car radio mod for your pc?

[Sathsayin]

Just wondering if anybody has ever modded there pc to have a radio in it I know year ago i had ISA radio card. I had it wired up to an outdoor tv antanna when i was like 13 or 14. has anyboyd thought about it and takeing the outputs that go to an amp and hook them to a drop resistor then hook in parralel another resitor then hook it into a sound card so that you can use it with a media player and your effects like winamp. maybe hook it to an outdoor antanna.

 

[swingdjted]

I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but what I think you're asking is if you could install a car radio to a computer tower and then use it with your sound card?

Well, modding the case to fit the radio would be the first issue, and considering the dimensions of almost all cases and car radios, it just wouldn't work because car radios are too wide for the front, and too deep to install on the side.

Also, trying to find a way to operate the radio with onscreen software won't work.

Powering the radio would be difficult too.

But, assuming you had a place to physically mount it, a way to power it, and you were willing to use the usual on-unit controls rather than on-screen software, you can directly plug line level outputs from the radio to the line-in inputs of your computer, where WinAmp could use the sound for beat-detection and visualizations including Milkdrop and AVS. Follow this link for directions on how to get WinAmp's visualizations to respond to line-in audio. The GUI (onscreen controls) for WinAmp will not in any way control playback, it'll just recognize the line-in audio and allow visualizations to react accordingly.

If all you want is to listen to over-the-air radio broadcasts, simply buy an AM/FM card for your computer, or a TV card with AM/FM capability, and connect it to a good antenna.

Personally I use a TV card with FM reception and it works fine for me when I want to listen to over-air broadcasting on my computer. It's GUI allows me to control it all onscreen too.

 

[Sathsayin]

oh ok thankyou for your response i thought about a good tv card but don't know anything about them. good are bad. predictably i would figure that cheap mean that it would be graniy are bad right? so under these conditions i would concieve that this is a better way can you give me some more information maybe a good card also what to avoid.

I really like the idea of being able to put it int he 5.25 bay i would have thought that the metal box part would have slid in rith up to the plastic control part. thank you for the link to the winamp linein information i will use this. i have the electronics worked out i'm really good in this area just wondering if anybody else thought about doing it.

 

[swingdjted]

Yeah, common car radios are much wider than 5.25".

Most good TV cards are mounted on the lower rear of a computer where all the PCI and PCI-E slots are.

This is the TV card that I currently use. The software allows for preset memory and live/scheduled recording, which is helpful since I record Car Talk on Saturday mornings at 10:00 a.m. on our NPR (National Public Radio) affiliate.

It sucks that it doesn't have the ability to tune to AM stations. I'd like to record some high school football games that are on Friday nights (can't listen live because I'm often out with my wife). I'd instead have to record them by plugging an external stereo receiver's output into the computer's line-in, and even then I wouldn't be able to schedule it - I would have to set it up at the right time.

Here is the thread where the computer with the TV/FM card was built. The TV card in the pictures is correct (matches my above link); the TV card I was considering earlier in the thread wasn't purchased due to bad reviews. To see what it looks like installed, you'll have to look at the pictures on that thread of the back of the computer tower.

 

[engiNURD]

I remember a PC mod with a Car audio head unit in it, but I'm too lazy to look for it, lol.