MP3 in-car audio

[playtime]

Hi all. First post.

I'm looking for an MP3 solution for my new car. I've looked at all the usual stuff such as replacing the radio/CD player or placing a HD-based unit in the boot etc.

I've found all the controls for these solutions to be somewhat limited and I want several Gbs of MP3s available but transferable to/from a normal PC, so I thought - 'Why not use a Pocket PC?' :wink:

The general idea is to hide a pocket PC that can play MP3s in the arm rest along with a normal HD connected to the PC by some means, preferable USB cos it's cheaper than Firewire.

This should all be powered, presumably via an adaptor, from the car's supply, perhaps branching off from the current audio solution. I'd also like the damn thing to switch off with everything else rather than draining the battery :lol:

I would then like a player interface similar to WinAmp or the Pocket PC equivalent to manipulate playlists and the like.

Last but not least a decent data connection to attach it to my current portable PC or one of the ones at home. I don't have any firewire based stuff there at the moment.

So, your thoughts please. Is it even possible?

Cheers.

[PetiteFlower]

No, there is currently no way to attach a normal hard drive to a PDA because they are not USB host capable(except for the Toshiba e310, which is apparantly the ONLY advantage to that device).

Best bet is probably to get a PC card to CF adapter and get a 5G PC card drive, if you want to go with the PDA solution. Or if you have an Ipaq already, a PC card sleeve.

But honestly you'll probably be better off with a dedicated MP3 device, if you want that much storage. Dell is coming out with an iPod-like device pretty soon that should be reasonably inexpensive and should fit your needs, check it out :)

[PetiteFlower]

Oh and whether something that is plugged into your car's cigarette lighter turns off when the car is turned off depends on your car, not on the adapter or anything else. I *think*, though I may be wrong, that in general American cars will leave things plugged in to the lighter on, and Japanese will turn them off. This is supported by my Ford and my mom's Toyota, but I forget where I heard it, so I have no idea if it's really true or not :)

[playtime]

Ciggy lighter!!!???!!!

Heh. The New Beetle can stick a 6xCD player in the armrest. This means there is a conduit somewhere I can legitamately use rather than doing a 'McGyver'. The trick would be to get the PC to shutdown rather than suck the batteries dry.

What's the largest PC Card drive you can get? My MP3s amount to over 15Gb.

Apart from that, it's not looking good is it. All that stuff is not cheep. I'm aiming to do it all for < 400GBP or I'll just buy a purpose built something or other.

It looks like I'll have to have to edit all my playlists on a PC then make a selection from a tiny, TINY LCD screen :roll:

[shawnc]

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for but when I was looking for a 6-cd changer, the guy at the auto shop recommended that I use an MP3 player instead. He said he would wire it as normal and that the player (he recommended an Ipod, but said my Axim would work just the same). I think the connector plug into the headphone jack and the music would play through my car stereo. I was a little leery because I had never heard of this before. Since then I have seen the VW Beetle commercials where they have the Ipod installed exactly as the guy had described.

I don't know about connecting a HD to a PPC. If you're looking for more than 15G, I would go with an Ipod or similar machine.

[mashtim]

This will only take care of part of your needs, but as far as getting the sound over your speakers, I would recommend using the AUX Input of your existing stereo (assuming it has one, of course).

I recently replaced my car stereo with an Alpine that has an AUX input (it also reads MP3s and WMAs from CDs, btw). I simply went to a major electronics store and bought the cable (proprietary, of course) for about $15 and had the people who installed the radio toss it in. Now, I have a cable with a mini-plug sitting on the floor under the passenger seat and whenever I want, I can plug my PPC/CD player/iPod/Walkman/portable tv/whatever into it and the sound comes out through the car speakers.

I generally use this setup for GPS instructions, but have been known to play music from my flash cards (currently maxed out at 1GB), as well.

Since I am driving an SUV for now, I have a second cig lighter plug in the back seat console which I use to power my PPC (I use the plug from my Socket BT GPS which had two plugs on it). When I turn off the ignition (Japanese car, btw), the power goes off and the PPC powers down after the usual time.

Using this setup, the cables are virtually invisible (having a BT GPS REALLY helps this, too!) and it has become very much a background thing.

[PetiteFlower]

The new Beetles are also coming with an iPod, free these days, at least in the US.....

Anyway if you need 15G of storage, your most economical solution is going to be an iPod or a similar player. If you don't have a direct input into your car stereo, you can use a tape adapter like people used to use with discmen. I've used one with my Axim and it sounds pretty good--and I'm sure that any limitations in the sound quality are coming from the Axim, not the adapter or the car. As for power, I'm POSITIVE that adapters exist that allow you to plug the player into the lighter(or "power console" as I'm sure they're calling it these days), so there would be no need for McGyver :)

[maximus]

If your car stereo has RCA input on the back (usually to connect CD Changer, etc.) you can buy a mini RCA to RCA cable .. the mini RCA plugs into your PPC, and the RCA end plugs into the audio in of your car stereo. And the PPC can be powered by a car charger.

But rather than going through the whole pain, why not get a 12 CD changer that plays MP3, WMA, OGGs, etc. ? I saw an alpine one the other day. 12x700 megs = 8 gigs. You can store 3000-3500 oggs on it.

Or, if you have extra money to burn, get the alpine 6 DVD changer with audio dataout, which means, you can stuff the whole 9 gigs of music into a single DVD disk ... 6x9 gigs = 54 gigs, I am sure it satisfies your wildest need of music :D BTW, It recognizes MP3, WMA and OGGs.

[playtime]

There are one or two car-stereo form/factor MP3 players around that even allow you to change the playing playlist throught the original dashboard unit's cd autochanger buttons.

This is with all wiring hidden and and adaptor to the dash unit controller.

So, it's quite possible.

You have to open the armrest to get at the MP3 unit to select albums or tracks afaik but you couldn't create new playlists with it. And you try doing something like that with a tiny LCD screen.

Shame the pocket PC thing doesn't seem to be panning out.

[Linus]

I've put a lot of thought into this, and nothing has quite the right combination of low price and ease of use. Seems to me that control is the main issue - PPCs are great, but certainly not great to use while driving.

Another option is what people are doing over at Mp3Car.com (http://www.mp3car.com) - building full-featured computers into their cars. Systems range from laptops pugged into the aux input of a standard head unit to using 7" in-dash touchscreens to control music/movies/gps/etc. If you've got any computer know-how, you should be able to set yourself up with one of the simpler systems for 400 GBP. Resources for Brits are pretty good there, too.

Hope this helps...

[that_kid]

I have a neo car jukebox (http://www.ssiamerica.com) in my car and it's worked great. It came with a 20 gig drive which i changed out for a 80 gig. I Have about 6000 songs on it right now but it doesn't do ogg, only mp3's. There are many different solutions on the web, another place to check is Funmp3players (http://www.funmp3players.com)

[DrtyBlvd]

I use a 20GB iPod with an iTrip Radio transmitter - My bootmounted CD & MD changers haven't been used since I got it... and, funnily enough, I took them out today to sell !

With a power cord for the lighter, a dual lighter adapter so that I can run a dual cord for the GPS / iPaq, driving has not been so much fun for ages... c5000 songs on shuffle has meant I keep having to look at the iPod to see what's playing !

Kenwood do a hard drive for the boot at c£500 but it's 'only' 15GB - but it does come with a docking station etc which looks quite cool...

[shawnc]

I don't mean to hi-jack the post, but this is kind-of a related question. Has anyone ever heard of an in-dash system that reads SD cards? I've read some pretty complex solutions in this thread, but for me I would just to plug in my SD card similar to inserting a cassette.

Anyone ever heard of such a system?

[DrtyBlvd]

Well, Just to wind Ed up ( :wink: ) Sony do a Memory Stick capable head unit... s'expensive though - c$700US if memory serves...

[shawnc]

db,

I'd be willing to pay $700 depending on the spec's. Hate the idea of a memory stick, but I might give it a look-see.

Thanx,

[GoldKey]

I don't mean to hi-jack the post, but this is kind-of a related question. Has anyone ever heard of an in-dash system that reads SD cards? I've read some pretty complex solutions in this thread, but for me I would just to plug in my SD card similar to inserting a cassette.

Anyone ever heard of such a system?

How about this -

http://www.bluespot.co.uk/stock/woodstock_dab53.asp

[ctmagnus]

I don't mean to hijack the thread either, but if you're going to be using a Pocket PC as an in-car audio player, you'd be better off to use WMA rather than MP3, as WMA gets much better compression for the audio quality which means you can fit more music on your device. Or that's my experience. But if you're using a dedicated audio player, I'd stick with MP3.

[shawnc]

How about this -

http://www.bluespot.co.uk/stock/woodstock_dab53.asp

I'm going to have to give this a good long look-see. Thanx for coming through Goldkey.

[KidKomputer]

I don't mean to hi-jack the post, but this is kind-of a related question. Has anyone ever heard of an in-dash system that reads SD cards? I've read some pretty complex solutions in this thread, but for me I would just to plug in my SD card similar to inserting a cassette.

Anyone ever heard of such a system?

Panasonic made one model # CQ-SRX7000U CD/SD

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=CQ%2DSRX7000U+CD%2FSD