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Music Media

The Docking Station Meets The MP3 Player 126

Posted by timothy from the appropriate-technology dept.
crazyj writes: "SSI America announced that they are shipping the new Neo 35 MP3 Player which can hold up to 81GB of MP3s. The device, which comes with multiple docking stations (for car, home and PC), can use any 3.5" IDE hard drive, and can even be purchased without a drive if you wish to add your own. The PC dock connects to the IDE bus, so hopefully (but the FAQ deosn't say for sure) it will work with Windows, Linux and Macs. A USB dock is available as well. Finally, I can get my whole MP3 collection into my car!" About $300 gets you player, sans disk -- not cheap, but perhaps the flexibility is worth it.
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The Docking Station Meets The MP3 Player More

The Docking Station Meets The MP3 Player

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  • You can get the equivalent unit at carplayer.com. It's rebranded as the CPM25, but it's the same thing, albeit cheaper.

    My roommate has the player, and it works rather nicely. Some people have had problems with some hard drives which are more finicky about power in the car, so a slower spinning (less power drain) hard drive would be the best. Laptop hard drives would also be good, as they have better shock protection.
  • MP Trip, Mambo X or others. I have MP Trip, it works nicely in my car. I can use it everywhere. It runs on 2 AA batteries for 5 hours.

  • Re:Not Hotplugable (Score:3)

    by Fletch ( 6903 ) <fletch@NOSPAm.pobox.com> on Thursday November 09, 2000 @11:14AM (#633824) Homepage
    this device does exist in USB form. another company is selling it as the "napdeck [napdeck.com]" and has the USB version available on their purchase page [boca15-verio.com].
  • Isn't this just a napdeck? www.napdeck.com [napdeck.com] Go here if you want it with a USB docking bay as another option.

    They look identical...

  • interface? (Score:3)

    by andrew_dupont ( 253112 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @11:46AM (#633826)
    if you're going to have 81 gigs of mp3s, then you're going to need to orgainze them. logically, it would be by id3 tag, but how the hell are you going to navigate through that many songs? and playlists?

    looking at it, i can see program, select, play, stop, and one big button. that one big button had better do a lot, because i wouldn't want to be navigating through ZZ Top music when i want to go to Ace of Base.

  • Sit tight there buddy, the RIAA SWAT team will be there any minute.
  • I havn't heard the local radio station in years. Hasn't hurt me at all.

  • - To install/remove tracks, the device must be plugged into your computer. IDE device, which means a total shutdown and restart each time. Yes, bulk copies are *much* quicker than serial or whatever, but just adding a single song at a time would be tedious.

    Get a USB HD enclosure. $60-$80. Leave the cover off and just use the 40 pin cable. It's not as fast, but it allows you to add IDE devices on the fly. If you want the speed, spend a little more and do the same thing with firewire.

  • Re:car use (Score:4)

    by Ledge Kindred ( 82988 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:43PM (#633830)
    One of our more visible empeg users on the BBS (http://empeg.comms.net) lives in Fairbanks Alaska. Temperature is not much of an issue with devices like these since you remove them from your car when you're not using them, so they don't freeze, unless you happen to enjoy living in freezing temperatures.

    Specifically for the empeg, though, the manual states operating temperatures as "5 C to 55 C" and non-operating temperatures as "-20 C to 60 C".

    And in general, the empeg is just damned cool. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

    -=-=-=-=-

  • Personally, ymmv, but I just use my notebook to fill up my rio, and then use the rio most of the time for short trips - I live in front of a computer, so putting new stuff on the rio is easy, and I have automated scripts to fill it with talk radio & news in the morning before I wake up. If I'm booking for a long trip, I can just connect a notebook directly. The rio has the advantage of not risking damage under, uh, "spirited" driving conditions :). Nor do I have to worry about leaving it in the dash and attracting attention from the criminal element.

    I've nuked out a few CDs on long road trips, especially on Highway 101 from Oregon to California, where the twists going 20 mph faster than the limit can really smear the disk surface.

    What I want is a non-movable storage system. Flash or something, so I can take a stick of 72 hours driving music and NPR for those long rides to catch the surf.

  • First, IDE hard drives do not fare too well in a bumpy car.

    Get your suspension looked at. I've used my laptop on many occassions without a single problem. Besides, drives are cheap -- buy the cheapest slowest one you can find and toss it if it goes bad. Or better yet, get a decent one and keep sending it back for warranty. Also, if there were a decent amount of RAM you could spin up the drive, buffer most of a song and spin down. Any MP3 design I've tinkered with uses this since parked drive heads can almost survive anything. Spinup times are about 5 seconds tops.

    Second, does anyone really need 80 GB of MP3 storage?

    You may not, but that doesn't mean that someone else doesn't either. Personally I have about 8G and that's quite a bit. If it's too much space for you, buy a smaller drive. This is just specmanship.

  • True enough- The advantage here is that you bring one device into work instead of two (MP3 Juke & Removeable harddrive..

    Just curious if it supports transfer of other file-types..

  • The Neo25 is USB and uses laptop hard drives.
    http://ssiamerica.com/products/neo25/ [ssiamerica.com]
    Now if it only had a car charger for the battery...
  • YES!!
    I have been trying to get an awnser to that question for a Long time (about the shock of hitting potholes)!
    Does anyone have an awnser?
    I really would like to have a computer in my car, but am afraid of constantly going through drives.

    Other than that, I probably will end up using BEOS and a WinAmp like program to play MP3's on.

    Thanks
  • - I really like installing my own drive. They're cheap enough just buy a spare every four months and swap them.

    I guess I am not in that finacial bracket...How many of us could budget a new HD every few months? (Hell I am still running an AMD K6 350...)

    Oh...2 be single again.
  • Unfortunately, you have to go through a lot of hoops to get more than one relationship. That's what a relational database (even with flat files!) would be better. I can easily organize my files by artist with a filesystem. But then what if I want to organize them by genre or date? I'd have to move everything around.

    Databases are the only way to go, if you have enough information to classify them. The MP3 player shell I use is DigitalDJ, which works with the Grip ripper. All of my mp3's are from CDs I own, so I had enough information to generate a good database (rather, grip did). It inserts everything into a MySQL database and I can select everything from a group of artists or albums or from a certain genre or years with just a few clicks. It's always accurate, but if you're just getting stuff off the internet, you'll probably get poor quality id3 tags and the system won't be so useful.

    Unfortunately, a database isn't exactly as transparent as a filesystem. It's much more reasonable to expect everything to understand FAT than a Postgres or MySQL database.

  • My experience with the NEO 35 (Score:5)

    by beernutz ( 16190 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:51PM (#633838) Homepage Journal
    I bought one of these units as well. Some of my observations:

    1) The rocker/control button sucks! It is hard to control with the front panel rocker.

    2) The remote interface button is no better. (it is a steel nub instead of the fat plastic rocker on the main unit, but it is still mounted to a VERY skinny plastic piece that WILL break.

    3) The remote control is decent and is really the ONLY way to control the unit with any type of sanity.

    4) There seems to be a bit of whine when the unit is first powered on (from the hard drive spinning up) and you will most likely want an engine noise power line filter. (got mine from crutchfield)

    5) The documentation DOES suck, but for most /. readers it should not be THAT hard to decipher.

    6) Power is a bit of a problem. it requires 12volts at 3amps to spin up a standard desktop hard drive so keep that in mind.

    7) The firmware updates have proven buggy. Some of the updates give REALLY cool features, but most introduce bugs. Example: If you are playing a playlist in random mode and turn the unit off, it will not remember the random mode once power is applied.

    8) Hardware can be a bit touchy. I had to send my unit back to compgeeks once because it simply would not power up. this was apparently a defect in the early units that has since been addressed.

    9) Although they say Maxtor hard drives are flaky, mine has a 40 gig Maxtor and seems to be just fine. YMMV.

    10) The start up time has been GREATLY reduced with the later firmware upgrades. about 7 seconds from on to playing!

    11) The remote display (tethered) plugs into the top of the slide out part of the unit, so you have to pull the cable each time you want to bring the unit in the house. and the plug is a small IDE like cable with a pretty tight receptor.

    All in all i am VERY happy with the sound quality of the unit and the overall value is wonderful! Would i recommend it for the novice? probably not. But for anyone with a bit of tolerance and creativity? absolutely!
  • First, IDE hard drives do not fare too well in a bumpy car. Anyone who has ever tried to do anything like this an an automobile can attest to this fact.

    You should probably gather some more real-world data before making that assumption. The Maxtor 20 Gb drive in this installation:

    http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx/cplayer.html [qsl.net]

    ...has spent ~5000 miles in the back of a Porsche 968 with a 7-year-old suspension, ~4000 miles in the back of a Corvette, and over 1000 miles in the back of a Honda Accord with no hard-drive problems at all.

    Even if it died tomorrow, I'd stand by the assertion that HD reliability is not a real problem. I think that drive cost $250 when I bought it -- it's probably less than $180 now. A lot cheaper than 10,000 miles' worth of gas, that's for sure.

    Second, does anyone really need 80 GB of MP3 storage?

    Yes. To many people, variety is as important as content.
  • Yes, one event clearly proves your point.
    If you supply the hard drives to destruction test , I'll happily collect a statistically significant sample of events.

    :-P
  • Weird, Slash stuck an extra space in my closing /a bracket for some reason....
  • This is straight from Maxtor's web site, about Maxtors' DiamondMax® Plus 45 Family:

    SHOCK:
    Operating Mechanical Shock:
    30 Gs, 2 ms
    (no errors)*
    Non-Operating Mechanical Shock:
    250 Gs, 2 ms
    (no damage)*
    * Without non-recoverable errors


    I think it can handle a bit of bumpage in a car!
    ~Max
  • I've got the same Aiwa cd/mp3 player, and another benefit is that you don't have a pile of commercial CDs in your car, which, due to their easy resale potential, are like magnets for crowbar-wielding crack junkie car burglars. (I once lived in San Francisco.)
  • since all my mp3's sit on a hard drive (as opposed to being stored on a RIO or anything like that), my mp3's tend to have a mixture of different bitrates. older rips of mine tend to be 128kbps, more recent ones towards 160 or 192kbps, and mp3's that i've downloaded from various sources vary between 128 to 256. a few are variable-bitrate encodings.

    eudas

  • The pressure is on... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Once car mp3 players were fringe, but they are now coming down the mainstream pipes -- pushing prices down and quality/features up.

    Here's a list off the top of my head:

    HardDrive-Based -- The NEO (http://www.ssiamerica.com):
    Install: plug into aux input of your stereo, control through buttons on the NEO.
    Pros: Removable drive sled, big drives; cheap; fast pc transfer if using IDE.
    Cons: limited processing capability; too big for most dashboards; build quality rather poor; noise problems; desktop drives tend to die after a few months.

    HardDrive-Based -- empeg (http://www.empeg.com):
    Install: replace your stereo, or aux in (tricky?)
    Pros: runs Linux; very capable platform (ARM proc); sounds great; large capacity;
    Cons: very expensive; must remove entire unit to xfer songs; no button illumination; garage-hack looks (love or hate).

    HardDrive-Based -- The Phatbox (http://www.phatnoise.com):
    Install: Imitates a CD Changer -- control and audio through existing head unit.
    Pros: runs Linux (ARM proc); easy install and operation; integrated with the rest of the car; cool amp-look; removable palm-sized cartridge with USB dock
    Cons: doesn't work with every stereo; not out yet, but holds promise.

    CDR/W Based--All rather similar
    Aftermarket: Aiwa, Kenwood (check http://www.crutchfield.com). OK, Awiwa is cheap. Kenwood is buggy.
    OEM: Visteon is doing one for ford???? (http://www.mach-mp3.com)
    Mazda will be shipping with the Kenwood as an option (no info...)
  • Organization is the real key. have all of your music organized in folders for every artist, then by subject, like Pop, Classic, disco, 60's etc. Navigating is simple: when in navigation mode you move the controller right to go deeper into directories (or left to go up) then scroll up and down to see the songs in the directory.

    That's the one problem they'd have to overcome to get me to buy this. MP3s have these nice little ID3 tags that allow for very nice organization. FreeAmp [freeamp.org] is the only player I know that organizes MP3s this way. In an ideal world, to play an 80s collection, I would only need to do something like:

    select MP3 where 1980 <= YEAR and YEAR < 1990

    Using a directory structure to navigate non-hierarchical data just isn't the way to go. MP3s were designed with that in mind, but no one's been paying attention. Use a little DB to organize this, please.

  • It's just a hard drive pull-out tray, so you can pull the unit out when you leave your car...though I suppose it would be less convenient.
  • "Non-freakshow"? Not sure what you mean by that. My empeg [empeg.com] player was expensive, but is an incredibly well designed and built machine. It isn't mainstream but it isn't frankenstiens monster, either.
  • $48,000 per year to keep this thing "fresh"

    Nope. The calculation should be 12*$50, not 3200*15.
  • so how long till the firmware supports the playing of .ogg files? :-)
  • Has anyone tried the Cybiko MP3 player, much less OWN a cybiko? They kind of remind me of some PDA geared for teenagers, and the MP3 player is free with it.

    Of course, I am going to be cautious. I bought a Vlink expecting to talk with all sorts of people, but found out(after buying anotehr one) that the practical range is about 20 feet TOPS.
  • Most at 192k... Remember, its not the *AMOUNT* of music that is important... (well it is for bragging rights, but thats about it) , its the *CHOICE* of what is available to listen to! :)

    Its would be quice nice for me to have several thousand CDs worth of mp3s in my car! and the pricing is reasonable... (300$ mp3 player + 300$ 80 gig maxtor... drool)

    i guess im lucky to have friends at used cd stores... ;)

  • Desktop hard drives are not designed for car use.. (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09, 2000 @11:22AM (#633853)
    From IBM's web page, here are the maximum vibration tolerances for one of their popular Deskstar 40GB drives... unless they've got some sort of dampening mechanism in this player, you'd be toasting hard drives pretty quickly.

    Vibration (random [RMS]) 0.67 G for horizontal

    0.56 G for vertical

    From:

    http://www.storage.ibm.com/hardsoft/diskdrdl/prod/ ds75gxp40gv.htm

  • With CD-R's costing less than a buck apiece, and CD burners coming out that can do 12x, does it really make sense to buy a big, relatively expensive piece of equipment that you have to install in your car and hook up to the computer? I don't know about you guys, but it's pretty damn easy and cheap to make audio CD's now.

  • Nothing like sitting in your car for 1 hour while the 2mb connection transfers your files - that's if you're within 5 ft of the access point.
  • I used to work for a disk drive company... I wrote servo code for their SCSI drives. Cold temperates aren't *too* big of a problem as long as you don't shut the drive off when it's below freezing (the drive generates enough heat to keep itself warm). The rate at which you heat/cool drives can be a problem, though... the rapid expansion/contraction of the disks can cause them to slip... drives have track pitches in excess of 24 thousand tracks per inch now... with tracks that narrow, slipping disks can be a big deal.

    I'd be more concerned with shocking the drive. A "normal" 3.5" HDD drive is NOT designed for a laptop, and many drives don't yet park their heads on ramps when they're turned off (i.e., the heads rest on a textured region of the media when the disks are spun down). Jarring the drive too hard smacks the heads right on the media, which is usually not a Good Thing (tm).

  • ...buy the cheapest slowest one you can find and toss it if it goes bad. Or better yet, get a decent one and keep sending it back for warranty.

    So you're saying I would need to use twice as much hard drive space to keep a backup on my PC in the likely event that my drive fails. Not to mention the added time required to a) wait for my broken drive to be replaced under warranty and b) reload all my MP3's onto the new drive.

    Don't get me wrong, i think it's a great idea, I just think it's poorly implemented.

  • I've lost a hard drive before from bumps in the road when transporting my PC around.

    I seriously doubt you lost the drive to vibration if you were transporting it powered off.

  • you are an ideut.

  • I'm guessing ogg files are some type of audio file... but that is all I can figure out, how do they compare to mp3s?
  • Gimmie a link?
    My laptop's HD is degrading semi-gracefully, it'd be nice to be able to keep some stuff on another drive, and laptop hds are expensive
    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
  • Anyone ever try building an mp3 decoder with IDE interface like this? Wonder how much it would cost... and the level of difficulty? Would it be possible to throw an IDE cdrom on top of this and play mp3 cds as well???
  • my main problem with this is that i can't stuff all my 200 CDs in my car's disk changer. and i really would like the idea of carrying *all* my CDs around at all times. and adding new ones when i am at a friend's...

    what this thing needs is FireWire/IEEE1394 so it's hot swappable and you can take it to friends and load it full of goodies. until then i am waiting...

  • Re:interface? (Score:3)

    by Skyfire ( 43587 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @01:21PM (#633864) Homepage
    If you had actually read the article you would have found out that:
    • Organization is the real key. have all of your music organized in folders for every artist, then by subject, like Pop, Classic, disco, 60's etc. Navigating is simple: when in navigation mode you move the controller right to go deeper into directories (or left to go up) then scroll up and down to see the songs in the directory.


  • I was working on the basis that you typically get ten (rounded down quite considerably) audio CD's on a CD-R with MP3's, which is 10x80 minutes = 800 minutes in 700Mb, so if 800 minutes is 700Mb, 81,000Mb = 64.25 days. Oh bugger, I did get that a bit wrong didn't I.

    Oh friend computer! The commies have got to my calculator already!

    Shut up Jim!
  • "First, IDE hard drives do not fare too well in a bumpy car."
    "Get your suspension looked at. I've used my laptop on many occassions without a single problem."

    Yes but you are talking about the 2.5" laptop drives that are designed to take shock, this is using a standard 3.5" drive which is not as G-proof
    ------------------------------------------------ ---------------
  • I just installed the Aiwa in-dash MP3/CD player in my truck. With 128 bit compression, I can get 11-13 full CDs on a single CDR. I carry 10 or so in a CD wallet, and now I have 100+ CDs with me all the time.

    It's like having an in-dash CD changer.

  • vaporware (Score:3)

    by p4r4d0x ( 201226 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @10:06AM (#633868)
    If you look at the bottom of the FAQ [ssiamerica.com], you'll see this:

    Where can I buy the Neo 35?

    The Neo 35 can currently be purchased online here [ssiamerica.com]. It should soon be available in stores. We have stock, so you order now, we ship now.



    As you can see, the order link is broken!


    __
  • This one may help you out a bit, but i don't know if you can access it for use with a shoutcast server

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/t hin gs/364e.html [thinkgeek.com]

    ------------------------------------------------ ---------------
  • It's good that /. picked up on the 35 model. It's been around for several months now, I've been tracking its progress. Have a friend who bought one and is very pleased with it. But, they also have the Neo 25, which is a competitor to the Creative Nomad Jukebox. Does anyone have any experience with this thing? I _really_ want to get one, but would like to see some reviews first. The things that I see the Neo 25 having that puts it above the Creative Nomad are:

    • Not an SDMI device (i.e., you can copy the MP3s from your unit to a friend's computer)
    • Doesn't use a proprietary filesystem (i.e., you can upgrade it yourself, with any laptop IDE hard drive)
    • The units you can buy directly from ssitech come in larger sizes than the Nomad (up to 20 GB)
    • Good price, compared to the Nomad.
    • You can store _anything_ on the drive, it doesn't have to be MP3s. You can use it as a portable hard drive if you like.
    Anyone?
  • ...it IS cheaper, but only by $1 :)

    $249 (base model) + $59 (car bay) = $308 from napdeck.

    $309 from SSI.

    So there. ;)

  • Re:vaporware (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09, 2000 @10:13AM (#633872)
    no, the correct link is here. [ssiamerica.com]

    $449 for unit with 30 GB hdd. i bought one.

  • Hot/Cold Temperatures (Score:3)

    by chrisroy ( 197227 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @10:14AM (#633873)
    How are they regulating the temperature of the devices? A while back, the big problem with car MP3 players was that HDDs don't like extreme temperatures. I'm especially curious because they say you can use any normal 3.5" HDD.

    Am I going to have to move south just to listen to MP3s in my car this winter?
  • Looks like a removable drive bay.

    And tastes like chicken!
  • is it mp3 specific, or can you use it for other types of file transfers? it would make large files easier to transport...
  • Actually...there is. There is a remote LCD head that you can put on your dash and run the cable to the unit under your seat or in the trunk. It's $69 for the "Wired Control Panel".

    ~Max

  • Someone has finally produced a non-freakshow car + home mp3 player. I imagine that this product will do very well.
    --
    "What beats rock?" "Nuthin' beats rock!"
  • If this is attached by the IDE connector wouldn't that mean you have to reboot the machine everytime you want to add song to the machine?

    I guess nice thing is that it is a IDE connector so you wont need any special drivers
  • "Supports MP2 and MP3 at 8-320 Kbps (including VBR)"

    ~Max
  • I'm very happy to see someone coming out with such a flexible device - most consumer electronics companies prefer releasing several different "models", all with their own cryptic product number, rather than letting the consumer tinker with it herself.

    I know why they do it - cheaper to deal with customer support when you know you have only a fixed set of things to deal with. But if you can do customer support for WinDoze, you ought to be able to handle swapping a few hard drives around :-)

    Still prefer the portable Jukebox one ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com] sells, but I live in Manhattan - no car. Very glad to see more hard-disk devices anyway - I remember telling Sony engineers to use hard disks for music download years ago, and the response was "We don't make hard disks. We make MD." :-(

  • Assuming a typical (at 128kbps) compression of around 10:1, and a typical 80 minute CD holding 700Mb (I know that's not an exact match), thats 157 hours worth of music on a disk, or slightly under a week's worth.
    How long do you plan to drive with that thing on?

  • Hard drive durability (Score:4)

    by andyh1978 ( 173377 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @10:17AM (#633882) Homepage
    It doesn't seem to mention anything on the site, but I wonder if there's anything in the design to cushion the hard drive from the bumps and vibration you get in a car.

    I've lost a hard drive before from bumps in the road when transporting my PC around. Since then I've been a lot more careful, making sure the case is cushioned with something to cut out the worst of the bumps.

    It seems that the unit is mounted in the dashboard, and could get some nasty jolts when going over speed bumps etc. I know hard drive shock resistance has improved over the years, but this could still be a problem?
  • Tis not vaporware. I got my NEO-35 awhile back, bout late Aug00 from Computer Geeks (They seem to be out of stock now). I paid $312 w/ shipping. I love it! I had a 233mmx Computer in my truck that ran DOS (also Win98 for networking). It took awhile to boot and worked well. I switched to the NEO-35 and will never go back. Not even sure if I will still buy the Awia cdc-mp3. I have my 20gig mp3 collection neatly stored in playlists and dir's It take about 5-10 to get my music playing. I LOVE IT! I can make those long trip w/o hearing the same song twice or switching radio stations! The docking feature is great. I can pull the unit out of teh truck and place in the computer dock (must power off first) and add more songs. http://www.carplayer.com shows they have some. I plan on getting the remote dash unit soon. The only problem I found is that the unit doesn't fit in many dashes. It 9 1/2" long. I have mine sitting on top of my dash. Also becareful of leaving it in the sun. The LCD turns a blue color if it get too hot. A few mins in A/C and it was fine again.
  • They have another link that appears to work.. I haven't ordered one (yet) So cant tell for sure

    www.ssiamerica.com/ecom/itm00001.htm&l t;/a> [ssiamerica.com]
  • There have been removeable drive bays like this for years, sans mp3 player. If you want something for large file transfers, they are only like $20.

  • not vapor -- I have one! (Score:5)

    by studboy ( 64792 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @11:28AM (#633886) Homepage
    Bought one three months ago from Computer Geeks -- http://www.compgeeks.com/ ; now they just have the Neo-25, a smaller one (laptop HD vs 3.5).

    The Neo-35 is neat. Comes with a cheapy case, a cute credit-card-sized IR remote, a computer bracket, a standalone bracket, everything the site says.

    What it doesnt say:
    - Documentation is PATHETIC. Choppy English isnt the worst part, it's just brief to the point of nonexistent. Imagine a a pointy-haired boss asking you the innards of a RPC like CORBA in two minutes or less -- you'd give him a total whirlwind speech, then run away, right? That's the documentation. (Maybe it's improved -- it's on the website.)

    If you read SlashDot, you'll probably get it okay, but this is not a give-it-to-mom type gift!

    - To install/remove tracks, the device must be plugged into your computer. IDE device, which means a total shutdown and restart each time. Yes, bulk copies are *much* quicker than serial or whatever, but just adding a single song at a time would be tedious.

    - You can upgrade the BIOS of the device by copying a magic file to the top-level directory, there's already an update or two which provide lots of good features.

    - I really like installing my own drive. They're cheap enough just buy a spare every four months and swap them. They're IDE/Win95: you can dup your entire CD collection in minutes. Drop one? Who cares! I've played with the Compaq jukebox, and it totally rocks, but I was cheap...

    - Overall, if you know this is a budget device, it's a good deal. Hardware quality is good, I just havent really had time to mess with the it so maybe I'm just fulla hooey. Your mileage will vary.
  • That's right. The unit isn't hot-swappable. Put the unit into the docking bay, power on, transfer songs, power off, take it out. More into at: http://www.carplayer.com/cpm25/pcdock .ht ml [carplayer.com].

    Some day I hope to have a .plan.
  • At that point, you might as well also swap MP3's with the hot chick in the mazda at the stoplight on your way to work.

  • Re:Hot/Cold Temperatures (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    98f above, to 40f below.(Wpg,Canada)

    Would hate to have the drive startup when its -35C.

  • Friend has one. (Score:4)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <jason DOT nash AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday November 09, 2000 @11:30AM (#633890)
    He loves his. The only problem is that they are longer than a normal car stereo, so not all cars will work. You may have to do some rearranging.

    He's using his with a normal desktop drive, and so far it's been fine. I think he's had it a few months.

  • Re:Ogg Vorbis (Score:4)

    by Mendax Veritas ( 100454 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:19PM (#633891) Homepage
    .ogg files are Ogg Vorbis [xiph.org] audio files. Ogg Vorbis is conceptually similar to mp3, in that it compresses audio data by discarding "inaudible" material, but is a different algorithm, and thus not covered by the mp3 patents. It is open-source, also. OV's designers claim that it should scale to low bitrates better than mp3, and should provide at least equal, possibly better, sound quality at similar bit rates. I listen to both mp3 and OV using WinAmp (there is a decoder plug-in for WinAmp at the OV site, and one for XMMS also for Linux users), and I don't really hear a significant difference, but I like the patent-free, open-source nature of OV, so I think I will be using it instead of mp3 for my own CD ripping.
  • https://www1508.boca15-verio.com/napdec/purchase_1 .php3

    $249 for "pc deck" version

    $359 for USB version (with remote and carrying case)

    $59 for a car dash or home stereo bay

    $69 for wired-remote panel (i.e. trunk-mount the sucker)

    ... no hard drive though ($139 for 20GB)
    Manual is here [boca15-verio.com].

    The Neo PC version w/o hard drive is "$309, special offer." Usually about $50 more, I think. They offer a $400 model with a 10GB drive, and a $450 version with 20GB. [ssiamerica.com]


    ________________________________________
  • It's never enough... I have 1000+ CDs (god, ripping them all is a nightmare!!!). I would love to have 'em all in one spot.

    What I REALLY want though, is to build my own, hang it off my network and physically put it with my stereo. That way I can
    a) have the convenience of listening to it through my stereo equipment
    b) upload tunage at will without having to physically move stuff
    c) have access to all of my files so that I can pump 'em through a shoutcast server so I can listen at work.

    Won't work in the car, I know, but I have a MD player in there and it works just fine.

  • Soo, how does one solve the problem of a fully removable stereo on smaller cars? On my Triumph the gearshift is right in front of the stereo, and I gotta shift to 2nd or 4th gear to change stations. Any options to stuff it in the back like a multi-disc changer?

  • Re:Easier and cheaper than CD's...? (Score:3)

    by Kingfox ( 149377 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:27PM (#633895) Homepage Journal
    I agree with you entirely. Most of my MP3 junkie friends point out the cost of media, the time it takes to switch discs, and the problem of skipping. With the media at an all time low in price, multi-disc trunk or backseat changers being so cheap even with anti-skipping mechanisms, I don't see the advantage.

    Personally, I feel that quality is the one difference, and an MP3 usually doesn't sound as clean and robust as a (legally purchased) CD. So, like you, I'll be sticking with the 'old media'.
  • Imagine if your filesystem was a database. Brilliant idea, eh? Now imagine if an Operating System supported such a file system? Guess, what - there is a brilliant Media OS which does just that - BeOS!!! http://www.benews.com/BeMag/?feature_id=52&page=4 See how you can easily organise, categorise, query, search and do virtually anything you wish with MP3 files, on a system designed to handle large media.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Most drives are already built to withstand some pretty crazy g's, both while operating and powered down. And, there are currently a lot of mp3 players available for cars, so they've either solved the damping question or realize it's not an issue. A popular example is here. [empeg.com] An another one here [mobilejukebox.com].
    (By the way, looks like Empeg is being aquired by S3. Yowzaaa.

    Jason

  • Just bought one. (Score:5)

    by FooBarney ( 253298 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @12:33PM (#633899) Homepage
    Very strange... I've been researching the Neo for three days, and I finally broke down and ordered one from SSI today. I check Slashdot a while later ... and there it is! One thing I did learn--the Neo's pretty persnickety about the hard drive you put in it. Maxtor and Western Digital drives (apparently) draw too much power to spin up. SSI recommends Seagate, Quantum, and IBM drives. I just ordered the Neo with the drive built in. It was actually a decent price on the drive ($150 for a 30 gigger) and I figured they'd know what would be most reliable. If anyone's thinking of buying one, the best resources I've found are: http://www.barncow.com/neo/ The Unofficial Neo Web Site Has instructions, links to the new firmware, and a very active messageboard. A great site--well maintained and very informative. http://bboard1.mp3.com/hardware/liststory/?topic_i d=38&month=200008 The Neo "User Reviews" at MP3.com A pretty good forum with real-world performance reports.
  • I seriously doubt you lost the drive to vibration if you were transporting it powered off.
    Well... it was working before the trip, and was not working after the trip. So, it was either bumped to death or was a startling coincidence.

    This was some time ago (it was an 850meg drive in the days when 850meg was All You Would Ever Need (tm)), hence my comment that shock resistance has probably improved a lot since.

    I'll take your word for it that death-by-vibration is no longer a problem, at least not with the amount of bumping you'll get in a car.
  • I don't know about your car, but mine is perfectly capable of sitting in it's garage without me in it. In fact, it does just this for approximatly 12 hours a day, more than enough time to keep my mp3 collection in sync.
  • Most of them use laptop drives.
  • Using a directory structure to navigate non-hierarchical data just isn't the way to go. MP3s were designed with that in mind, but no one's been paying attention. Use a little DB to organize this, please.

    Or even better: use both. Having a dircetory structure is very convenient when browsing through your files outside of your MP3 player.

  • FAT16 or FAT32... all you need to do is follow the links and read.

    (You can read, can't you?)

  • Oops. Picked the wrong formatting option. This should be a little more readable...

    Very strange...

    I've been researching the Neo for three days, and I finally broke down and ordered one from SSI today. I check Slashdot a while later ... and there it is!

    One thing I did learn--the Neo's pretty persnickety about the hard drive you put in it. Maxtor and Western Digital drives (apparently) draw too much power to spin up. SSI recommends Seagate, Quantum, and IBM drives. I just ordered the Neo with the drive built in. It was actually a decent price on the drive ($150 for a 30 gigger) and I figured they'd know what would be most reliable.

    If anyone's thinking of buying one, the best resources I've found are:

    The Unofficial Neo Web Site
    http://www.barncow.com/neo/ [barncow.com]
    Has instructions, links to the new firmware, and a very active messageboard. A great site--well maintained and very informative.

    The Neo "User Reviews" at MP3.com
    http://bboard1.mp3.com/hardware/liststory/?topic_i d=38&month=200008 [mp3.com]
    A pretty good forum with real-world performance reports.

  • I want a car MP3 player with wireless ethernet that will sync it's MP3 collection with my home (and office for that matter) computer whenever it's in range. No manual labour at all, just a no-hassle, up to date collection of the music I own in the three places I spend the most time (home/car/office).

  • car use (Score:4)

    by MillMan ( 85400 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @10:22AM (#633913)
    I've been tempted by devices like this since the empeg player that came out over a year ago. The problem is that I live in MN, where in the winter it gets damn cold, and I beleive HD's have to operate at above 32 degrees(?). Also I'm not sure at what temp HD's can be damaged when they're not on. When it can get down to -30 in MN once or twice a winter season, I'm not if I like that risk. Does anyone have operating temperature info for HD's?

    Although with the price at 300 bucks, even without a HD, it starts to get tempting to use it in the home theatre...

  • Yea, I remember reading in a couple books (Upgrading and repairing) PC, that 7-8 years ago they had problems with regular hard drives in office computers being effected by heat/cold. They turned off the heater/air at night and in the morning the hard drive would be acting up.

    It has to do with the drive platers expanding or contracting when hot or cold. Most drive can take a fair amount of temperature abuse. But it makes you wonder when you live in a place that gets high 98 in the summer and 5-6 below in the winter, over time that doesn't sound good.

    Also the other problem I could see with this, is that today's hard drives are great, but hitting a big old pot hole at 80 mph can't be good for the drive. Maybe there is some "shock" brackets you could mount it in?


  • Assuming a typical (at 128kbps) compression of around 10:1, and a typical 80 minute CD holding 700Mb (I know that's not an exact match), thats 157 hours worth of music on a disk, or slightly under a week's worth.
    Er, why factor in the compression twice?

    It's already accounted for in the 128kbps.

    700meg at 128kbps ~= 12.4 hours.

    81gig at 128kbps ~= 23.4 weeks.

  • 80 Gb of Mp3s? (Score:5)

    by TrentC ( 11023 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @11:33AM (#633920) Homepage
    I can see it now!

    "This is a great compilation disc! What's it called?"

    [Showing the hard drive] "'The Eighties'..."

    Jay (=

  • Re:You have 81 gigs of MP3's? (Score:5)

    by jbarnett ( 127033 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @10:46AM (#633921) Homepage

    (this is not exact), but

    Say the typically mp3 is 5 megs and is 3 minutes of sound.

    (((80000 megs / 5 megs) * 3 minutes) / 60 minutes) = 800 hours of none stop music.

    Say you have a decent track to work, say 2 hours round trip and work 5 days a week (I know this isn't exact!! :)

    (2 * 5) / 800 = 80 days without hearing the same song twice.

    Or roughly 2-3 months without ever hearing the same song twice. If you listen to each song say 2 times, you can go roughly a half a year without "reloading"

    On disk, you can roughly fit 16000 songs, say each cd has an average of 10 songs per disk, that is 1600 CDs!

    Say you "reload" ever six months with new cds, that is 3200 CD per year. Roughly each CD costs $15 a peice, that is $48,000 per year to keep this thing "fresh"

    $48,000 + $300 (for unit) + $300 for 80 gig hard drive = $48,600 or (rounding up) $50,000 per year just on MUSIC!! This does not firgure in the cost of the car stero system, spearks, wiring, etc... (this also assumes one doesn't have access to company or college T1 line and napster)

    Roughly this thing costs $137 dollars per day to maintain, or $6 per hour! This does not even account for the price need to maintain the car it is installed in (gas, battery, oil, etc..)

    Say the average worker makes $12 per hour working at a factory, this would require 12 hour work days 7 days a week, just to pay for this! Not to menation food, rent or other funcation required to just live.

    In closing, I would like to state that this device is nothing more then progranda being pushed on the masses to converted them into factory slavery. The elites vaule the "golden age" of the industrial revoulation and are willing to use this device to manuplate the general public into work camps. Mind control at it's finest gentlemen.


  • and by the way, napdeck.com [napdeck.com] has a USB model on their purchase page [boca15-verio.com].

    neo35 doesn't seem to be offering it.
  • There are several huge flaws in this device.

    First, IDE hard drives do not fare too well in a bumpy car. Anyone who has ever tried to do anything like this an an automobile can attest to this fact. Flash memory would be a much better (but more costly) choice for automobile MP3's, or even better, Kenwood has a car CD deck with a built-in MP3 decoder so you can burn CD-R's with MP3's.

    Second, does anyone really need 80 GB of MP3 storage? I've got around 2 Gigs on my HDD now and I've never even listened to some of those. If you figure that a typical MP3 file encoded at 128kbps will use about 1 MB/min of audio, that's 80,000 minutes of music. That works out to 55.6 continuous days of music. Seems a bit excessive to me.

    Now that we've already debunked the portability issue, wouldn't it be more practical (and cheaper) to buy a new hard drive and a nice set of PC speakers.

  • Isn't .5 CD/hr (1 hr music, listen twice?) * 15 $/CD = 7.50 $/hr an easier calculation? yes, its expensive.
  • I don't think that'll be an issue. I've got an OC'ed Thunderbird and a hot video card and the inside of my case usually runs in the mid 90's. (That's farenheit for all you Europian readers) I've never had a problem with any of my drives due to heat.
  • Lets see, a complaint that $300 + a HD is just not cheap for your entire music collection in one device. I paid $1200 for that ability with the empeg, and ahve never regretted it. Having all the music in one device has so many more advantages even over MP3 CD's.

  • Still whining! (Troll: i++) (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Look at all of you.

    This completely applicable and fully functional device is released. Hack it away, install Linux, do whatever. But quit bitching about features that it's missing. Why? Because if it had those features, you would be damned well bitching about the price.

    Be content and show your support for the progress of technology towards our realm of function--something relatively inexpensive and *not* created for the lowest common denominator.

    To those that disagree? :P . [colonpee.com]

  • Re:disappearing story? (Score:5)

    by jbarnett ( 127033 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @10:54AM (#633941) Homepage

    Um yea, the story is gone.

    Maybe Rob got a call from the network admin with a polite message saying "stop slashdoting me and we will give you a free unit"

    I think Rob could use the "slash dot effect" as a form of legal blackmale

    "Ok listen Sony; PS2; I know you got em, hand one over by sundown or I am linking to your 24 slot memory card at dusk. On a friday morning. And the only other stories that will be posted will be from Katz"


  • Re:I want wireless! (Score:5)

    by jbarnett ( 127033 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @11:06AM (#633943) Homepage

    that would rule. Pull up in your drive and it pulls down 50 new mp3. Drive to work the next day and it uploads the 50 new mp3 to your workstation.

    :)

    What you could do, if you find a way to prefect the wireless ethernet is this, it won't be hard

    The drive in your car is an NFS/SMB share. Every 60 seconds it tries to ping a "known" client.

    If the ping comes back postive, it runs an ssh connection to the client where it executes a "sync" script (basically find and compare).

    Then the client gets the info from the "sync" script and upload/download the new mp3's on/off the NFS/SMB server in your car.

    After the server gets a good ping, it drops it pinging-rate down to every 25 minutes. Once it gets a non-ping, it goes back into active mode; pinging every 60 seconds till it finds something.

    Everything could be done it perl, since it be easy to write and be able to run on both unix and win32 systems. The only problem would be 1. getting the wireless ethernet working correctly. 2. finding a way to securly and remotely execute the script on a win32 client (this probably can be done easily, but not famlair with it).

    How far is the range of wireless ethernet? Also one's company might not like unknown devices in the truck of people's cars "jumping on" their ethernet segerment and send/receiving a bunch of unfamlair data.

    Also the other thing I just thought of, is don't test things shut down when you shut your car off?


  • I wonder who's really making it. (Score:4)

    by Fletch ( 6903 ) <fletch@NOSPAm.pobox.com> on Thursday November 09, 2000 @11:08AM (#633945) Homepage
    it looks like this is being licensed from some manufacturer.

    the exact same unit is for sale as the "napdeck" at www.napdeck.com [napdeck.com].

  • Cold not that bad - this means lower empeg prices! (Score:5)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @11:11AM (#633947)

    Don't worry about it. I use a notebook all the time in my car, and I'm in New Brunswick, Canada - bitchin cold in winter. The main thing is that the CPU and drive kick up enough heat to keep themselves in operating range. Just watch for condensation when you move it between temperature extremes. The LCD gets slow though when it gets really cold.. Although, I'm assuming that one of the advantages of this device is that you take it with you, preventing a lengthy cold spell.

    The really big thing is that hopefully this will put some downward pressure on the stratospheric empeg prices, because those look really sweet, they're just stupid expensive right now (on par with a notebook pc just for mp3s in the car, sans nice interface). Nevermind getting one to work with your existing head unit is a bitch, as they don't play CDs.

    Personally, ymmv, but I just use my notebook to fill up my rio, and then use the rio most of the time for short trips - I live in front of a computer, so putting new stuff on the rio is easy, and I have automated scripts to fill it with talk radio & news in the morning before I wake up. If I'm booking for a long trip, I can just connect a notebook directly. The rio has the advantage of not risking damage under, uh, "spirited" driving conditions :). Nor do I have to worry about leaving it in the dash and attracting attention from the criminal element.

    Kudos

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