Thread: MP3 costs

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Catlas:
I like the idea that your catering to the 'Direct replacement' market. A lot of pwople don't have the ability to do more than replace a stock head unit. But to really make your product stand out you need more. A text LCD or a hard drive. Or both. Thats what people are going for right now. Look at the NOMAD. It offers 6 gigs of storage. Thats more than any mass-market commercial player at the moment. Your alos working against the fact that major audio companys are making car MP3 players. AIWA Kenwood etc. I know those companies and I know the value of thier products. Your creating a similar product but you don't have the big name to go with it. If your product is to succeed you've gotta do it bigger and better than the big boys.

Catlas</font>

Quite honestly, Visteon has been building quality OEM grade audio products for decades and selling them to other major brand names that you would be more familiar with. Our most recent history was that we were part of Ford and have been supplying the auto industry with our innovative products. While I understand the snootiness of those who have the technical skills to build their own, reality is that most of the MP3 market has no such ability but they still want to use MP3 in their cars. As explained above, these users want a simple and easy to use interface something we are providing with this product. Others, including hard drive easy to install products are also in the pipeline.

Since noone seems to want to just reply to your question, I'll give it a shot.

I would probably pay about $300

but the things that hold me back would be:
1. It needs decent VFD display with ID3 info
2. It needs a hard drive
3. It needs a remote control
4. It needs little more techno-cool styling

On the other hand, it doesn't need to be everything that www.empeg.com is...maybe just the equivalent to the Creative Nomad Jukebox, but in-dash.

Again, we appreciate the comments and ideas. Our design team is wrestling with other stakeholders while trying to provide the MP3 products that many people want to use. Real user input is a must here and all of the dialoge above is important. The Visteon MP3 design team is investigating a number of potential designs and look at new technology as well. So keep the notes coming and I will get them into the design team discussions!

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2"> is...maybe just the equivalent to the Creative Nomad Jukebox, but in-dash.[/B]</font>

Right on Meatball! That would be sweet In-dash Nomad Jukebox!! I would buy that.

What would be cool like an LCD screen (at least 4 inches) and then have some audio inputs and video inputs so you can watch dvds on the head screen. And have a removable hard drive.