mp3designer

We have a way cool new MP3 car radio coming early next year but we need more user input. Specifically we want your ideas about ID3 tags. Imagine you are in your car using our MP3 radio while driving. How important are ID3 tags? Assuming that long tags could cause driver distraction, would limiting text to 36 characters or less be appropriate? Maybe having no ID3 tag information is best. What do you think? Tell us and your views will be factored into our design process. Reply to: mp3designer@hotmail.com

MP3Car.com

 

grandamp3

would that be 36 Characters total or 36 on like 2 lines or 4 lines or whatever? If it were scrolling or something 36 might be enough, like show artist, then show title, then show time length, etc. Its not completely important but its really nifty to show off to passengers, plus lets them know whats coming up where as i already know what song it is as its starting to play. Just curious, this gonna be CD-R or HD?

Grand Am-P3

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The Grand aMP3 Project
Car: 96 Pontiac Grand Am
Current Setup: AMD K62 300MHz, 64MB DIMM RAM, 20GB WD Hard Drive, Basic Video & Sound

mp3designer

We are still working on the display issues, all of which depend on how MP3 users actually use ID3 tag data. There are some possible safety and driver distraction issues with scrolling displays so I am trying to opt for a good LCD or dot matrix display for up to 36 characters or more. HOw do you use your ID3 tags if you use them at all??? For HDD or CD, we are developing both for different users. You might look at the hardware discussion forum, "Check This Out" for several URLs....

jkazakawich

i don't use id3 tags they are never acurate they seem to always be somthing like unknown artist then the song name that's not going to do me any good

mp3designer

We seem to be getting two distinct groups; them that do and them that don't use ID tags. How important are they for a car based-application?

grandamp3

not to be captain obvious or anything, but jkazakawich if you just take a few minutes to edit the right id3 tag into your mp3s, it would be very nice looking, like on a character display, etc. Helps the passenger know what your listening to. Also, here is a wonderful program that will help you manage your mp3s as in ID3 tags, etc. It will also go through and take the filename and put that info into the id3 tag.
http://www.trashsoft.com/
Play with it and see what you can do with it.

Grand aMP3

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The Grand aMP3 Project
Car: 96 Pontiac Grand Am
Current Setup: AMD K62 300MHz, 64MB DIMM RAM, 20GB WD Hard Drive, Basic Video & Sound

kane2g

I think that the 4x20 screens are just the best, I only opted for the 4x40 because i wanted to go with the biggest (a guy thing i guess). The way I would set it up is


Artist
Song Name
track# Time Played
Time Left Clock

But that's just me. The Clock part would be probably the most useful option.

just my $0.02

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mp3designer

Thanks for the data- from a human factors point of view, display is THE critical issue for any Car-based MP3 player. We are looking at several options as new products are developed. Given that though, there are all sorts of engineering trade-offs from a cost versus benefits view. Check out our radio at one of the URLs listed above and look for other new products. Thanks again!

mp3designer

Thanks for the input...seems to be several ID3 tag editors out there that work. I'll check into yours. Our issues deal with 1) do people really use ID3 tags and 2) how do we safely integrate them into MP3 car radios. All opions are of interest to us and we will factor them into our design process.

mp3pc

I feel many people use or would use ID3 Tags. Especially when dealing with over 100 songs per CD it would make searching easier. Rather that listening to 2 seconds of every song you would see the title. I don't know about you but I can remember the song numbers of all my mp3s! I am waiting for a good portable CD based MP3 player to come out with ID3 support. I borrowed the Philips and love its sound, look and quality however the fact that its not ID3 has kept me shy on buying it.

Jason Connor www.AtHome-Shopping.com

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-+[MP3PC]+-

kane2g

Another thing, we aren't probably your customer (sc?) group, I dont think that a lot of people here would buy your unit, when they can just put together their own. Not to knock your work, but you would have to be pretty reasonable on the price to be considered. I've seen the mp3 headunit go for like 1200 and up. You would have to charge at least half that.

Oh, wait how about this- head unit with LCD (like alpine) but also MP3 player with couple of gigs of space, now i would pay 1300 for that.


But getting back to the original thought, people would want something simple. AKA ID3 tags are a must, and USB interface for uploading the files. I think that would be good.

yet another idea,
2x20 lcd that would change every 10 sec or so between ARTIST NAME & SONG and TIME PLAYED TIME LEFT
that kinda thing

anyway good luck

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"I'm as confused as a baby in a topless bar"

jkazakawich

just took grandamp3's advice and edited all my file names and id3 tags now my play list on my home computer looks way better and i don't have all those songs in places they shouldn't be but it is going to be a pain to edit the tags everytime i get a new song because i'm not the only one who downloads songs in my household so i don't always catch them before they get all mixed up

mp3designer

Good comments! Like you, after the first few bars of music have played, I know who the artist is and the song title. I wonder though if this is a limited trait or if others experience their MP3 tunes the same way?????

mp3designer

But you are in our customer group AND we want to build the way cool hardare that MP3 users want to use. As for prices, our first MP3 radidio will be selling for under $400 I think. We are working on a hard drive design that would interface with your existing head unit and we are just starting work on more expensive audiophile MP3 car radios for premium sound systems. The key to all of this is to have real MP3 users and their ideas factored into the design process. So tell your friends to kick in here with their 2 cents or more.... Thanks

mp3designer

Just curious but who does the downloading in your house - brother-sister-older younger? Who then actually burns your discs????

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