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Aside from systems whose price tags are similarly "preposterous", you might want to look at Crutchfield's guide to speaker cable selection. There are oodles of other guides out there, but this one covers everything pretty nicely.

I think Honda do on some lines of vehicles.

But...it's pretty obvious why auto manufacturers don't want you to use your audio hardware in their cars. They'd like you to spend lots of money on buying their crappy audio systems.

Stock stereos have a tendancy of being half way decent. While I personly don't care if my buttons match my car, there are those who go out of their way to get factory radios specificly cause it looks right. They do raise the value of your car and should be kept if at all possible, even if it's just a radio.

I can't speak for ford, but i've been quite impressed with the stock stereos offered by the likes of Toyota and Nissan. I would have kept mine except for the fact that it was a tape deck, and I wanted a CD. However I know now it was equpped for a CD changer, I likely would have gone that way, that way I could have my tape and cd too.

What I don't understand is this shouldn't be a big deal. If you have a factory stereo with cd changer support it shouldn't be much trouble at all for apple to offer a changer adapter to use the existing controls on the CD player, and use them on the IPOD. In fact I just googled it and poof here we are.

But in regards to the grandparent, line out / line in are not uncommon at all. Line in is most common for the use of CD changers, line out / line in are more often used for equalizers and such. The tweeky bit is the fact that they often don't use rca jacks, nor headphone jacks.

Except the room will be my own bedroom in my house, I have a 20' ceiling so I built a second floor in the room that attaches to the attic. I'm buying a few old web cams, going to convert a few of them to show infrared light for nightvision type use, them I'm going to put infrared LEDs inside the room so I can take video with the lights out. There will be a switch to open and close XMMS, LCD screen and keypad to jump to songs, I'd be able to search through songs from the couch without taking out the mouse and keyboard. There's going to be a skylight that's motorized with a motorized screen too. A 56" Sony HDTV, I'm hooking it up to my computer, and PS3. Also going to get a nice stereo once I figure out which one to get. It'll have more appeal to females because it's not a dorm room at MIT, plus I have a bar that I built in my room, it's nice doing this stuff in your dorm, but even nicer in your own home :-).

the eight-company consortium behind AACS will require hardware makers to include the capability to "downrez" (limit the resolution) of high-definition signals sent from players to TVs via analog connections -- including component video. Downrezzing wouldn't occur automatically, but would be triggered if the player recognized a "downrez flag" (called an Image Constraint Token) on a high-definition movie disc.
--High-def Disc Update: Where things stand with HD DVD and Blu-ray

Considering the maximum bandwidth for HDTV media is 19.4 Mbps as seen here: http://www.crutchfieldadvisor.com/ISEO-rgbtcspd/le arningcenter/home/tv_glossary.html (under bitrate), 27 MB/sec would be more that adequate being 11x that maximum. Of course, it WOULD take 3.16 hours to write a full disc.... but I'd bet this tech is only "testing" phase. (Unless of course the gp mistyped and meant mbps where he put MBps, then we're all screwed)

XM's strategic investors include General Motors Corp., American Honda Motor Corp., DIRECTV, Eastbourne Capital, Hearst Corporation and Baystar Capital.
-- http://www.xmradio.com/faq/faq_list_servlet.jsp?se ction_id=1&section_main=XM%20Satellite%20Radio#141

"Sirius... Tends to be more hits based but not anywhere near FM"
-- http://www.xmorsirius.com/programming.html

"En masse, they are led by a Music Director, Lee Abrams, who has set forth the prime directive: "Respect the listener, respect the artist." As long as this rule is adhered to, the individual Program Directors are free to play what they want. Except for one other tiny rule: "If it sounds like FM, you're out." That means play music, lots of it, with lots of variety within the channel's genre."
-- http://www.crutchfieldadvisor.com/ISEO-rgbtcspd/re views/20030623/xm_hq.html?print=1&page=all

"SIRIUS has a song library of 500,000 tunes"
-- http://radio.about.com/library/weekly/aa062403a.ht m

"The designers also had to make the system capable of holding music from 200,000 CDs assembled by the company - about 2 million songs"
--http://www.rwonline.com/reference-room/t rans-2-d igital/05_rwf_xm_1.shtml

All you need to know to install an LCD in your vehicle...enjoy.

There are a number of articles and how-to's on just about every aspect of TVs including flat-panels and HDTV over at www.crutchfieldadvisor.com.

I would start with the Choosing a TV learning center article and check out the HDTV Center as well.

(Disclaimer: I am associated with Crutchfield, but there's honestly some of the best information anywhere located there)

There are a number of articles and how-to's on just about every aspect of TVs including flat-panels and HDTV over at www.crutchfieldadvisor.com.

I would start with the Choosing a TV learning center article and check out the HDTV Center as well.

(Disclaimer: I am associated with Crutchfield, but there's honestly some of the best information anywhere located there)

There are a number of articles and how-to's on just about every aspect of TVs including flat-panels and HDTV over at www.crutchfieldadvisor.com.

I would start with the Choosing a TV learning center article and check out the HDTV Center as well.

(Disclaimer: I am associated with Crutchfield, but there's honestly some of the best information anywhere located there)