I was wondering if anyone here has tried putting a laptop into their car to control the music? How would it be done?
I don't, but it should be quite easy. It would be done the same way your PC speakers work. You need software and the familiarity with the hardware side to wire it up. Audio places probably even sell connector kits, and with all the new electronics I'd be shocked if car radios aren't already prepped to take a laptop interface You don't need a laptop to control your audio system in my opinion but hey it's your car, not mine
I've put some thought into this, but I don't have the money to do it yet. My idea is a bit complex too. The reason I'd do it would be to rip my entire music collection to OGG or FLAC so I can listen to whatever I'm in the mood for. Basically, I'd get an old laptop that was powerful enough for the music codecs I want to use (OGG, FLAC, and MP3), and a large hard drive (possibly an external USB hard drive too). The audio output (or headphone out) would go to an amp. Not a killer amp, I don't need to vibrate the whole city. Just something that would drive the speakers well. The laptop would be hidden somewhere, mounted on rubber to reduce vibration. I'd try to make an extension to the display cable so I could put the display someplace easy to access. That way I could pull it out (of the glove box, for example) when I needed to do something other than play music. I'd use a wireless keyboard for the same purpose - tucked away somewhere so I could use it if needed. I would use a linux-based operating system and set it up to specifically play media files. The keyboard and display would just be for tweaking things or fixing things. I would control the music with a homemade control panel. Using serial out, I'd fabricate a control panel (buttons for play, pause, etc). Another serial out would power a small LCD display that would show tracks and such (they're kind of pricey, though). These would be mounted on or in the dash, as would a USB port so I could easily add to or remove from my music library. I think a track ball would be a nice mouse substitute. A wireless network card would allow me to administrate the system from my house (with the car parked in the drive). An FM tuner card would be nice, though I'm not sure if they are made for laptops. If you want to go the easy route, get a cheap CD/MP3 player, and a cassette adapter. You can put a lot of MP3z on a CD.
I first had a CD player, and got tired of having a bunch of cds. Now I have an MP3 cd player and I'm tired of a lot of cds. Now I am leaning towards something like a laptop. I like the laptop for the display, easy to see what you have got. I have thought about the ipod route, but I don't know if I want to do it that way or not. I have also thought about a kenwood 20gig music keg, since I already have a kenwood head unit.
I am avoiding the IPod. It has a large capacity, but is not the best MP3 player out there - don't ask me which is, I only know it has some issues others don't. One is it won't support the formats I want - and I want those formats for specific reasons. Ogg is superior to MP3. FLAC is like ALAC, but ALAC is proprietary. (FLAC and ALAC are lossless - full CD quality, for real - though compression is about 50%). Another is a 2-second gap between tracks - which sucks when the tracks are supposed to flow into each other (not sure if they fixed this yet). Yet another is that when you put music on it, the songs are DRMed. It would be like a CD player that altered a CD so you could only play it in a limited number of other players. As far as the custom route, I want controls that are at my fingertips on the dash, and a decent sized display, but not as large as a laptop screen. I'm thinking a display the size of a pack of cigarettes. (Converting a small LCD to project a "heads-up" display on the windshield would be too cool.)
The laptop would work fine the problem is protecting it from shocks while driving. A couple of boston potholes will knock your fillings out and if the hard drive was accessing at that time the head would gouge the disk. Here's an idea I'm exploring. I'm looking at using an old PDA with a touch screen as a nice combination of display and input device. There are MP3 programs available for most PDA's, and finding a place for the PDA is a lot easier than a laptop and keyboard. PDA's don't have a useful amount of memory but they can access files on an external drive. I'm trying to find a rugged hard drive that can live in the car. If you use the desktop size drive instead of laptop the storage increases dramaticly and the price drops significantly. Finding a drive that can live in a car is harder than I thought. The drive can be tucked anywhere with cables running to the console. The PDA has an earphone jack that I'll plug into an FM modulator (modulator, not transmitter). Modulators interupt the antennae signal avoiding the interference problems transmitters have. Eventually we'll be able to wirelessly connect to the internet from our cars and then we can access our entire music library from our home computers. Think I'm nuts? Wait and see. John
someone needs to make a DVD receiver that plays mp3's. 4.7Gb of mp3 should be about 780 songs at 224kb/s bitrate. BTW, most aftermarket indash receivers have a set of RCA input jacks on the rear. You would only need a Y cable for anything with a headphone output. ________ Depakote Settlement Update
i have a NEO CAR JUKEBOX made by SSIAmerica...it uses a hard drive to store mp3 files. it docks into the car trunk shell and plays through FM using the supplied wired display and wireless remote or you can hook it directly to an amp or EQ ... OR you can buy an adapter cord and hook it directly to a sony/pioneer/kenwood/alpine radio and control it like a changer. i replaced it's small 20 gig harddrive with a 160 gig. saving mp3 files at 320kbps it can store about 24-26,000 songs( i only have about 6000 so far). it also has a case it slips into in the house to play the music through my home stereo. this same case can be used as portable USB to go to my friends PC and rip their CDs into it. .... i also bought the optional bay for my PC that lets it slip into the PC and makes adding songs real easy. its built in browser it a little quirky at times but it is a pretty neat gizmo.
plug it to the aux port on a radio............or use a fm modulator with av plugs........out about 5 bucks
