DVD-based MP3 decks for cars: Who makes them?

[Thegonagle]

700 MB per CD is becoming old-hat; all of my CDs are ripped at 192-256 kbps, so the 700 MB limit of CD-Rs is particularly limiting. Therefore, I'd like to be able to burn DVD-Rs instead.

Obviously, it should play MP3 CDs and regular audio CDs, too, because I have an extensive collection.

I know that JVC makes one, but I honestly don't have much faith in that brand, and it's slammed for taking 60 seconds, in agonizing silence, to load the directory every time it's powered up (as opposed to only when the disc is inserted).

Are there any others?

I'm not interested in moving faceflates, custom animations, or color screens, but I do appreciate a screen that shows more than just 8 characters.

I've google'd this stuff before, but I haven't found many resources.

Thanks.

 

[jpeyton]

No interest in using a flash or disk based player with your AUX inputs?

 

[Thegonagle]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
No interest in using a flash or disk based player with your AUX inputs?

I have aux inputs, so I've considered it, but it's not convenient for me (I do local deliveries, so I leave the car too often to turn the player on and off separately from the car).

 

[rubix]

i have the jvc dvd mp3 player. it doesn't take 60 seconds to load a mp3. when you turn it on it takes maybe 7-10 seconds before the first song plays, if that. all other songs play instantly from there. probably some people don't know how to master a dvd correctly or have a crap burner or software or crap blank media. maybe the way they arrange the files on the disc affect it too? i put songs in folders by "artist name - album" and any stray singles all go into one folder for them called "#singles". no mp3s go in the root of the disc. i use only id3 1.0 tags too, maybe 2.0 slows it down?

this player does have some problems though, and maybe someone knows how to fix them?

first, it restarts at the beginning of the current song everytime you turn your car back on. if you turn the actual headunit off completely it restarts at the very beginnign of the disc (1st song).

second, you can not fast forward through mp3s at all it appears. this is quite annoying as sometimes when you drive around short distances you will never get to the end of the song since it keeps restarting at the beginning! you just have to skip it and go to the next one.

third, the "random play" absolutely sucks ass. i haven't used it very much because it pissed me off, but it seemed to pick like 10 or so songs out of my 800+ on a dvd and play them, and not even in different order. i could actually predict the songs it would play. but then other times it would play more, but still not great. plus, the randomness seems to not have a large spread between tracks. i hope there is a way to update the firmware or whatever in this thing to fix this.

fourth, the am/fm reception is horrid. particularly the am. i still don't know if this is because the installer messed up something or not, but i have been doing some reading and it appears lots of after market headunits have sucky am, so maybe this is one of them.

fifth, it has a crappy display. i have never owned an aftermarket stereo before and figured who gives a crap about little words scolling by, but these giant blocky letters that choppily scroll by from the id3 tags make me wish it had a better display with a high-res lcd or whatever fancy ones use. the letter "X" looks downright pathetic on it. it's all upper-case letters only too.

some cool things about it is that it has a front aux input so you can plug other stuff into it, and it is sirius ready. it has a remote that's kinda cool too. and it can play movies, which means even if you don't have a screen (like me) you can listen to your favorite movies. and obviously playing 4.38 gigs of mp3s per disc is awesome.

i'd be so much happier if they fixed problems 1-4 above though.

edit: as an update, i think the am/fm is probably fine since reading his:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-lCXORHCtY82/tech/kb299.html

now i gotta find someone to fix it or learn how to do it myself.

 

[Thegonagle]

Rubix, thanks for the post.

I'm on my third MP3-CD player. My first was a Blaupunkt MP3000, which, as you can see, had a 12 character display. I liked it just fine--only problem was at night on rural roads; it was too bright and had no dimmer.

I currently have two cars that I use for work and pleasure, so I have two more MP3-CD players. The first is an Alpine with an 8 character stick-figure display that's not all that useful. My latest acquisition is a Panasonic with a dot matrix display that's quite nice. Needless to say, I'd like something closer to the Panasonic than the Alpine.

 

[Thegonagle]

Good afternoon. 🙂