learn a new language (audio encoding/encoding) as well as futz with all the settings. My guess is that there are only a small percentage of people with these systems that actually have them working properly.

(Another part of this puzzle was getting the TV shows we record to properly export them and preserve the audio encoding; EyeTV's export mechanism to MP4 converts audio to stereo even if the over-the-air format is 5.1. I did manage to figure this out, it it isn't for the faint of heart and required a lot of futzing.)

Traveling without a laptop

I recently went on vacaton with my family and for my electronic gear, I only took my iPhone and iPad. It got me thinking how long it has been since I traveled with a laptop for personal trips. Several years ago, when I first got an iPad, I tried just using it for trips, but felt like my hands were tied behind my back. Over the last few years, I've found that while my laptop is a bit easier to use with the bigger screen and bigger keyboard, for most of my needs on the road, I consume content (web, books, movies, etc.).

On this last trip, I found that I still needed to connect to my server as well as back to my home network, With Prompt from Panic, I was easily able to SSH into my server and tweak server settings. In addition, I used a VPN and Screens to control my server at home. I also used Remote Patrol to look at the cameras on my house.

When I got home, I decided to get a keyboard for my iPad to complete my setup. Now it is easier for me to not just comsune content, but also to compose.

The only major things I can't do when I travel is write code (I still do some personal projects here and there) and keep up with my accounting. Both are pretty minor and I'm quite pleased at not having to travel with a computer for personal trips; it kind of feels liberating.

The iPad is an excellent tool and as many people have already written, the iPad can be the primary computer for many.

Surveillance Camera Setup

Last week I was asked on 4 separate occasions what I use for my surveillance cameras. While this is usually a simple answer for most, it isn't for me. My system wasn't the cheapest, easiest to put together, or operate, but I like having control and being able to select my components. Since my cameras are clearly visible on my house, I'm not giving away any secrets about them.

So here it goes.

I have Q-See QCN7001B IP cameras (they appear to have been replaced by the Q-See QCN7005B). These cameras are PoE (Power over Ethernet) so that there is only one cable going from the camera to a PoE switch. These are 720p cameras with IR capability. The picture is pretty clear and the night vision is very good. They've been up for almost 2 years without any problems.

The cameras are hard wired (when we renovated our house, I was able to run all the wires in the walls back into an equipment closet) into a Cisco SG 300-10P PoE switch. While the switch is managed, I don't use any of the management capabilities. When I was shopping around, there weren't many rack mount PoE switches available without a fan.

Since I already run a Mac Mini as a server (media, video, build server), I wanted to record all the video onto that; this reduces the need for a separate device, gives me a choice of software to record, as well as keep noise and power consumption down. On the Mac Mini, I run SecuritySpy. It isn't the prettiest piece of software, but it works well and has the options I need for rolling over video, recording stills, etc. It also has a web interface if I wanted to use that and port forward through my router.

For remote access to SecuritySpy, I use an app called Remote Patrol on my iPhone as well as iPad. There is a bit of configuration involved here, but it wasn't difficult for me.

So what does this setup (which isn't cheap) buy me over an off the shelf solution? Well, it allows me to easily backup all the video and configuration (just use a standard Mac backup program like SuperDuper!, it allows me to run a very energy efficient recording device (the Mac Mini is pretty efficient in terms of power usage compared to a standalone box), and I can swap out my cameras at any time (that's a huge reason to use PoE over any other type of camera).

What do I lose with my setup? Ease of installation is a big one and easy of use (that may be debatable as I've seen the interface for one at my parents' condo). It also requires me to handle all the backups which a cloud based solution has that under control for you.

I definitely wouldn't recommend this to the average consumer and am, in fact, looking for something to recommend.