Search an iPod like a Riocar

Posted by: erikbragg

Search an iPod like a Riocar - 22/02/2006 16:24

I've seen a lot of site where people donate money in hopes of finding somebody that can complete a requested hack. I'll start the bidding at $200.

The Empeg Riocar, http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php, is an mp3 player for your car. I've had one for years and I would like to replace it with an iPod. However, the Riocar has one feature that the iPod can't touch and has become a vital part of my music experience in the car.

The remote that comes with the car, http://riocar.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Button_Guide&file=index, features numbers 0-9 and letters. The Riocar allows you to search by Artist, Song, Album or any other ID3 tag of a song.

If I want to listen to a particular song or artist, I can literally find it in a couple seconds. To take this amazing feature even further, the results of your search can replace your current playlist or be added to your current playlist in different ways: next, last, etc.

I'm sure there is somebody out there capable of performing this hack and thousands of people who would love to use it. A remote with these functions can surely make the iPod loved by even more.

I forget the name of the company, but somebody just released an iPod dock that has a remote and outputs the iPod menu onto a TV. I would use my requested hack for my car and home.

Somebody let me know if this is possible at [email protected]
Posted by: robricc

Re: Search an iPod like a Riocar - 22/02/2006 16:31

Quote:
The Empeg Riocar, http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php, is an mp3 player for your car. I've had one for years and I would like to replace it with an iPod.

Quote:
--------------------
rio till i die

Guess not....
Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: Search an iPod like a Riocar - 22/02/2006 20:14

I'll start the bidding at $200.

Not to rain on your parade or anything... but what makes the Riocar superior to anything else currently available is not the Riocar player, but the software that runs it.

There is about ten man-years of development time in the software that runs the Riocar, development done by a group of people who are acknowledged and sought after as the best in the world in this particular software niche.

$200 will buy you about one hour of one of that group's time. That leaves just 87,599 hours to go. Oh, wait -- I forgot leap years. Make that 87,647 hours.

I don't think it's gonna happen. Sorry...

tanstaafl.
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: Search an iPod like a Riocar - 23/02/2006 15:58

Don't let these guys bust your chops too hard. We're admittedly a group of zealots around here.

I'm not even sure the firmware on the Ipod is updatable by users. If this was done, it'd most likely need to be a hardware add-on that sends commands to the ipod. Expensive, time consuming, and highly technical.
Posted by: FireFox31

Re: Search an iPod like a Riocar - 05/03/2006 23:07

Hasn't anyone hacked Linux onto an iPod yet? What's stoping that same breed of limit-pushing tinkerer from patching the iPod source. Slashdot is waiting.....
Posted by: Robotic

Re: Search an iPod like a Riocar - 05/03/2006 23:14

Who's waiting?
Google has the answers.
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Search an iPod like a Riocar - 05/03/2006 23:34

Nah. I think he was saying that 'given that someone has hacked the ipod to run linux', there should be someone capable of hacking this feature into the ipod software. It's the latter that people are waiting for.
Posted by: Gleep

Re: Search an iPod like a Riocar - 06/03/2006 00:19

Quote:
'given that someone has hacked the ipod to run linux', there should be someone capable of hacking this feature into the ipod software.


I would think that if someone could hack the ipod and make it work as well as a riocar then it should be much easier for someone to fix the few remaining bugs is Version 3 Alpha 11.
Posted by: StigOE

Re: Search an iPod like a Riocar - 06/03/2006 23:07

Quote:
I would think that if someone could hack the ipod and make it work as well as a riocar then it should be much easier for someone to fix the few remaining bugs is Version 3 Alpha 11.

Problem with this is that there seem to be very few people willing to rewrite the RioCar player software from scratch (as it's closed source) and those who have access to the source have other obligations and also might not be allowed to release a new version (I would love to be proved wrong, though... ).

Stig
Posted by: rob

Re: Search an iPod like a Riocar - 07/03/2006 17:37

Quote:
Problem with this is that there seem to be very few people willing to rewrite the RioCar player software from scratch

This would be a fairly large project to do free of charge, and with so few empegs in the world it seems unlikely it'll ever happen. Even for more widespread devices it tends only to be those with poor factory software that inspire the effort to re-write.

From recent experience I'd say it would take four people working full time about six months to write software of roughly equivalent functionality to v3.

Quote:
those who have access to the source have other obligations and also might not be allowed to release a new version

As far as I can work out the empeg codebase has been tucked up and put to bed. I don't believe it will ever be open sourced - there are too many IP complications. I think the most we can hope for is an occassional very unofficial v3alpha update, but I'm not holding my breath.

I wonder how easily Numark's new codebase would target the car player...

Rob