Best Place to Get a Car TV Installed

What smooth talkers they are at All-Star Audio Video. Any group of employees who can talk so many customers into believing that TVs -- inside cars! -- are required accessories deserves this award. And it's not as if Houston drivers weren't bad enough, turning without signaling or lining up seven cars deep behind a left-turning car when the right lane is utterly vacant. The added distraction of TVs in vehicles now makes these inhospitable roads just that more hostile. But don't blame All-Star. The 23-year-old company is, according to Steve "Pepper" Perez, who installs these thingies, just responding to demand. "There've been TVs in cars for a while," he says. "Then when multimedia hit, it's the easiest thing to take a trip and have a video for the kids. They don't wanna get out of the car. "Dad, drive around the block.' " Around the block? Chances are, Dad's "block" is a gated community. Perez says he has done installations on the vehicles of star baseball jocks like Roger Clemens, Craig Biggio and Andy Pettitte. He also says he and his two installers (one, Andy Bartinicki, joined the company a couple of years after owner Jim Lawless opened the first shop) have done jobs ranging in price from $2,500 to $25,000. About 80 percent of his customers, he says, are regulars. Though Perez talks excitedly and knows a helluva lot about vehicular TVs, he doesn't own one himself. "But I gotta get one," he says. "I need to."