Dolby drive: Turn your car into a movie hall

Cars are becoming mobile cinema halls. Indian car users are increasingly redesigning the interiors of their vehicles with television sets, going up to screen sizes of 17 inches, with sub-woofers, amplifiers, Dolby Digital surround sound and bluetooth technologies - everything that allows them to see their favourite movies and get their adrenalin pumping.

"Some spend close to Rs 5 lakh to put in place the best in-car entertainment systems, a few spend more than the price of their car on such technologies," says Michael Khare, CEO of Sebastian and Sons India, nation-wide dealers in car audio and video systems. On an average, a person is seen to spend about 4% of the cost of a car to install an in-car audio and video system. Today, the basic audio system is a CD/MP3 player, unlike the ordinary cassette/radio player that was the norm five years ago.

The systems help to get people's minds off the maddening city traffic. And are seen to be particularly useful during long drives away from the city, a trend that's fast catching on. Travel operators are tapping into this to offer the option of a ‘video coach' - a Toyota Qualis, Chevrolet Tavera or Tata Indica - at just 50 paise per kilometre more than the regular rate.

Carazoo.com, an online interactive car portal, says they receive over 150 customer requests per month on car entertainment gizmos. Sanjay Soni, MD of Logix Microsystems, which runs the portal, says the growth of in-car entertainment over the years have been between 30% and 40%. "Soon, audio will be the minimum requirement for a consumer and video will be a standard feature in all cars," says Khare.

At present only luxury cars such as a BMW and Mercedes come built with a video option. Tata Motors offers video entertainment in high-end variants of the Tata Indigo and Tata Safari.

Ashok Kumar Chandak, director in NXP Semiconductors, suppliers of chip sets to audio and video manufacturers, says most premium segment cars will come fitted with high-end video systems in their rear seats by next year. He estimates that the in-car entertainment video market, which is at $75 million now, will grow to $300 million in the next four years.

"Over 40% of customers who buy small and mid-size cars invest in high-end audio and video systems," says Ajay Sahney, country head (car multimedia), of Blaupunkt India.

Automotive experts say in-car entertainment will soon become a necessity rather than a premium option. Competition among manufacturers will not be on price but on what car entertainment gizmos they can offer the consumer, says an auto analyst.

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