Mustard

Need the forum's help.

Since the TV in COMAND obviously works in PAL for the UK, and I know it works with SECAM in France, does it mean the system is fully multi-functional for all countries? Is it digital in any way, collecting Free-to-air broadcasts, or only an analogue system?


Would the TV in a UK spec car work in the USA? Would it work in NZ which uses PAL but has different sound spectrum?

in advance!

blueSL

Here's my 2 cents.

Not available in the US, so doesn't work with NTSC; does work with PAL and SECAM; doesn't receive anything digital/freeview, analogue only; if the sound sub carrier in NZ is different, you'll see the picture but no sound; most would say it's a waste of money.

NeilC123

Blimey - they receive only analogue? That would be useless after 2010 - or whatever they were thinking of turning off the analogue signal.

Mustard

Good point. Its going to be totally redundant in second hand cars unless there's a digital fix. I guess they've thought it out. The same will be true if the EU turns off the American GPS system as planned when their own goes live in 2009.

What is a total waste of money is not so much the TV but the stupidly low speed at which the picture goes. You can't watch the news, as I tried last night, and still crawl along in a queue..

Neither could I turn off the sat nav voice and just have the map. So every few minutes even the news would mute while the woman instructed me where to crawl! There must be a way out of that - I'm getting to be a true technophobe.

I've otherwise enjoyed watching Grand Prix's on TV while the wife shops - a few other occasions have justified the TV's cost, I guess...

NeilC123

Or Mustard - instead of the Car TV option you could have just bought a small portable tv - and saved the money? Just a thought.

Ted Baldwin

..........my understanding is that the Tv is PAL/SECAM/NTSC capable. The new DVD comand's do not have TV functinality in the USA. If you are in the USA, you can simply swap your Comand for with Euro Comand to solve the problem. Then the Comand will need to be version coded to show video while you are driving. So the problem is not in the Tv but in the Comand itself. The picture for all mobile Tv's are poor while driving. The TV is future proof in the in the sense that it has 2 a/v inputs. You can purchase whatever an aftermarket TV is in style in the future and feed the video and audio into the comand via the a/v input of the tv tuner.

..........you can mute the volume of the navigation lady by turning vol knob down when she speaks. That will decrease or elimate her voice while not affecting the volume on the TV for that session. Alternatively, you can change the volume of the nagigation chickrelative to the stereo volume by going into the audio menu of your Comand.

Ted

Mustard

Thanks Ted. I guess the a/v feeds are the only future proofing we have. The TV picture in a city or good signal area is surprisingly good. As BlueSL suggests, the option isn't a must have though.

From now on its going to be known as "nagigation" !

MBenzNL

I have installed mercedes TV tuners in the UK, the netherlands, germany, norway, denmark, new zealand, australia, canada and the US (eastcoast, westcoast & on Hawaii)...the tuner works everywhere without a single problem or glitch.

If you have an older R230 SL with D2B based audio system - the comand will accept a TV tuner no matter wether it is eurospec or US spec...it is just a matter of programming through stardiagnose.
If you have a newer comand with MOST based audio system, you will need a eurospec comand in order to be able to use the mercedes TV tuner but that will make it impossible to use the MB satelite radio system.

The older D2B based comand can be connected to an aftermarket video adapter to feed in a video source without using a mercedes TV tuner...these adapters are fairly cheap.
A similar adapter is available for the MOST based comands as well but this adapter is way overpriced.

All comands (D2B based and eurospec MOST based) can be programmed to have DVD and or TV enabled in motion...it is just a matter of having the right tool to do so.

Mercedes has a digital TV tuner that can be connected to the original mercedes analogue TV tuner and it will use one of the 2 AV inputs to display the digital TV...the digital TV tuner will share the antennas with the analogue TV tuner and is controlled by a remote control (cannot be controlled from the headunit).

greetingz,