Alpine has a USB -> AI-Net adapter in R&D

Just got back from my Alpine dealer, and he told me expects a USB adapter for AI-NET to be on the market in about 5-6 months!!!! :nutz:

Not believing this, I went to crutchfield, and sure enough: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-KVi0AKF...0&I=500KCA620M

Unfortunately, it is going to cost $149 !?!?!

More than that, it does not seem to have been designed with carputers in mind, but more for "portables" and USB thumb drives. While that is in itself cool, what we want is something to connect to our carputers to allow full control of HU from carputer, also full control of carputer from head unit.

It might be possible to make our own drivers for this thing so we can interface with a carputer, but I suspect it is going to take alot of reverse engineering to do it. ARGH, please lets hope I am wrong a driver is released for this thing, I will grudgingly pay $149 if it has a good driver for interfacing to a carputer.

I'm pretty sure that would allow you to at least be able to connect a huge usb hardrive to an alpine head, which is pretty cool, but with the carputer not really necissary I guess...

if & when this gets hacked it'll be great...

:whs:

here is some of the details

its a MP3 PLAYER!!!

it would make sense, being a mp3/wma player, then the usb tumb drive would be its drive...

its a joint thing with Microsoft, using "PlaysForSure" technolgy

"The KCA-620M provides basic playback of MP3 and WMA files through the Alpine head unit, displays song tag information on the head unit’s screen, and charges the portable device while the user drives and listens. "

does this too... db stuff

" An advanced Quick Search function – which allows for search by playlist, artist, album or genre – is accessible when the music is purchased from a PlaysForSure online store and played on a supported digital audio player"

The KCA-620M is compatible with all of Alpine’s 2004 and newer Ai-NET CD/DVD head units, AV head units and the new Vehicle Hub Pro OEM factory integration system.

this is a fu*king awesome idea by alpine...

way less cheaper then a ipod + alpine interface...

specailly since i never use my ipod as a ipod... it seems always docked

again killer idea...

i bet u can hook a usb HD up to it too :)

mitch

It sounds like a Microsoft big win with that. Will se how well it will handle PlayForSure...
Genre/artist/etc browsing will not be possible to use when you have only USB drive and not the player. It seems it uses internal db from the player...
We will _not_ be able to use that with car pc at all.

it looks like it will do plain old directory nav

which is all i need

Artist/album/songs...

and USE the ID3 tags!


I only listen to RUSH and Dream Theater anyway
occasionally YES

mitch

jbors, what makes you think we wont be able to use it with a carputer?

It occurred to me that maybe Alpine has a computer driver for this simply for their own testing. Perhaps then they could give it to us to use if we buy the adapter too? Unfortunately I havent been able to find an email address for alpine to which I could direct a question like that.

Gosh darn I want a true AI-NET -> USB adapter so badly.

call them there good on the phone & you actually get to talk to someone..... although I've had a few times that the tech support guys had wrong info & I'm telling them how it's supposed to be:rofl:

one of the main things I would be looking for this to do is share all the media from the pc..... I already figured out how in a crude way..... just use a usb drive & a usb switcher...... but it would be nice if I can get both to read at the same time with no switching....... there is hope of this.......

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/car-audio/70924-alpine-kca-620m-usb-interface-for-ai-net.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MatrixPC

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=70924

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What he said... I just posted in that thread to review the KCA-620M I just got...