Sweet Car Audio Setup

[wessleym]

Okay, a few days ago, I thought of a sweet car audio setup idea. Is it possible to install a unit, possibly in your trunk, that could play MP3's from it's built-in hard drive through your car speakers? Also, is it possible to copy new MP3's over a wireless network to the hard drive? The wireless network will ONLY be used when parked at the house, so I can easily copy my MP3's from my PC to the Xbox, NOT FOR STREAMING.

I know this idea is possible because you could do with a modded Xbox (with Xbox Media Center installed) and one of those new Xbox LCDs. The audio output would be run to a female miniplug where you could plug in one of those tape adapters that are usually used for CD players. Then you would connect a wireless network to the Xbox's ethernet port. The network and Xbox could both be powered by the car's battery with a DC-AC converter. Finally, you would buy a wireless controller that could control what was playing. The Xbox and wireless network could be in the truck, running wires up to the stereo. The controller could be placed in a convenient storage in the front along with the LCD mounted on the dash.

Anybody know a better way to it? My way has a few problems, especially an Xbox's power requirements and my low quality method of connecting it to my stereo. I would rather have an all-in-one solution that I could actually place on my dash that had an LCD, hard drive, and wireless network built in. I've seen units with LCDs and wireless networks but never with hard drives. I hope this wasn't too confusing. Thanks for your help.

 

[Admiral Michael]

Im not entirely sure but some decks have inputs for cd players. Either that or you can buy a FM transmitter, which would tranmit the audio and ur radio wouold pick it up.

 

[wessleym]

Isn't there some quality loss there too? Or is it not as bad as a tape adapter?

 

[indyjones]

You can just buy a car mp3 player??? You can get the nice pioneer mp3 hardrive ones admittedly they are expensive, so just use one of the conventional burn mp3s on cd type players they work really well. or am i missing the point ?

 

[Electronic Punk]

The standard audio in my car is pretty good, but I intend on buying a bluetooth gps for my laptop and wiring in a 10" or so TFT. I do alot of travelling these days.

Infact I may need to go away on monday, and if not I will be away on wednesday, returning on the friday.

And on the 23rd I am going to the states, but apparently my hotel has broadband there so I will be taking my laptop

 

[wessleym]

Okay, I hear you on the MP3 CD player, but see, the focus of this is that I would be able to upload MP3s from my computer to the player's hard drive when it was parked at my house, like in my first post.

 

[cryogenic]

http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/337/C2203/ You want something like that, but a home-made version, I suppose... I've seen one or two others like it, but I can't remember where.

 

[dreamliner77]

It's easy enough to build a SFF machine, put linux on it and run a small lcd to the dash. You can also add wireless, but remember, the first load is gonna be a b***h. Cruise some car audio sites. It's done all the time.

Look into the Phatnoise Phatbox or Kenwood Music Keg.

Tape adapters and FM transmitters are a bad idea. Their frequency response is terrible. You'd be better off with cassettes.

 

[Electronic Punk]

well it would have to be running a windows os, as I one of my reasons to hook it up would be to use autoroute with the gps, oh and inevitably winamp5

 

[wessleym]

http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/337/C2203/ You want something like that, but a home-made version, I suppose... I've seen one or two others like it, but I can't remember where.

Yeah, cryogenic, thanks exactly what I'm looking for, except that one costs $600. It doesn't seem like a cheaper options exists. Thanks.

 

[dinosway]

hey man, I've got a similar setup in my car, I've got an 8" touchscreen tft which is vga, so what I did was bulit a nice little cheap pc nothing special under my seat which has a 200gb harddrive, 512mb ram, on board graphics card and a dvd combo drive with a pci wifi. I've got over 80gb of music on there a few games with a game pad, also I threw on about 40 gb of movies and episode etc. I've only got a 200 watt psu though and have it plugged into a dc/ac converter wich I bought off ebay for about 30 quid.


I've got an Alpine CDA-9835 headunit with auxilary in, so I got a very good quality wire going from the pc to the headunit, obviously I control the pc with the touch screen tft monitor and there you go, I've got access to internet from downstairs my house, I also bought a gps usb satatlite thingy and downloaded the software to have navigation. I've got the PS2 under the passenger seat and plugged that straight into the monitor and just switch the monitor to av1.

all this for about 300 quid depending on what kind of pc you build