Car audio info needed by a knowledable person

[twisted_offroader]

Is there anyone out there that is up to date on the latest and greatest car audio equipment?

I do not even know if there is anything out there, like what I am looking for, I want a in dash DVD player that can play MP3's on a DVD disc. A dvd can hold 4.7 GB and a mp3 song is like 5MB (depending on bit rate) so thats like 1000 tunes on a disc. A CD can hold like 100 mp3's, even on a 10 disc changer thats still 1 DVD disc. Is there such a thing as a 10 disc DVD changer, for car audio?

[twisted_offroader]

If you have any other options to get alot of mp3 tunes on one piece media I would like to hear it.

I forgot about the 80GB I-Pod for $350. I might go that way, with a good head unit, that is sat radio ready. Is there anyway to get both Sirius and XM on one head unit? or would I have to hook one up to head unit and buy another sat radio player for the car.

[Dragonmaster]

only way to do both sat radios would be with a switch or with an FM modulator, doable, but who has the spare cash for two subsricptions?

I sure don;t, and if you do I'd like to know your secret.

[TaTtOo]

There are hard drives that can be hooked up to your head unit.. call visions or one of them and they can explain it... I dont have one but a friend of mine got his from Visions

[FiEND]

there are decks out there that will play mp3 from a dvd disc... but since dvd isn't natively supposed to play them, the discs need a little bit of extra work to be playable.

i'm pretty sure some of the higher end dvd + screen players will do dvdmp3 as well but they are up above $600

i bought a serious ready kenwood deck.  plays mp3 from cd, no biggy, but it also has a cable out the back that I plug my USB memory stick into for up to 8GB (there are 16GB sticks available) of mp3.  the deck and cd parts i don't care about, it'll get rattled and dusty and broke but the memory sticks never a problem.

[redbull]

Is there such a thing as a 10 disc DVD changer, for car audio?

It's actually cheaper to buy a deck with an iPod input and an 80GB iPod. That's equivalent to 16DVDs worth of music.

There were a couple of companies selling a changer type thing that took hard drive cartridges. I think the iPod craze drove them out of the market though.

Another option is the decks with USB input. Theoretically you could attach a large external USB hard drive, but I've read of one negative side. Basically, on a large drive it can take quite a while for the slow processor inside the unit to scan the drive to locate media. Not sure if this is still the case.

[NS-jeeper]

I think sony makes a head unit with a usb key slot right in the front. You should just head over to future shop or visions or best buy and have a look at a few. Usb keys are dirt cheap I got a 2gig for around $35 dollars, plus that way you could sort of organize your music.

[FiEND]

too many have the slot in the front, if i didn't break it it'd get stolen.  since mine has a cable out the back, i ran the usb cable up to the defrost vent and back down the gap between dash panels.  the memory sticks push in there nice and tight and out of view.

it does take about 10 seconds for my 1GB sticks to scan and start playing.  i was waiting for the 16GB to cheapen (i have 4 x 1GB sticks) before i bought but i'll prob decide on 8GB max if the media scan is that slow.  flash memory is really slow but that's why it's cheap.

i don't know how the indexing is done in the dvdmp3 discs, it could be quick or just as slow.  maybe i will make one on an rw and try it in the dvd player.

[twisted_offroader]

Thanks for the input. My brother has an Ipod hookup in his truck, he seems to like it. The hard drive idea sounds interesting, I can see how it can slow down. I joined up with Futureshop's bulletin board, and they seem to be very knowledgable. Satellite radio is just 15/m for each subscription, so it aint much.

[redbull]

Thanks for the input. My brother has an Ipod hookup in his truck, he seems to like it.

Do it, or any MP3 player. I got a 20GB iRiver for $49 at BestBuy (clearance price) that I like better than my 30GB iPod Video. For less than $50, I don't care if it gets banged up or stolen.

You'll get a lot more use out of the portable units than a DVD in your vehicle. Easier to swap between cars too.

[hps4evr]

so if you have all this space and all these songs... is it a pain in the arse to scan through all the music to find one song? or is it better off to just push play and enjoy what comes out?

[FiEND]

no it's pretty simple.  my kenwood has a joystick button i can flip around.

it has all random for playing all the songs on the memory stick
it has folder random etc.

mp3s have id tags so can go by that and find songs by name or whatever

the memory stick is simply accessed like a computer hard disk.  you can make folders for band names, albums or music type (genre) or however you like.

honestly though i dont use many of the features, tried em once and forgot most of them.  i make folders of music types because i like a lot of different music and play random whatever folder i feel like.  90% of the time i just press random all.

[m0th]

Has anyone added an AUX doodad to the factory stereo to plug in a regular mp3 player instead?

[twisted_offroader]

I like all genres of music. Can you organize the Ipod mp3's into folders or genres? Or is it just use the Ipod keypad to scroll through the 50,000 mp3 list. On my computer I can save several playlists, can you do the same thing on the Ipod?

[FiEND]

yea the ipod is menu / playlist driven.  relies on the id3 v2 tags in the songs.  i set up a 4 gb nano last week for a friend's vacation.

i found it to be a slight pain and time consuming to set things up, id tags, playlists etc.  if it were mine, woulda been a lot simpler, but still not simple enough to want to fiddle with it everytime i changed a bunch of songs on it.