Anybody Heard Of Such A Thing?

[Gunslinger]

Not just the cold would affect it.  Growing up in Nebraska I learned that when start up your electronics in the cold air.....the air soon got warm.  Taking cold air to warm air quickly causes condensation.  

Personally I just use the Kenwood I have now wich can read MP3 CDs just fine.  I can put as many folders as I want and about 700meg worth of music on it.

[Vipermann]

What you want is a Phatnoise system. I had one installed in my Touareg with the 120 GB cartridge. It holds every CD and music DVD I own at the highest quality ripping setting. It integrates into the head unit.

I broke my music up by type and it has audible listing on both playlists, CD's, and tracks.

http://www.phatnoise.com

I beleive they either have or are working on a wireless interface but I don't know the details on it.

[x0847Marine]

Originally posted by Skilless
I'm curious about a car stereo head unit with a hard drive based MP3 player built in.  I've never seen one and I wonder why not.  Also I was thinking such a device would be neat if it had a "sync" button that would tell the unit to sync up with your music files on your PC (via wireless).  That way as your library grows in the house it will grow in your car(s).  An Ipod dock is alright but I'm talking about a selfcontained extention of a household wide media center.

I would have the sync function work with two options:  Automatic, where everytime the key is turned off it searches for your local network and updates (if no local network is detected it shuts down), and manual where you have to physically push an update button.

It can be easily done.
This guy did a good job:
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/mobile-blackbox/

If you have never played with these mini-itx boards, they are a blast. You get the mobo, Via cpu and heatsink for around $150 $200... I use to stick these in lunchboxes with a cd/dvd burner.. I charged $400 ea and couldn't sell enough of them. The fanless boards are silent and run at 800Mhz

The Via cpus are not good for gaming or much heavy lifting, but a 1Ghz with 1G ram flawlessly plays movies, surfs the intardnet and other daily tasks. They are easily mounted in glove boxes or under seats

The new shiznat is the nano-itx boards that practically fit in the palm of your hand:

[Hornet33]

Pyle Audio makes a couple of decks that have a USB port built into them. Plug in your jump drive and go. I'm looking at one of them that will pretty much be an all in one. FM/AM/CD/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD/MP3. I'm going to install 6.5" headrest monitors for the backseat of my truck for the kids and a single 7.2" on the dash. Video splitter up under the dash, and 2 10" subs under the backseat with a 500 watt amp. Going to cost about a grand, but it will look and sound good when I'm done:aok

[Sandman]

Audiobahn has a couple with USB also.