Slashdot Mirror
iPAQ AutoMP3 Jukebox How-to
Ralph Cottenham writes: "tinytechnews has just put the finishing touches on its first how-to article; a complete MP3 jukebox in your vehicle with a sleek interface provided by the Compaq iPAQ. This article shows you how to use your iPAQ PocketPC to supply your favorite music wherever you go." A lot of the "how-to" work here is accomplished by adding an external hard drive to the iPAQ (running Windows, not GNU/Linux) with Addonics' PocketEX enclosure and an IBM diskdrive, but consideration is also given to various ways to pipe the sound into a car stereo system.
These are the systems Maximum Linux used.
to change the mp3, why not use one of those IR remote controls connected to the serial port of the laptop? winamp has plugins for something like that. if you're not using windows, something else should be available.
:)
I'm thinking of doing the same thing, provided I can find a cheap laptop, as mine is still too new to stick in the trunk of my car. to control the player I would use a ir remote, with the receiver in one corner in the rear window, one of those LCDs 20x2 to view the song info somewhere in the dashboard, and the output connected into the cd changer inputs of my car stereo. so.. anyone having a cheap p90 for sale?
pedro cardoso
nipjc at ua dot pt
- too lazy to login and have a sig
For those who don't want to buy the iPAQ, Hard drive, and enclosure, you can just get the Archos 6G handheld mp3 jukebox and it's practically the same, without all the extra wires and crap. It can send music to the car stereo in the same way as the setup outlined in the article.
it's a lot cheaper, too.
Archos Website
east_bay_pete
.....How-to? How-to what? Spend a lot more time and money than necessary?
Well said brother and it's only $549 for 20gig.
Nope, it's only $468 now. =)
I'm gonna second this... the PJB-100 is the only way to fly. And they've got a 30GB version on the way. At this rate I'll soon be able to put all 45GB of my collection on it. =)
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
RCA jacks. More rare, but I refuse to hook up a device through the casette deck (I don't even have one in my car anyway).
What about an RF transmitting system? I've never heard one to know how the audio quality is, but I know a number of CD changers can broadcast to some unused channel. That would make it easy to move the player from the car to another location, no hard-wired stuff.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I know we're supposed to be moving away from desktops and to handheld devices but what if there was a way to reuse an old AMD 450 as a car mp3 system. The biggest problem is rapid startup and shutdown while retaining state and without corrupting the filesystem but I'd be willing to buy the extra components if any still existed for desktops.
If you're just going to use it in your car, this isn't the best thing, but the article overlooks the best reason to use an iPAQ and enclosed drive: you can use it without the car. It has its own battery, so you can drop it in your bag and walk around with 40GB of music. (IBM has a low power 40GB 12.5mm 2.5" drive.)
I'm going this route as soon as the 2-slot PCMCIA sleve comes out so I can have a microdrive for OS and buffer and keep the big drive spun down most of the time.
Maybe it's just me, but I can identify any of my home-burned compilation CDs from the first track - and usually know what else is on each one pretty accurately. I would imagine that what most people would do is set up playlists for particular moods/genres, which would work about the same as the CDs in the changer.
If you are looking to pick one song followed by another completely random-access, then of course you are right.
--
the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I have no problem navigating a 10-disc changer without looking at it while driving... why should MP3s be any harder? (Apart from the sheer volume of course).
Kenwood now make a $450 headunit that will play CDROMs of MP3s as well as regular CDs, anyway, so the utility of a lot of these things is fading. The UI is a bit basic so far, and they don't have a changer that can deal with data yet, but it's a good first step.
Or, the PhatNoise (http://www.phatnoise.com/CAS.htm) when it's finally done, gets you an MP3 changer compatible with your existing head unit, which is especially handy if you have one of those 'built into the whole dash' things, like Audi, Alfa and Vauxhall do.
--
the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I set up a similar system using my Palm V to control a PhatBox (arm/Linux computer) in my trunk.
http://boxster.sixpak.org/mp3/
Seriously. This is a major waste of an iPaq. If you have enough disposable income to buy the ipaq and all the other kit, then just buy the cheaper portable mp3 players. Hey, if you still want the ipaq, you can still have it, and take it with you without having hook and unhook it from your car every time you take a drive! Woohoo!
The enemies of Democracy are
The important thing about the empeg that people don't seem to take into account with most car mp3 solutions is the audio quality. Your typical PC sound card still stucks, especially when the PC is getting power from the car. The folks at empeg put a lot of work into making the empeg a professional piece of audio equipment and it kicks ass over the homebuilt systems I've heard.
Only problem is, it reproduces the sound so faithfully and clear that now I can hear all the artifacts of the MP3 compression, even at 160kbps. Sigh. Still, I've found it to be worth every penny.
By the way, empeg's customer support kicks ass! They are the one tech company I've dealt with that leaves me smiling after contacting support. You won't regret buying an empeg. Or Rio Car or whatever they're called now. They're great! Go get one! Buy buy buy!
Ogg/Vorbis recently changed the license for much of their stuff (the libraries, etc.) from GPL to FreeBSD in order to facilitate the incorporation of Ogg/Vorbis into hardware. This was done because of the legal complexities of incorporating GPL firmware with hardware and was fully endorsed by the free software foundation. As one who generally makes use of the GPL (and has even written a GPL-like Free Media License for other forms of artistic media (films, music, etc.), I found this to be very interesting ... a vindication that no single free license fits all, and a strong indication that the Free Software Foundation can be very flexible in supporting whatever measures enhance software (and hardware) freedom, even when it means putting the good of the community before their own pride.
Given the interest hardware manufacturers have expressed in OggVorbis (remember, they could well take the brunt of the hit when the royalty demands for MP3 start rolling in), I would be very surprised if many, perhaps even most, hardware players aren't supporting both MP3 and OggVorbis in the near future.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
LL
While it's proprietary and all, BeOS (even personal edition) would be more than adequate for this kind of job. Because of it's database-like file structure, I find that taking extra time when I'm ripping CD's to enter extra data is well worth it, especially when searching through 20+gigs of files. For the Vorbis crowd, yes, there's even OGG rippers out there.
And, while BeOS is for the most part, dead, it still works and works *great* for this kind of application.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
I would imagine that what most people would do is set up playlists for particular moods/genres, which would work about the same as the CDs in the changer.
This is exactly what I do with my CD/MP3 player - each disc is loosly genre-based, sometimes with full albums, sometimes with mixed tracks. I do keep index cards in the CD slot that just outline what track number each album/mix starts with, so I can skip around if I need to. Very easy, and no more dangerous than searching for tracks on a regular CD.
Oh wow. I've already got a computer in my car ( home.austin.rr.com/sshipman/lorelei ), but those laser windshield robots sound like a pretty good idea. :)
My next addition was going to be wireless networking, but I may have to rethink.
------- Driver carries less than 64K of cache.
Some of us drive quite a bit and need more music than can fit on a CD. 640 megabytes: thats about 20 songs at decent sounding bit rate.
I'm sure you are aware that if you do a search on napster, etc. Most of the songs with be 128kpbs and the better quality ones are 160-192.
This means that the majority of people find this type of bit rate acceptable to listen too.
For instance the new Weezer albulm at 192kpbs takes up 41 megs.
So I could store this 16 times over on a CDR. This is a relatively short cd (less than 40 minutes I believe, 10 songs).
Putting only 20 mp3's on a CDR is basically utter BS, that is why this is flaimbait! But I am sure you already knew that.
A better way, in myopinion, is to add a 1U rackmount server case to the trunk and put a celeron or duron system with a few 20 gig hard drives and your os of choiceto server up the MP3's. I remember seeing an article in Maximum Linux (now out of business) that explained how one person did it with a database and all. It just would look A LOT cooler than the I-Paq.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Now that is what I call a review! Holy cow! It's just plain huge! ;^)
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
1. Cheap X enabled box
2. XMMS
3. That xmms plugin that lets you control it via a palm
4. a power adapter for your palm.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
I forget to mention, Linux on the iPAQ already supports a large number of devices... I'm pretty sure soon enough you should be able to add a SCSI external hard drive to the ipaq (via the pcmcia sleeve) and load your mp3s from there too... By default, the intimate distributions uses usbnet so you can use a simple usb connection to your host pc (or laptop in my case) for a network connect. (I think some 2.4.4 ac patch has the usbnet module)
There is a very nice iPAQ distribution called intimate which is semi-based off of the Debian distribution (yes you can even add the debian-arm source to it's sources.list file). This "intimate" distribution can be operated off a microdrive (or nfs-root using wireless which I'm doing). Check out this page for some screen-shots. At the bottom you'll see that this is a great candidate for mpeg playing. At my university, I use the wireless network for my ipaq to stream mp3s using a distribution mounted remotely using nfs!
a test/install/H3600/install.html. Do what it says, then use ipkg to install the package "intimateboot". Finally, take a look at this page: http://ipaq.secret.org.uk/intimate/install.html. The current base is at about 200 megs uncompressed. There should be a new version coming out in the next few days with a smaller base, but a much more dpkg-conforming installation process!
Instructions for loading Linux on the iPAQ can be found here: http://familiar.handhelds.org/familiar/releases/l
--
Free Mac Mini
Buy an empeg (or Rio Car, as they're called these days). Look here. 60 GB of MP3's (or WAV's or WMA's with the next update) in your car or at home. I own one and it's the best value for money I've bought in a long time.
Very kind of you to say so. Cheers. Just shows what happens if you're bored and cynical enough : )
- Replace your car steering wheel with a fly-by-wire system using a force-feedback gamepad.
- Replace your suspension with a liquid N2 cooled ceramic HT superconducting magnetic levitation system.
- Replace your wipers with dozens of tiny robots that constantly crawl across your windscreen blasting dirt off with teeny lasers ripped from CD players.
- Replace your engine with a cold-fusion reactor
Etc. etc. etc.Can you say "Overkill"?
There are already $300 units for sale from major vendors?
Aiwa CDC-MP3
Aiwa CDC-MP32
Warning! Keep Out of Eyes! Wash Out with Water! Don't Drink Soap! Dilute! Dilute!
on Slahdot. Thanks!
The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit: /.'ers since Spring 2001.
Pissing off hyper caffeineated
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
All you need is a 486DX 100 lying around. That's my MP3 box, complete with a 3.2 gb drive (I can handle up to 8 with the bios card ;)
Use MPXPlay for the software, works like a charm, even with high bitrate MP3's
Controll it with a numeric keypad.
-B
~...Don't trade our love for Tea and Sympathy~ - Jars of Clay
Just stick a small computer somewhere and run a SCSI cable to a removeable HD bay in the dash. The exchangeability of CDs with the size of HDs.
---
Not a bad plan, I've got an old Panasonic stereo with a remote, but no CD changer for it. I could probably use that. It's even got velcro to stick it to the dashboard.
I found that a good solution is to make up a playlist long enough for the journey I'm making, start it off, then just let it play.
"Dark Side of the Moon" is just long enough for my drive home at night - from "... bumbump Bumbump BUMBUMP" to "As a matter of fact, there is no dark side..." is roughly the 44 miles at motorway speed, at 8pm...
Geek Girls? Where can I download one? ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Why not buy a MD player with LP4 compression? I know this doesn't play MP3's but you get a very small and sexy machine with long playback time on only one battery and 4 albums on one MD.
Of course, it doesn't beat mp3's compression but the cd-mp3 players out there at the moment don't handle knocks very well and look very cheap and plasticy.
As soon as I've saved up, that will be what I'll be doing. Yes it would be nice to run mp3's from an ipaq but the battery life on one of those things is low enough as it is, without hammering it playing music.
--
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I am a co-author of "Scream" which is a front-end for madplay in the familiar distribution of linux for the iPAQ.
a m/
Scream is written in python, utilizing pygtk and libglade. I've just added Icecast support with Shoutcast support forthcoming.
Scream is available at http://cvs.handhelds.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/scre
Over the weekend, I used it for 3+ hours in my car on a roadtrip usingt a cassette adapater available at Radio Shack (tunes on microdrive). Worked well for my purposes.
License is GPL.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e4d'
[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] Too many client tasks.
/inc_top.asp, line 15
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
IDE connecter. Let me hook up a filesystem on an IBM microdrive. 20 or 30 gigs of music from a laptop filesystem would be sweet. I haven't seen a commercial device that does this yet.
Just an FYI, the microdrives use a flashcard interface, not IDE. As a bonus, it is actually a lot easier to set these interfaces up as IDE requires a good deal of extra electronics while flashcard barely requires pinouts.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"I am a negative Karma whore"
AC comments get piped to
I must say, I have silently criticised (or laughed) at some of timothy's antics in the past, however at least he remembers the GNU in Linux. Thanks Tim!
It really depends how you organize your songs, whether it is as safe as a changer, but if you read things while choosing songs, it would be much more dangerous.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Seriously though - I've got a Phillips MP3 CD player which I highly recomend - first it lasts longer then the Ipaq (I don't know about the travelstar, but the IBM Microdrive you can listen to about 2 hours of music with the built in batteries and the external battery in the pcmcia sleeve) but you can get it for 125$ and it comes with a car kit so all you have to do is plug it all in. And it works like a top - and it lasts about 8-10 hours on two AA batteries.
Yeah, i remember a slashdot story a while back that told of a hack to the nomad that would involve taking it's drive out and replacing it with a larger one. The best part of it was that the drive they removed from the nomad was just a standard Seagate IDE drive. All you need to do is get a larger Seagate drive, format it properly, then stick it in. Sure it voids the warranty, but it's still a cool hack.
I read quite some time ago about a setup some guy made that was even cooler than this. he modified his Nassan Pathfinder byy putinng a Powerbook G3 in the back. He then rigged up a touch-screen in the front dash which would display his list of MP3s, and reconfigured the CD player controls Nissan puts on the steering wheel to control his MP3 player on the Powerbook. THe front controls talked to the trunk-mounted Powerbook via IR, and for the coûp de grâce, he set the whole thing up with an Airport card (wireless 802.11 networking) so that he could download songs from Napster while sitting in his driveway. Now that is cool. The article on how he did it is at http://24.7.157.64/Home.html, although it didn't work last time I checked.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
Believe it or not, when you run only one application on Windows, and you've fine-tuned the system for that purpose, it doesn't crash at all!! If / when I add GPS, or other functions, I'm sure I'd have problems staying on Windows. :-)
I'm using WinMe of all the horrible things, just because it was quick and simple (anyone can build a player like mine). I use WinAMP with a Joystick plugin and the resumer plugin, and a removable hard-drive bay with an old 6GB drive. The only things I needed to buy were:
- $150 BookPC (had most stuff on board)
- $60 Celeron processor
- $20 2 Removable Hard-Drive Bays
- $30 Power Inverter
- $10 tape adapter
I already had a spare 1GB hardrive for the OS, a spare 6GB for the songs, and a couple of 32MB DIMMS lying around.A device like the iPAQ player is nice, but for $1000, I could totally Mack-out my Winblowz standard machine, which fits under the seat in my Corolla. And, it doesn't require you to look at it! I just alphabetically sort my playlists, and use the joystick to traverse tracks 1 or 10 at a time; a lot safer while driving! If I ever want a display, I can add any RCA video-input screen later, and it'll just be for convenience, not required.
Sony($300) and Kenwood($350) make in-dash DIN size stereos that will play mp3 off of cdr or cdrw
they also play regular compact discs
kenwood has had one out for a year and a half