Dr Hu

Does anyone know of a head unit that will allow you to upload MP3's to it for playback in the car - a Real Jukebox for the Scooby would be great!!

Or have I just spotted a niche in the market and I'm to be rich I tell you RICH!! HaHaHAhAhHAHAHAHAHAHAHa fades to manical laugh...

Alec

IIRC Chiark is working on something like this.

Alec

Andy Tang

iTrader: (3)

GavinP

Apparently, Kenwood have a new head unit which plays MP3 files from a CD-R.

I know it's not the same thing but maybe of interest.....

I'm sure before long, MP3 multi-changers will also be available.

Thanks

Gavin

chiark

You have been well and truly beaten, but the commercial solutions are expensive! Empeg is the puppy's parts but costs mucho wonga. A friend has one in his Evo VI and loves it to bits. Quite neat insofar is you can just plug it into the office network and the client software finds it automatically...

There's another option called Phatbox from

chiark

And, before anyone says it, the display will be boxed up to look a lot neater once it's ready to go in the car (ie software more functional).

Good news is that I soak tested for 48 hours over the weekend and it didn't hiccough once.

Any Linux experts on there want to explain to me how to speed up booting by removing unnecessary crap from the kernel?

Dr Hu

Hey AndyT that empeg thingummy is just what I wanted but is about £700 too much!!!

That is a well cool product - but toys for the boys don't come much more expensive than that - entry level MP3 head unit with 20Gb HDD £750 +VAT add in an FM tuner module another £55 +VAT and an Amp and thats one expensive piece of kit!!

Like how it runs Linux!!! LOL

Looks like I'll have to wait for Chiark to need a beta tester for the one he's designing!!

Damn WHY can't I just win the lottery??

Thanks Guys....

chiark

Hey, mine runs Linux too. It's never going to be a commercial product, though Dr Hu!

If you're interested, I could be persuaded to set the kit up for you.

There are lots and lots of different ways to do this... Single Biscuit PC motherboards are popular, if rather more expensive at around 300 quid. Gets you a smaller box than I'm using though, which is a desktop box that met a hack-saw.

DazV

Don't really see the point of MP3 players for the car - why not just burn your MP3 onto a CD-R, which most decent car cd players can play.

That way you have one unit for both normal cd's and cdr's

Dr Hu

Chiark - I have just read your website from cover to cover - well done it's a very informative site!! - I've seen far worse commercial sites than yours!!

I like LIMP !! - Could you not use a cheap Laptop? - your surely not heaving around a desktop PC in your boot are you?? - A hacked up laptop could go under a seat for example then be taken indoors for uploading - DAMN YOU Chiark - you've got ME thinking now......

Suppose a laptop sound card isn't good enough though - muse muse......I work in the IT Support industry so have loads of kit floating around at all times......you could use an car/air laptop power adaptor, laptop auto boots into Real Jukebox, just need to sort out the controls and screen........

Dr Hu

DazV- yeah but converting all the MP3's into CD-DA then burning is a real ball ache and you can only get about 12 tracks on a CD-R.

The Kenwood head unit that plays native MP3 -now that IS interesting......Thanks GavinP - why can I see a serious wallet bashing coming on!!

Kevin Greeley

I have the Aiwa MP3CD. It looks great and sounds brilliant (to me anyway).
You can fit about 10 albums onto one CD-R.
Was a pain to fit (but I guess that's not unusual).
Facia is fiddly to fit but you get used to it.
Cost me £250.

chiark

I don't have CD-writer, but that isn't the point as they're now cheaper than the display and PSU

LIMP allows me to select whatever tracks I want to listen to in a variety of ways. There's the good old album way, then genre, then "popularity" (which I can set and update on the move), or custom playlists... All of these can have a "popularity" threshold applied as well as a genre threshold if I like.

I have complete control over the way the unit works and over what is displayed.

I have 6GB (currently) of available space, so around the same as 10CD-Rs. Given that an average song is around 4MB, that's 1500-ish songs. I'll add another drive when I can find some spare moolah.

Also, the satisfaction of building something like this is quite a lot. I am, at heart, a geek.

The PC in the car is also going to be linked into a GPS receiver and will be used to indicate "accident blackspots". I intend to publish the GPS location of these "blackspots" too.

DazV

Kenwood models just out...


And...


Both of these play CD, CD-R and MP3 encoded discs.

[This message has been edited by DazV (edited 01 March 2001).]