2000 Volkswagen Beetle - Installation
by CAE, Jan 01, 2001
Tracking the ProgressThe farmclub.com venture was ambitious, but suffered from some technological setbacks. We first logged on at the beginning of the tour, and were unable to access any of the site's tracking features. This wasn't too surprising, as we figured they were still working out some of the kinks. The profiles on the drivers and co-drivers were interesting and accessible from the get-go. The "On the Road" home page provided still photos and accompanying blurbs that served as teasers, as in, "Today the team is headed for the Family Values show in Columbus...", information that was updated regularly.
As of press time (October 10th) the adventure had ended and we're awaiting the results.
In a cleverly designed campaign that was sure to attract the most technically advanced demographic of music lovers, Web site/TV show/record label, Jimmy and Doug's Farmclub.com, partnered with Volkswagen of America to launch "a rock n' roll high-tech road trip."
For two labor-intensive months installers, Brian Lamb and Stan Wuescher, worked on turning five new Beetles into sophisticated multimedia machines for the road trip ahead. Each vehicle and its two-person crew was assigned a territory - West, Midwest, Northeast, Southeast - and granted the power of A&R reps. Their mission, which lasted from July 29th to September 30th and took them to countless concerts and music festivals, was to find their respective region's best unsigned bands. The Internet public was able to track their progress through GPS technology and video streams, as well as communicate with them via e-mail and instantaneous messaging.
ComputersEach customized Beetle ran a fully functional IP network that acted as a mobile, wireless extension of the Farmclub.com network. Numerous jacks and ports were installed for connecting through other networks via Ethernet or standard telephone lines, and for various media input/output connections with digital cameras and PA systems. The computers were integrated with custom display and entertainment systems, enabling the car to play digitally encoded music or video at a moment's notice.
The Web site features the latest in music and videos from today's most popular artists and serves as an avenue for unsigned bands to get their music to the masses. Any band with the ability to do so can upload their music onto the site, which, in turn, puts them in a position to be selected to appear live on the television show of the same name or possibly get signed by the label.
Farmclub.com, the online record label, distributes their music via the Universal Music Group.
Audio/VideoTwo digital video cameras running the Q-PC Linux operating system continuously sent images back to a central server on-board, which in turn transmitted the media back to Farmclub.com headquarters on a regular basis for encoding and streaming on the web. In order to watch video streams from any given day, Internet users logged on and checked "Mission Control" a few days after the desired event.
A custom high fidelity audio system was installed in each Beetle, including Alpine amps and a Polk/Momo speaker system, that provided premium sound quality for playback of digital music or video files.
CommunicationsEach customized vehicle was equipped with three different types of wireless telecommunications connections. A fast CDPD (cellular digital packet data) modem was used whenever possible to enable Internet access for the passenger as well as efficient wireless file transfer capability. Two fallback systems (digital cellular and analog cellular) kicked in when CDPD was unavailable.
Separate CDPD and satellite systems were installed to enable GPS tracking. When CDPD was available, the car's location was updated every sixty seconds. When the system falls back to satellite connectivity, positioning information was updated every 30 minutes.
