Dear Intaweb

[bellinghman]

Look, I know what I want.

I want the ability to receive DAB stations in my car. I happen to like BBC7 and so on.

I want the ability to play MP3s from a reasonable size storage. (A few gigabytes would be fine) No, I don't want to have to plug an MP3 player in: I'd be happy with the ability to put a USB drive in the glove compartment.

I want to be able to use the existing steering wheel controls to be able to change track or station or whatever.

That's all I think I want. I don't actually need the ability to play a CD. Or a cassette.

So why is it so hard to find the right product?

Comments

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Yes, DAB is Digital Audio Broadcasting. The US does seem to use different technologies from us the moment any form of broadcasting comes along. TV. Mobile phones. You even seem to have a different standard frequency step on some of your radio bands, IIRC.

Thanks for the thoughts, though.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

And there is a new DAB+ coming soon, obsoleting the current DAB sets (new compression routines).

Previous job work colleague upgraded his BMW multi-changer to an MP3 playing CD changer, so he could have 6x650Mb of MP3s ... used to drive down from Derby to London listening to the complete Hitchhikers Guide and things like that ...

... there are DVD head units now (4.6Gb of MP3s per DVD+R).

Many of the head units with a front USB socket also have a rear socket and you can run the cable from there to the glovebox.

Warning: at least one headunit I heard of has to index the entire USB drive each time you start before it will play music. This means if you plug in a, say, 16Gb memory stick, you can have to wait a couple of minutes before you can play your first bit of music from it, each time you start the car.

[liasbluestone.livejournal.com]

Mine doesn't like any thing bigger than about 512Mb.
A 512Mb SD card is fine, a CD-full of MP3s will glitch now and again, and a 1Gb card is virtually unlistenable.

I guess it's to do with the amount of internal memory - it keeps an index of all the tracks so you can search it alphabetically, and if you have more than about 150 tracks there isn't enough memory left to run the decoding software.

But 512Mb is about 8 hours of listening time, and it cost less than 60 quid, so I'm not grumbling. I just copy in a new batch of random tracks every couple of weeks.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Which unit is that?

(Just so I can avoid it, you know - I'm perfectly happy with a linear next/previous control, and this sounds like extra features being added in such a way as to break it.)

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

My changer is a 6CD MP3 player, and that does store a lot of music.

Which unit has the startup issue?

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

no idea, sorry. But more than one as I've mentioned this to other people and had them saying "me too".

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

OK, thanks