In Dash Car MP3 Player with 802.11?

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm looking for a car MP3 player, either with a tuner and CD player built in, or with a line-out to connect to the existing car stereo. The Omnifi DMP1 looks good, but you need to use their Microsoft Windows software to upload to it. When you take the harddrive module out it plugs into a USB port on a PC and can be used as a USB mass storage device, but none of the files you copy to it will be put into the database, so they won't play. It's also got an optional 802.11b adapter (plugs into a USB port), but it only works with their software. No SMB, let alone SSH, NFS, or FTP server is running." While this is an itch many of the more enterprising among us can scratch on their own, are there dash units currently available that aren't tied to any particular PC platform? "I looked around some more and found the empeg/riocar, but it was discontinued some time ago.

Yes, I know you can build one yourself. I built a navigation system for my car (which I took out again after my MS degree presentation because it was a PITA to use), and a PVR for my house (which I had a mishap upgrading when the source of TV guide data changed, and I haven't bothered fixing yet). This time I want something that works out of the box, but with a little more freedom for transferring files than I've found so far.

If I don't find a new product with all of what I want, I will either look for a used Empeg/Riocar, which there is a large development community for, and I'd try to add 802.11 and SMB to, or get an Omnifi DMP1 and attempt to hack it's database so I can add music without the WinXP software. Then if that goes well, see about getting an SMB or SSH server running on it (yes, it runs Linux)."

Comments

Re:MP3 CD

[hopemafia]

And as a bonus, these units are pretty cheap.... I got mine for under $200 installed, with the 3-year warranty, and that was a year ago so prices have probably dropped. My unit probably wouldn't be good enough for an audiophile...but then an audiophile wouldn't be playing mp3s on my cheapo stock speakers.

One CD holds about 8 hours of mp3s (aka ~500miles)...so unless you're driving really long days you won't even need to switch disks.

Re:All these solutions are way too expensive.

[tchuladdiass]

I did some googling, and came up with:
http://www.mp3playerstore.com/buy_it_now__/mp-2003 .htm, and
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Sep/con20030 923021241.htm.
They are both portable cd/mp3/dvd units, but I can't tell from the descriptions weather they only play mp3's from burned cd's or if they will also take a dvd full of mp3's.

Go for the empeg

[Drakino]

Several owners of the empeg units do indeed have them hooked to an 802.11 access point in their car and upload music wirelessly. The one do it yourself part of this will be to make the ethernet dockable. To do so, pull the tab off a cable and shave a bit of the plastic off. Then just mount the connector firmly on the dock the empeg comes with.

There are still used empegs being sold on the empeg boards at www.empegbbs.com . Feel free to stop on by and introduce yourself, the community is very much alive and active development from both Rio and the empeg community occurs. In fact, we now have lyrics displaying on our displays thanks to a third party developer.

As far as the PhatBox, it's ok, but you loose a lot of control the empeg gives you. Kinda a shame that the empeg was the first car player on the market, and still nothing has gone beyond it in features or usability in 5 years now.