Trade press reports that Visteon (Formerly Ford's components division) will be providing USB ports and iPod input in an unnamed production car in Feb 2006. Cheaper than CD changers, and no CDs to tempt opportunist theft. iPod audio and video could be used, and software upgrades flashed via the port.
I wonder why this hasn't been thought of before? (A Smart concept vehicle had one once apparently).
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I happen to be looking at a blaupunkt technical manual, that lists all the adaptors to provide full IPOD functionality through the existing cd changer port. Its already happening and not just blaupunkt.
The CD changer has just seen the grim reaper......
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The CD changer has just seen the grim reaper......
Not when the average household has 100 or more CD's, 70 gb or so, I for one could not be bothered to load all that data onto an Ipod etc, rather have a few CD's in the changer, on random play, pick up few different ones the next week. Coldplay or Keane one week, a bit of Floyd or Bowie the next, music to follow the mood, would not be the same if it was all there instantaneously. Also I can say to the wife and kids, sorry left Westlife and McFly indoors.
Perhaps when buying music by download is the rule and not the exception and you can do it while on the move, i.e. via WiMax or similar.
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Thyere will be always be the odd luddite cheesy me old mate. VBG ;)
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Thyere will be always be the odd luddite cheesy me old mate. VBG ;)
If the definition of a luddite is not wanting to spend hours and hours pointlessly transfering data from one medium to another then yes.
The opportunity for the industry is to make downloads so easy, quick and convenient, with a bit of added value, that you and I are happy to pay a couple of quid to get an album onto our iPod or in dash MP3 even though we have got it on CD in the rack at home, perhaps an extra unreleased track etc.
VBG, que?
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I have racks and racks of cds. I have boxes of albums. I have Gbs of unused disk space.
I dont want to keep swapping out CDs from the car to the hifi rack. Ohh err which ones this week. Ohh Errr what if they get knicked. Ohh Err this one has got jammed in the changer, I know I will copy them all so it dont matter. Why is all that space taken up by all these boxes of albums, and all these cds.
DOH
Get rid of your Spinning Jenny, give up farming your strip of land. This is the 21st Century, well past 2001 a space oddessy.
Digitise now I say.
I gave this task to my son. In the process he has learned to appreciate all good music. The music he now plays ranges from Good Charlotte and the Kaiser Chiefs, through spiders from mars, the boys are back in town, money for nothing, stairway to heaven to mac the knife and swing kids.
I cant stop it all being played at 1000db tho :( Birds fall out the sky at Chateux RF!
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>>VBG
Very big grin?
--Lee .. SERENITY NOW
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The CD changer has just seen the grim reaper......
Anyone want a 8 track?
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Maplin do an in car CD/MP3 tuner with USB input for 80 quid at the moment. A 512MB mini MP3 player is another 40, so us cheapskates can go all 'hi-tech' for less than the price of an iPod Nano....
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I had an MP3 CD player in my last car. Played CDs and MP3s off a CD. I loved it. Before a journey I'd just burn a CD with a dozen albums I wanted to listen to and pop it in the CD player. I could throw it away afterwards as CDs are so cheap.
I now have a CD changer and it does the job. I can't be bothered to change it.
----
Life is complex; it has real and imaginary parts.
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Buy an I-trip - tiny little plug gizmo in for your Ipod that transmits an FM signal to your car radio. Problem solved. Yes, it is illegal to use in the UK, but as its range is about 5m, the chances of it
a) interfering with anyone else is effectively nil
b) chance of detection is nil
c) chance of Plod arresting you, about nil
d) live a little!
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Anyone want a 8 track?
>>
I use an 8-Trak in my berlina, it was original equipment :D I recently purchased an 8-Trak recorder and have been busily transfering my CD's to Cartridges, hacving previoulsy transferred my vinyl to CD :D
Too much time on my hands I reckon!
Besides my very fave tracks are all on my 'phone. And each new CD I acquire gets ripped to hard drive and then becomes available via media player thats hooked up to my wireless network....
Ok, sound like a nerd now!
;) JaB
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>> The CD changer has just seen the grim reaper...... >> >> Anyone want a 8 track?
Have you got an in car wax cylinder player spare?
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Having just bought a new vinyl deck to go with my recent e-bay acquisitions, perhaps I'm more than a luddite.
But seriously, how many will be tempted to leave their iPods visible in their cars when they park up. (goddbye iPod)
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An ipod with bluetooth that connected wirelessly with your car so you didn't even have to bother to take it out of your pocket would be even better :-) I think someone does a wifi enabled car music player so you can download stuff off the internet at home and into the car.
Once mobile data gets cheap enough it should be entirely possible to have your album collection at home and just download what you want from the full catalogue in the car.
teabelly
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"An ipod with bluetooth that connected wirelessly with your car".....if only someone would post details here of a device that does exactly that!
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How about removal memory that you can take from your portable player and plug into your car unit, no not a CD rather an 8gb CF card, un plug from iPod etc, plug into car unit.
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Just bought the daughter her Xmas pressie - car radio with USB input which allows use of memory stick and also flash memory cards (like in your camera). I guess there's no reason it won't use my 40Gb USB drive too.
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"100 or more CD's, 70 gb or so"? - I've got 5600 tracks into 30 GB, including some albums as single tracks.
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"100 or more CD's, 70 gb or so"? - I've got 5600 tracks into 30 GB, including some albums as single tracks.
Quality reduces though.
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This jobbie from maplin accepts SD/MMC cards...
www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=46448&doy=12...D
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www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=35...4
Maplin have some B grade stock at £60!
--
pmh (was peter)
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I have Yakumo hypersound bought from Amazon at £69.99. Excellent sound, USB/SD card etc input and MP3. Even has a remote control.Amazn can be quite good for stuff like this and very quick reliable delivery.
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I am a bit narked. My new car doesn't have a cassette player, so I can't plug my iRiver (they had the i before Apple thought of the iPod) into the ICE. Luckily I bought an FM transmitter 2 years ago, so will be giving that a go. I've 10,000 tracks on the device.
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Once you've loaded your library onto your home hard disk once you shouldn't have to do it again.
Hopefully, a universal standard will emerge. It would be great to drive to Heathrow, unplug my music collection and then plug it back into a hire car at LAX and start where I left off, or drive to Stansted and have my music collection seamlessly transported to a hire car in Spain. Furthermore, like an increasing number of people I have a weekend car and would love to have the same music collection with me in either car.
The great thing is having any music to suit the mood or the moment on hand all the time - or simply switching to random and re-discovering something you haven't heard for years.
The only invention better than large capacity music store devices in recent years is Sky+. Once you have either, you'll never work out how you lived without.
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Sky+ is beaten to a pulp by TiVo, which was it's forerunner by some years. I can see how new users to PVRs might be taken with Sky+. The only way it betters UK TiVo is the dual tuner. Otherwise TiVo beats it hands down.
OK I have one, so I'm biaed, but it really does!
Anway, back to the topic... :-)
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in reply to a few comments on this thread, I bought one of those cheap FM transmitters from ebay for a few quid. Seems to do the job ok, radio didn't find the channel on seek but I got it Ok on manual search.
Since I bought this for my FIL then I am sure the quality will be ok for him. Not too convinced that it is stereo transmission though?
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