In-Car Entertainment: Technologies Converge to Create New Opportunities

Premium audio and video technologies are converging with the automobile in unprecedented and exciting ways today. To understand just how much in-car entertainment has evolved, let’s look back at where it all started and ahead to where it’s going. 

Radio Days

The history of in-car entertainment is nearly as long and colorful as the history of the automobile itself, beginning in 1922 when Chevrolet sold the first car in America with a radio installed. The device was a bulky Westinghouse radio with an antenna that covered the entire roof. The first European car radio, the Blaupunkt AS-5, launched ten years later and was more user-friendly but still a visually unappealing device. Aesthetics, however, were only one reason many car buyers were not interested in having a radio in the car. The perceived distracting nature of in-car radio also made it unappealing.

Despite initial opposition, AM radio became a standard feature in virtually all cars by the 1960s. FM capability followed soon after and since then there’s been a steady evolution of portable media platforms, including 8-track tapes, cassettes, CD and mp3 players. Streaming audio is now the norm, thanks to wireless networks; and it’s not uncommon to find car audio systems that deliver superior fidelity and quality compared to in-home audio systems.

TV Takes Off

Television was also largely pioneered in the 1920s, though a TV set wasn’t really affordable for most people until after World War II. Before then, television viewing was mostly a communal experience. By the 1960s TVs had evolved to be more accessible, colorful and even portable, and the changes have only become more dramatic in terms of TV shapes and sizes over the past few decades. Despite the changes, televisions have remained one of the primary devices for media consumption and, in particular, audio/video entertainment.

Today that screen-driven entertainment extends beyond our living room to include the screens in our pockets and, increasingly, those in our cars. Imagine telling someone in the 1960s that you would be watching TV in your car one day. They probably wouldn’t have believed you and may even have wondered why you’d want to, especially remembering that at one time people thought in-car radio was distracting. But times have changed.

Converging in the Car

What we’re witnessing today is a convergence of evolutions never seen before. The car has evolved, as has personal entertainment technology – both audio and video – along with wireless infrastructure. These convergences were simply not possible before because the component technologies were not ready individually.

The benefits of all these advances are especially noticeable in the car which has become an ideal, if unexpected, environment for premium entertainment. Today’s car interiors are acoustically treated to minimize road and engine noise, making it quiet and acoustically favorable for high-fidelity audio. The interior surfaces of most vehicles also don’t tend to create unwanted reverberation. And since speaker placement is fixed, it’s easier to balance and tune those speakers to the characteristics of the cabin and the desired sound.

Even the idea of what premium in-car entertainment is has evolved. Higher-end sound systems that used to be offered exclusively from luxury vehicle brands can now be found further down market. Premium brands like Burmester, Bang & Olufsen and Bose are available in various classes of cars around the world. That means luxury automakers have to explore other premium experiences to use as differentiators. Screens have become a big part of this exploration.

Front Seat Screens Move to the Forefront

In-dash screens, like the offerings that came before it, have evolved over the years. They were intended to provide infotainment in the forms of navigation and other non-video uses to the driver primarily. Meanwhile, rear-seat screens were mainly intended to deliver video entertainment to back-seat passengers with one of the earliest applications designed to keep kids occupied during long drives.

Now the script has flipped with the advancement of autonomous driving and popularity of EV cars making entertaining the driver important, too. Electric vehicle owners who periodically spend time in their car while it’s parked at a charging station can use this time to catch up on a favorite TV show or watch a movie. With this convergence of video and audio technology, the chore of charging the car turns into an enjoyable experience.

Drivers of autonomous driving vehicles benefit in similar ways. For example, if you’re behind the wheel on the German autobahn in a vehicle with a Level 3 Autonomous Driving Certification, you’re allowed to watch a movie at speeds of up to 90 kph (roughly 55 MPH). As the world trends toward higher levels of autonomous driving, we will get to a point where humans are not required to take over the driving task from the computer. It will then become increasingly common for front seat screens to be more prominent and more advanced.

A good example of an automaker getting out ahead is Mercedes-Benz. At CES in January, the German luxury car manufacturer demonstrated the delivery of IMAX Enhanced content in its E-Class sedans via the Sony Pictures Entertainment RideVU app. Combining a great sounding car audio system with the highest quality video and DTS:X immersive audio powered by the IMAX Enhanced format takes the entertainment experience in the Mercedes E-Class to the next level and is a strong differentiator for the brand.

As it stands today, most cars still have one single screen in the center of the dashboard which serves more for infotainment for the driver. But like the in-car entertainment that came before it, those screens will evolve into wider, more eye-catching options that run the length of the dashboard. There is a fascinating future ahead for in-car entertainment as the technologies grow and mature and their convergence continues.