Speaking of FM transmitters, check this out. It's only for the iPod at the moment (and not available yet), but I'm sure other companies will follow and make them for other portable's as well.

As a side note, this seams to be a very interesting idea.

I think the real direction will be dockable I-Pod-like devices. (The I-pod seems perfect in scale and form for just this). These devices are likely to be adopted by the very-same people that adopt the I-pod. And, as we have all seen, even execu-techno-phobes are starting to use the I-pod.

If you created a DIN sized deck, with CD and FM and a "docking slot" for an I-pod - you are there. A full-featured stereo, with CD and radio, that becomes a 5,000 song jukebox. You rip ONCE into the I-podish thing, and you can use it as a portable.

Cheaper versions could use just a "USB Caddy" which is not a player in its own right, but simply a portable HD.

Of course, the display and UI will be the life or death of ANY new MP3 product, particularly the car unit. Empeg is very close to ideal, with some mods it could be pretty damn perfect.

Just my $0.02

better management?

Interesting idea, but scarcely new; the same jacket was out last year, compatible with Sony Minidisc players. It also appears to have a separate gubbins module in addition to the iPod and the fabric switches, which has to be removed for washing. Mmm.

Hugo

Ahh. I never saw the one for Mini Disc players, so it seamed fairly new to me.

I tend to think the fact that the control module has to be removed before washing is going to cause a lot of people problems. I know people that have a hard time separating colors, let alone remembering to remove something from an article of clothing. On the other hand, having spent $500 on it would probably make most people more aware of such things. At least, one would hope, anyway.

Of course, you never *wash* boarding clothes, otherwise they tend to let water in...

Hugo

Sure you do! You just have to wash the item with the proper stuff to make sure it stays waterproof/breathable. I've got some Nikwax junk that I wash my outerwear with because after a certian period of time the waterproof/breathable coating on the outside of the garment will kind of de-tune. Wash it with the reccomended treatment and your jacket/pants will bead water again.

You just have to wash the item with the proper stuff to make sure it stays waterproof/breathable

The Rohan jacket and trousers in whatever the waterproof/breathable material is that they use, says it needs no proofing. It has remained waterproof through normal washing for five/six years. I've had no such luck with waterproof walking boots, which seem to lose the effect in two to three years.

The appalling, unruly Boxers: Baskerville, Buddy and Holly have appallingly expensive Barbour dog coats ( I just pay the plastic) which need to be properly proofed, each time!

If you created a DIN sized deck, with CD

Can't see what you need the CD deck for, except on the odd occasion, that you are burning to hear your new purchase on the way from the store ( I keep a cheapo CD Walkman for that purpose and use the Empeg's Aux jack, but I don't remember using it in a year or so).

Surely, it would suffice to have a jack, so that you could input other formats: CD, Mini-disc or even cassette (if I'm on a long journey, I often buy a talking book at a service area and they're still mainly available only on cassette ( in the UK anyway)).

Apart from that, I think the concept is spot on, and not having the CD player will make a lot more room in the Din slot.

Hm.. I seem to remember the BGA chips can be "soldered" onto a board for prototyping by using a standard kitchen oven with careful temprature control?
Or even by a hot-air gun (but for such a large number of pins, thaty may be implactical)

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

I seem to remember the BGA chips can be "soldered" onto a board for prototyping by using a standard kitchen oven with careful temprature control?

That's extremely optimistic. It would be very masochistic not to have a prototyping company do this for you - it's not THAT expensive.

Rob

I guess this is where you have to decide your market. If you use the PC as your main music source (from CDs or wherever), the product will remain niche for a while yet, as the word MP3 still scares off a large chunk of potential users, let alone the complexity of ripping all your CDs, undocking your car player, connecting it to your PC, uploading and then taking it back out to the car. If you want the mass market appeal and the big sales volumes/cheaper prices that that hopefully means, then you need to have an easy way to get the music onto the unit. And a friendly CD slot is probably the most easily understood.

That's not to say it can't still do all the other things and more for those that want it..... If the mass market can get the price down, think what that surplus cash could buy instead!!

Nick

yeah, i agress that it's extremely optimistic to use an oven! - i've seen board's that are probably 10*10 inches and they tend to be known as banana boards, you basically end up with unbalanced areas of copper, when the boards are heated they basically end up bending, most manufacturers when they manufacture solve this by not allowing the boards to bend whilst they cool down...but it can warp back under heat - including later processes like wave soldering.... Your pick and placer is going to have technology (electrical test, xray) that can verify that the all connections have been made......

..I wasn't just referring to cost of placement of BGA's, it's more a general cost, you've moved up a step in technology, you'd better hope that you've got the design right and that you haven't accidentally connected a gnd pin to vcc under that BGA otherwise you're in a whole heap of trouble...

Adrian

At least there isn't a whole lot of power there. It isn't like you are connecting a 480 volt line (BOOM). All you'll have done is destroy your prototype.

Take your point, but I'm probably the least computer literate contributor to this site, and I'm now thinking the MP3 way.

2or 3 years down the road will the world have caught up with the Empeg way of thinking, I'm not a market analyst, we'll see!

I would like to think so too! I may be being too hard on the general willingness to embrace PCs in this way, but I am usually too much the other way, and take the user's willingness for granted. I launched an MP3 variant of a standard Ford CD radio not too long ago, and I discovered after a while that I had to make sure people understood it could still play normal audio CDs as well as MP3 CDs. They just assumed an MP3 CD player would only play MP3 CDs. And these were (automotive) audio specialists!! It didn't even occur to me to mention this, as the radio looked almost exactly the same!

Nick

Not sure how to say this but, as you are using a bulletin board, you are almost a computer genius in the eyes of a large chunk of our OEM customers!!

Nick

almost a computer genius

Well I've come a long way, when I first heard about the Empeg, I got someone in the office to find the website, got my name on the list...

...but then I faced the problem that I didn't have a PC, but I didn't dare go and buy one until the Empeg arrived, in case I bought an unsuitable one.

Then I bombarded poor Rob and the guys with endless e-mails around the subject of it not being user friendly...which, looking back, make me cringe and I only ask forgiveness!

- and would it be yourself, advertising your wares in glossy colour ads. on the inside front cover of Automotive Engineering, you find my work at the back in the job section!

I must admit to not having looked at a copy of "Automotive Engineering" for a while, but I imagine we are in there somewhere with glossy ads and lots of indeterminate words!

Ahh, job section - I am aware of your work then!?!

If you bought a PC to use the EMPEG, perhaps we can show OEMs that people will buy a car just to use something similar!

Ahh, job section - I am aware of your work then!?!

Probably not, we write, design and book job ads., we don't keep a register, headhunt, or select, in fact we place ads. on behalf of those that do.

I seem to remember your ad. being fairly specific about what the MP3 player could do.

I did have to take in an MP3, CD to show the guys in the autosound specialist outfit that fitted my Empeg(in 4 cars and a motorhome), what the MP3 players that they have on display do, and to my knowledge they are still using it to demonstrate - so I have a lot of sympathy for the slow learning curve that you've encountered!

You don't happen to have a copy of that ad anywhere do you? I don't think I was aware of that, and I'd be intrigued to read what it should do!

I don't, but the publisher is an old friend of mine, so I don't think it'll be hard to trace - I'll get on to it, monday.

This thread reminded me of the following, and I was in a particularly dull briefing after lunch, so I wrote it down, I promise you, every word is true:

Whiz-Kid in lift: “Like yer ‘anbag!”

Ageing Executive & Boxer owner: “It’s not a handbag, it’s an in-car MP3 player”

WK: “What do they look like, is it like a mini-disc”

AE & BO*: “It doesn’t look like anything, it’s a type of PC file”

WK: Quizzical look?

AE & BO: “This is really just like a lap top computer in the shape of a car radio, instead of storing words like the ones in the office, it stores sound…mainly 2-300 hours of music”

WK: “ Wicked, got you, they’re those things that Eminem got prosecuted for sending over the internet”

AE & BO “ No, that’s Napster and it wasn’t Eminem”

WK “ See ya”



I think that the Napster/Geek perception is the common one, I guess the whole MP3 industry needs a body to promote its concept to the general public, other than on the internet, now it’s moving from portable, to car, to home with the speed of summer lightning – maybe it does have one, I’m an outsider, I don’t know. Otherwise it may well always struggle as a minority tool for the initiated.

At the dawn of the DVD era, one of the electrics/electronics, I don’t recall which, magazines did a survey and ( I don’t precisely remember the percentages) 80 something % of VCR owners didn’t know what Nicam was – and a very substantial proportion of the sample owned one, but didn’t know that stereo is what it did (i.e. it was just another sticker on the set, that they hadn’t looked into). I reckon that, as we stand, MP3 would produce a horrifying similar statistic.

*Nothing to do with Body Odour, Bang & Olufsen or Baltimore & Ohio.