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In the car
Did you ever have to wrestle a squirmy kid into a car's child seat? Large automotive electronics companies faced a similar, but even bigger, challenge. It took a lot of technology to get TV characters Hannah Montana, the Powerpuff Girls and Dora the Explorer into the rear seats of Chrysler LLC's new minivans.
The potential young viewers of those TV characters couldn't care less about the electronics. Their parents are only mildly more interested in how the technology works.
But for Chrysler, Sirius Satellite Radio, STMicroelectronics, and Delphi Corp. the advent of streaming satellite video in cars is a technology victory win of epic proportions.
STMicroelectronics, of Geneva, is an electronics and computer chipmaking company with operations in the United States.
Live TV in cars may appear to be a simple technology. But Chrysler faced numerous challenges in putting streaming satellite-feed TV onto back-seat screens. The carmaker pushed aggressively to get the family-friendly feature into its segmentpacing minivans.
Minivan leaders
"We've been leaders in the minivan market, and we wanted to remain leaders," says Michael Kane, director of feature innovation for Chrysler. "This was one of the primo opportunities to entertain those customers' children."
Getting live TV into cars has been in the works for a long time. As recently as five years ago, technologists were still focused on trying to put a heavy antenna very much like a flattened microwave dish onto the roofs of large and sturdy SUVs. The idea was to continuously focus to pick up a full spectrum of ordinary TV broadcasts.
Sirius Backseat TV uses smaller antennas and focuses on just three channels. It uses the ubiquitous coverage of satellite radio in North America to stream shows from the Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel to specially equipped vehicles.
Chrysler is introducing the system as a $470 option, on top of the $1,750 rear-seat entertainment system, in its top-of-the-line 2008 Chrysler Town...