Watch the World Cup from the comfort of your own car

Watch the World Cup from the comfort of your own car

Rinaldi Herdianto, Contributor, Jakarta

In the past couple of weeks, Jakartans have witnessed unusual
early evening traffic jams after work. It appears that many more
people than normal are heading home at the same time with no one
willing to stay on at the office.

Consequently, thoroughfares and tollroads have seen heavy
bumper-to-bumper traffic jam as if the traffic police were no
longer able to handle the situation.

What's up? Yep, you guessed it ... the World Cup. Many
Jakartans admit that, since the start of the World Cup, they have
been leaving their offices in a rush so they can reach home
before 6:30 p.m. to watch the matches live.

Unfortunately, the heavy congestion has often thwarted their
plan to get home in time.

Little do people realize that there is a relatively cheap
alternative to the stressful ride home.

A number of leading manufacturers for mobile audio systems,
such as Kenwood, Sony, Clarion, Microvision and Philips, have
introduced a number of state-of-art TV sets that can be installed
in your car. Amazingly, some of the monitors can also be used for
CD, VCD, DVD players and video games as well.

The monitors come in different sizes, normally ranging from
3.5 inches to 6.8 inches. While many manufacturers produce their
gadgets with the limited interior space of a car in mind, Santeca
have launched the 1501TV which features a 15.1 inch wide LCD
screen!

In the meantime, the price of an in-car TV in the domestic
market starts just above the Rp 2 million mark to more than Rp 8
million, depending on the brand, functions and accessories.

That budget will of course go higher if you want a real
theater in your car because you will need other supporting
gadgets for the sound.

Businessman K. Julianto Mihardja, for instance, has five TV
monitors which can be used for CDs and VCDs in his Toyota
MasterAce van. He managed this with the help of a few mechanics
at an interior car shop in Radio Dalam, South Jakarta.

But according to traders at several electronic centers in
Jakarta, in-car TVs are so far not that popular in this country.

"Even the World Cup has not been able to boost their sales,"
said Bambang who works at a shop on Jl. Fatmawati in South
Jakarta. "People tend to install in-car TVs only as an accessory,
not for in-car entertainment. This is due to the high price and
time-consuming installation process," he added.

In some countries, like Japan and South Korea, such TV sets
have become more of a necessity than a car accessory. If you are
fortunate enough, you may find a taxi in those countries with an
in-car TV. A clever way for the driver to get a bigger tip.

Unlike regular portable TV sets (with built-in antenna which
use the cigarette lighter to obtain power) that usually give a
flickering picture, the in-car TV is specially designed to have a
more stable picture and is not easily disrupted by little bumps
on the road partly thanks to its external antenna.

For the true in-car TV system, the power is supplied directly
from the car battery and it uses the car's audio system for the
sound. And it can be connected to the car's CD/VCD/DVD player or
your kid's PlayStation to help ease your family's long trip.

The Kenwood KVT-910DVD, for example, combines a DVD-Video
player, CD player, LCD screen, touchscreen control, TV tuner,
AM/FM tuner, four-channel power amplification, MPEG-2 video
decoder, Dolby Digital and DTS multichannel audio decoders,
comprehensive remote control, and lots of digital signal
processing.

So, there is no need to miss any World Cup matches or the fun
of crawling along a typical Jakarta traffic jam.

But if you are the one driving the car, always be on the
alert, particularly when your favorite team scores.

No one will forgive you for the accident, and the police, the
court and your family will not see your excuse as being "funny".