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Automotive giant takes first big step toward in-car digital downloads.
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Read more.Quote:
Automotive giant takes first big step toward in-car digital downloads.
I think the head unit should still have an optical reader, in fact, they should bump it up to DVD optics so people can burn more media files to a disc, support FLAC/Wav as well so you can have CD equal music and have CD backwards compat at the same time. You can really do this, and add bluetooth, SD, USB, flash memory, etc to it in a standard head unit sized device. 'Cloud' I really really don't care less about, but it wouldn't hurt to add a wlan unit so the car can go grab music from your home computer or whatever when you're parked up home.
And that's already way more music input options than people will ever need.
But bravo to Ford a step forward.
I need my current CD player because my car doesnt have DAB or MP3 device connectivity. I could of course upgrade my CD player with all the mod cons but its expensive as mine is an all in one dash with the heating controls embedded on there as well, I just cant be bothered with a complicated or poor install job.
If I ever have the money to buy a modern car then I'd make sure it has MP3/Ipod connectivity as im bored of making mix cd's with all of 15 songs on there. I'd much rather have lots of music and be able to choose from playlists and albums etc...
While I still prefer to buy CDs, I convert them to lossless to keep the discs in mint condition.
I'm not a massive fan of Downloads because MP3's are pretty poor quality, 320kbps sadly doesnt mean good quality. (I know some CD's are also downgraded, metallica anyone).
Cassetts seem to be making a come back recently. Just because dixons doesnt stock them hasnt stopped supermarkets. All the ones round here stock a range of them.
As its illegal to rip my CDs to MP3 etc how will I listen to them without buying them all again?
It's no longer illegal :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay
I don't use my CD player. Fortunately it's also got a cassette player though so I routinely plug my iPod in through a cassette adapter. I wouldn't miss CD (or tape) if it went; don't give two hoots about cloud connectivity but do want at least an Aux input.
Yeah car manufacturers need a smack in the head for that, there's no valid reason on the wide earthly world why the head unit should have proprietary front panelling. Even when they have a standard sized cubby the railing always seems off, or the pinouts are inconsistent. This should have been standardised decades ago and they should have been compelled to use the standard.Quote:
Originally Posted by AGTDenton
Does state that they will keep single slot CD players for the time being - while there is a demand.Quote:
Originally Posted by aidanjt
Personally I am happy to plug a usb stick in or my phone or MP3 player - but I think my parents will use CD's until they stop driving and I think CD player in cars will stick around for 10 - 20 years time.
I read that, but that implies that the CD player will be limited to audio CD playback.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brewster0101
I'm 100% sure that various members of the British Phonographic Institute have been quoted as saying that they're perfectly content for you to rip CD's you've bought, just as long as those rips don't end up on a Torrent site somewhere. Likewise, if you've got tapes (yes, I do) then they're also content for you to convert those to MP3 if you want to listen to them on your iPod/Walkman. Which seemed like a pretty sensible approach - after all they're not losing a sale.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay
Presumably this is a US-based person saying this. If not, anyone know where you can get these free-to-run phone? I have to pay for my contract, and I'm sure PAYG isn't free either. ;)Quote:
The in-car CD player – much like pay telephones – is destined to fade away in the face of exciting new technology
My old Blaupunkt DAB (also in a Ford Focus) also took SD cards, but it was very restrictive on what sizes and brands were compatible - hopefully the Ford replacement will take SDHC (even SDXC?). Think I'd also be more than happy to swap a USB for a conventional line-in. While I agree that a multidisk CD changer can easily be replaced with an SD slot, or even big USB key, I'd be very unhappy if the "audio centre" lost the capability to play disks entirely - you'd be surprised how much can be fitted on a normal CD in reasonable MP3 format. What about proposing to replace the (mechanical) multi-CD changer with a simple harddrive located somewhere in the car? Even laptop drives go to 1TB, and surely that's more music than anyone legally has?Quote:
The new system, designed to cater to "tech-savvy customers" will offer multiple USB ports, an SD card slot, RCA inputs and Bluetooth connectivity. The company suggests that its SYNC system will enable users to connect mobile broadband dongles, allowing for the creation of a Wi-Fi hotspot that will in turn provide on-the-go access to cloud services such as Apple iCloud, Amazon Cloud Drive and Google Music.
As to this stuff about WiFi enabling the car, I'm very uneasy. Maybe I'm just being an old fogey, (or are giving that episode of NCIS too much credence), but I can't help thinking that doing this just gives another way for the system to get hacked. Brings a whole new, totally unwelcome, spin to the term "system crash". :eek:
Oh I see. My Ford Focus, (which is not a new model) plays MP3's and WMA's from CD already.Quote:
Originally Posted by aidanjt
There's no reason why the car's entertainment system would need to open a listening port. And what would a cracker do anyway? Copy or delete your music collection?Quote:
Originally Posted by crossy
Actually there is a very good reason for this, since most radios are integrated thief of radios have reduced dramatically. No point in stealing a radio from a Corsa if it will only fit another one and most probably already have that radio. The radio was a very small part of the price compared to the damage caused in getting to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by aidanjt
Actually yes and no, the rear pinouts are normally available in some strange standard, the problem is that standard is shared across maybe 10 cars! What do you do about different cars offering different stick functionality? Some cars like a DS3 have a shedload of stalk functionality, would be quite hard to make a standard that encompassed all of these whislt keeping the costs down.Quote:
Originally Posted by aidanjt
And then we get on to the face plate, again lots of manufactures want to sell cars, rather than keep a hobbiest happy. As such they want to be distinct, to have it seemlessly merged in.
I think the non-standard head units came about as a way to try and combat car stereo theft. It seemed to be Ford, Peugeot and Vauxhall who led the way with that - probably the most stolen/broken into cars at that time...Quote:
Originally Posted by aidanjt
Or what Oolon said...
And TheAnimus...
Head units with removable interfaces also showed up around the same time. So be careful with dodgy stats.Quote:
Originally Posted by oolon