MOD EDIT: See this thread for the beginning of this conversation.


<EDIT> If you didn't sign me up yet, I'd like to wait. I think I might be doing my own faceplate and remap some of the controls. I just had an excellent idea but I have to sleep on it, it's going to be a lot of work

Sounds really good, exactly what I was looking for. Saved up a bit and was shooting for the Racing Beat Exhaust when it comes out but I changed my mind this evening.

For some time I've been wanting to build my very own carputer. I have finally selected all the parts I need and I'm myself ready to rock'n roll.
This part will come handy, everything else I've figured out :)
I don't need a controlling head-unit, only a TFT. I'll be running everything off of this box. A C3 1GHz with 1gb of ram. Your basic I/O's. Going to add a PCMCII WiFi card to synchronize media content with my home server. All will be automated.

I'm working on the front-end to select,... or "browse" the media files and switch between modules. Since I have an available COM port, I'm looking forward to hook it up to some gadgets :D

Audio-wise I still have to select an amp that goes with the 6 channel sound I have. On the photo above I noticed the center speaker. That's just about as perfect as it can get. I'll remap the speakers to a nice 5.1 setup, dolby of course :)

Before you ask. It'll be switched by ignition and runs off the car battery. If the car is off it can still run for est. 10 days (only the system with one HDD, not counting the display).


That's my resource so far, getting ready to put up some final orders and deployment as soon as I can afford the TFT :o

Now this is cool. Makes me glad I didn't get the Nav system, which I have since regretted from time to time.

For me, I'd like to have this LCD tied into all sorts of stuff. Top of my list is engine sensors/gauge packs for real time monitoring of a/f, oil pressure, charging system, egt, etc. Second would be a rear view mirror camera. Third would be graphic equalization for the factory stereo. Fourth would be a true carputer with most of the functionality of a laptop. Fifth would be Nav functions. Sixth would be remote radar warning display. Etc, etc, and the list goes on. :D

Omicron, exactly my thoughts!!

"Visualization" (ala WinAMP) was the reason I started this project. Monitoring gauges etc,... well, again, I'm not strong in that field yet but I'm hoping to work with you guys on this together. :)

The rear-view camera is also part of my plan. Additionally to that I was thinking of a 360 degree "surveilence" camera. Should I be involved into an accident, I'll have "hard" prove right with me. Hope it won't be used against me :D

The possibilities are endless. I'm preparing some stuff and I'll start the official thread in a couple of hours.

Looking forward to more feedback.

Yeah, CCTV cameras are cool IMHO, and especially fun to play with now that CCD cameras have gotten so cheap. How about one under the car looking to the front? Imagine that at 100 MPH! :D Or pehaps one to the side so that you could check out the babe in the car next to you without ogling. Or, or, or... :D

And the cameras are just one possibility. Give me the display and an easy way to interface to it, and I can think of ALL kinds of things to plug into it.

I found the time to review MediaEngine.

ME covers the most basic features. It's similiar built to the one shown on my previous screenshots. I believe that these 2 programms could even be the same, just different versions.

Audio and Video is covered but there is no room for additional "mods", such as gauges, etc. What I do like about it is the fact that the program is rendered.

I haven't done anything in DirectX in a while but I'm up for a challenge. Don't expect special effects, I'm lucky if I can get a DirectDraw window up without crashing :D
If I fail at that, I'll return to what I'm doing right now. Using pre-rendered graphics on a Windows Form.

I'm forseeing that the UI is going to be a lot of work. Since I'm already working fulltime and doing this as a hobby, it might take a while to complete. Until then, I guess, MediaEngine will serve the purpose.


Now, back to the hardware part. Sorry for high-jacking this thread :D

Sign me up for one afterall. PM me in regards to payment.
The Audi looks really nice but there is no way to remap the climate controls. Otherwise I'd create a faceplate my own and mount the screen in the middle. Since it's not the best viewing position I decided I'll make use of the wasted space afterall. So go ahead, make me one too. It'll look good in that DIN slot. And I'm also going for the non-motorized touchscreen that you've selected. I think it's perfect for the location :)

Omicron, you hit the nail on the head. The possibilities are endless as soon as you have the LCD with input ability.

I'm just wondering how many inputs I can get naturally on an LCD so all of the input switching can happen on screen with touchscreen. With as many inputs as I want though, I'm sure I'll end up having to use an input switcher that will have to happen off screen. I guess as long as I can get 2-3 inputs naturally, that'll be enough to switch between the most used stuff like gauges, dvd nav, and maybe the cute girl camera you mentioned. Too bad I'll have to tap the PS2 playing Extreme Tokyo Racer driving an RX-8 in Osaka on an external input device to switch between that and the cute girl in the next lane.

/sigh, life is so unfair.


I'm definitely looking forward to a new thread just to discuss all of the input possibilities. I do like the HKS system I'm looking at, but it gets a little expensive after adding the junction box to actually monitors sensors that matter like temps and O2.

RX-8 Media Center Development Thread
 

I'll be using this thread to report progress of the development of my media center. I'll post every stage, from selecting the hardware components to programming the interface. The reason for making it public is because your support and feedback is greatly appreciated. And afterall, I'm going to share the front-end so you can create your very own "RX-8 Media Center".

What the.... you ask?
For quite some time I've had plans to build my own "carputer". The main reason is because I'm a geek I guess. I started using the DOS prompt when I was 4 years old,... troubleshooting CGA games for breakfast.... With 8 I started programming and I'm still doing it, not for fun, for a living these days. I'm always around computers, I enjoy working with them and I enjoy "teaching" them the arts of bits and bytes. Because afterall, computers are only as smart as their programmers! :)

The RX-8 Media Center will bring all important media features into one package. No need for the 3000 USD Alpine DVD dash with MP3 capabilities, the costs for this system will be est. 750-1500 USD, depending on the hardware you choose. And you can bet your ass that it'll even play ripped divx porn, if I wouldn't know better, I'd say it'll even heat up the car while you are still in the shower. Ah, I'm getting carried away now....

What is it capable of? Slowly but contiously I'll be adding new features. Not particulary in this order:

- MP3 Player (Media Player in general: .wav/.mp3/.wmv/.ai/etc)
- Movie Player (VCD, SVCD, DivX, XviD, VOB, Indeo)
- Navigation (GPRS, nav software unknown yet, having a hard time finding one that works for hawaii)
- Office (Recorder for notes, Outlook Sync)

More advanced stuff will come once the basics are done. For some of that stuff I might need help, such as the real-time diagnosis.
- Real Time Diag + ability to setup the car on the fly (connected to the piggyback and various meters)
- Reverse-Cam
- Babe Finder (that'd be neat, eh?)
- CD-Burning capabilities (burn that audio/video on the fly for ya friends, you know how it is :D)

Some more, I can't think straight at the moment.

Technical aspect:
I'll get more into the details of the hardware parts as I place my orders. I want to make sure everything works nicely before I start recommending stuff.
- EPIA MII 10000 with a C3 1GHz processor.
- 256MB DDR-400 (during development, 1GB on deployment)
- Slim-line DVD (can't get it out of the trunk for now :()
- 2.5" 40GB HD
- PCMCII WIFI Card for automated content synchronization from my home server
- DC-DC Converter (70W PSU) + Auto Power Sequencer and Low Dropout Regulator (for power regulation and automatic on/off switching by ignition)
- Custom case out of plexiglass
- 7" Touchscreen TFT

Expected runtime of the system (without TFT) will be 10 days until the car battery goes numb. So, don't worry about parking your car and leaving the system running for a couple of hours, unless you have a bad battery, it shouldn't be a problem.


As far as the TFT is concerned, read up on this thread by eXentric
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...threadid=23689

I'm going for the 1-DIN unit and I'll be getting this screen for the setup: http://www.digitalww.com/DWW-7VGA.htm

Status
03/23/04: 3:51PM (Software: Version 0.00.1)
Initial planing phase is complete. I'm proceeding with the development of the front-end GUI.

First screen (not a whole lot going on yet :D)
http://www.golfreservationshawaii.co...ainmenu_tn.jpg - click to enlarge

Update
I won't be receiving my hardware until ~ first week of next month. I'll be focusing on the Media Center itself for now (not the hardware side)

2 inputs at least on most units, I'd say. Save bet anyway. I'm not getting anything with less than 2.

I created a new thread in regards to the development of the front-GUI. Sorry for spaming this thread full, we should take the user interface / feature discussion into the other thread

How will you be developing the software? And if you want some great nav software PM me so maybe we can split the cost of a great software I know of...

To make it quick and painless, I'm using Visual Basic. It get's it done pretty fast and the system is fast enough for a complex VB app. The interface itself is nothing more or less than your usual app, but skinned of course. Think of it as WinAMP.

In the future I might consider porting it to DirectX but I'm a newb on that so, ... I'll leave that for when everything is done and I have some time to play around.

edit: about the nav. Can you check if it has all states in it? The one I have here doesn't work in Hawaii :/

Thrasher,

what nav software do you have?

TrAsHeR,

You might want to at least consider C#. It is as rapid to develop in as VB and it is a lot more powerful. You would have the .Net framework available to you and you would have all the Managed DirectX C# samples available to you if you chose to start using DirectX.

As a last resort, you could use VB.Net, which isn't at all a streatch from plain-old VB. But at least VB.Net has access to the framework and is a newer language.

I see a lot of new companies and programming enthusiests taking on C#, and I myself am now a big fan of C# over VB. Many die-hard VB fans will still tell you VB over C#, but my opinion is that they haven't really made an effort to learn C#. Its just such a more elegant language and it's made up of all the goodies from VB, Java, Delphi and C++.

Anyway, if you went that rout I might be able to contribute at some point. Another thing you might consider is UPnP compatibility for device control, media storage, and cataloging. But I can discuss that more at length with you if you're interested.

In case you can't tell, I've kind of had similar ideas for some time :)

You see, for this project I'm going to blow the money that I saved for my intake/exhaust/etc. I want it to be done fast and that's why I use VB.

I'm learning .NET but I know it would take too long to do it. So my thoughts are.... first version will be 2D, in VB. Second version I consider the VB.NET/DX route. The project is just too big for my poor .NET knowledge :)

Btw, 2 new screenies. Looks better in person (hovers, etc)

http://www.golfreservationshawaii.co...ainmenu_tn.jpg


http://www.golfreservationshawaii.co...oplayer_tn.jpg

Even if you don't directly "help" on my project, we still can gather ideas in this thread. There are more people who can benefit from the information.

PS: that's not a gfx error on the 2nd screen, that's the visualization :p

Im down for the long haul with you. Im not that great of a programmer, but I am creative... I think we should set a goal, and have this thing ready whithin the next 4-6 weeks (since the piece that excentric is heading will be ready then) and we should get all aspects of this ready together... So again, Im down, and I will be posting ideas very soon

sorry hootersam, forgot to reply. I only happend to have McRally's Streetfinder or something like this. So it's not your true nav software, it's more a tripmaker with GPS support.

jniamehr, sounds good, looking forward to talk to you. Do you have any instant msg'er? Let me know how you want it, AIM, ICQ, IRC, whatever. We should discuss some stuff. And I see no problem having it done in time when the header is done. It even plays music already!! :D

When I get home from work I'll be working on the media-library and add the controls to the Audio Player. The media-library itself will be a complex one, I hope I can finish it today.
At that point, I might even consider posting the first version. But since it's VB, I'm not going through the hassle, unless jniamehr or excentric wants to see it. You'd need the following: VB 6.0 Runtime, Codecs: WMP9, DIVX, XVID and SVCD to even get the program up and running. The current audio-path is hard coded as well. But again, the time limit sounds good. Hell, this thing could even be done by early next week if I hurry my ass up and don't run into complications :D

PS: I saw your thread in regards to the shutdown.

I'll still have to figure that one out but the system will be running Windows XP, that's for sure. I can tweak it to a 10 sec boot, that'll do it.

Since there are no write-requests (other than SWAP file), I don't care about "hard shut downs".


Also I should mention that we need to damp the harddrive. Since I'm building a custom case out of plexiglass (still have to design the CAD's for that), I was thinking for using a 1:10 (RC-Car) suspension to "hold" the HD in mid-air. what do you think?! :)

Swap file writes are reason enough to worry. And how sure are you that other software will not write? Even your navigation software could be doing background writes if it has an auto-saving birdcrumb feature (many nice nav packages do).

I personally am planning to have my carputer simply go to sleep. I thought about having it hibernate, but even in sleep state I don't think I'll have enough power drain off the battery to worry about unless I don't drive the car for several days. I'll have to prove this theory, obviously, when I get the thing setup.

I didn't mean to sound like I was dissing your ides in my last post. I really like the RC car shock system. If nothing else, it would sure look cool :P

hehe, is all good. My ideas are not perfect anyway.

I can't really think about how I'm going to do the shut down, I have to see it when I get to that point (which will be the last part of the project). Of course, a soft and reguluar shut down is what I prefer if I can get descent start-up times. Hard shutdown at last resort.

Oh, trust me. I know that nothing else will be writing unless I start using 3rd party software such as the Nav, as you mentioned. And again (and as you know), we'll talk about this again when we get to it :)

As for me, I can't wait until it's done (hardware and software wise) :)

About the HD protection, Ive head about silicon based HD protection, I cant seem to find a lot more about it, anyone know more? (Kind of like placing your HD in breast implants)

whooo, yea! Breast implants, lol. That's what my 8 wants http://www.stupid-boy.com/smilies/up...ix/boobies.gif


Seriously now, sounds like a good idea. I'll resource it out when I get a chance.

It's coming along. But don't consider anything of this to be final, it'll be moved around, redesigned, etc once functionality builds up.

http://www.golfreservationshawaii.co...oplayer_tn.jpg

it would be cool to have a TFT here because I've never used touchscreen and don't know how big the clickable areas have to be.

You may you want to look at Media Car. With a different skin on it... from here and you can change the emblem to mazda.... I think that UI will be pretty badass. You can get the current version of Media Car from here and go to software.

Thrasher, so you are giving up on putting the screen in place of the stock HU and instead going for a popup 1DIN unit in the stock nav location? Why is that? Will the screen be too hard to see and use in that location? how is that versus touchscreen in the stock nav location... I hear it's too far away.

That's an interesting idea... maybe necessary... may not be. Think iPod, etc... they use 2.5" drives going through shock and do fine it seems. Laptops are the same... hell, I've dropped my laptop plenty of times and the HDD is still chugging away. So you may not need to go so far... maybe just get rubber washers to use with the screws that you mount it with.

Thanks for the link. I'll have to review Media Car. But I'm overall not impressed with that's available. The most cricital reason why I'm doing this my own, is because I can customize it to anything I want. Not only graphic wise but feature wise as well. Voice controlled? Bring it on!

That brings me to your question. I said "Since it's not the best viewing position I decided I'll make use of the wasted space afterall". With best viewing position I mean for people outside of my car. :D
Seriously now. While using it I want to be able to see the road. Since I'm rather small, my seat is so close to the dash that it'll be comfortable to use. In my case anyway.

Well I've got a ton of ideas of my own too... I'm more than happy to toss them out as things go along. As far as programming goes... outside of html and pascal, I'm all thumbs, but as I have an over abundance of freetime at the momement, I'd be happy to learn C# and maybe even VB.Net if needed. Let me know if I can be of any help...

Actually voice control only requires you to write or buy a program that does that for Windows and add that to your machine. There was a mention of that on mp3car.com in the media engine or media car threads...

Between the two, I find media car to be very slick. You get full audio equalization...even radio through winamp. Everything except video is pumped through winamp so that you can take advantage of that. Gamma correction by timer so that the display "dims" at night. And the reviews had set the newcomer, Media Car, as the best you can get right now. I haven't installed and tried them out yet, but reading specs, bug reports, etc. I tend to agree with this opinion.

Not to tell you not to make your own or discourage the work you're doing... I had thought of doing it myself too... but now it just seemed almost like remaking the wheel... especially since I like that one skin on media car. So I wasn't going to bother with it... and then I come across you working on one... :roll:

I've just installed Media Car and tried it out. Trust me when I say that this is nothing compared to what I've planed. Besides, I'm programming a shell replacement and not a program that runs on top of windows. At least I don't want it to appear this way. I want it to appear as this is a media unit, not a personal computer.

At first I thought I might cancel the coding part if there are too many equaly like programs. But I know my limitations and I know for a fact that those are nothing compare to what I have planed.

But keep 'em coming, I'm interested in seeing more :)

A shell replacement. Excellent. That is exactly what I want... much prefered to something that runs over the standard NT shell.

You forgot to mention DVD playback in your specs. You know... you can request the SDK for Destinator (I like this GPS software... it looks like one of the best ones) so that you can embed it into the system... I'll take this to the other thread.

Oh...BTW... as I am pretty tall and not very small... the center console works better for me to be honest. I have fairly long arms so I could reach the stock nav position, but it'd be a PITA. I just can't figure out what I'd do with the slot-in DVD player if I mount the 7" touchscreen w/ the CPU in place of the HU. What I really want is a 6.5" touchscreen and to motorize it like the ones I've posted before from clarion or kenwood...

Well we'll see when I finally get my 8 (planned late 04/ early 05) and I can take a good look at the space. Maybe it'll fit right under the vents where the buttons (tuner, CD, etc.) are now...

I'll eventually have to wait on this project until my screen gets here. There is no point in designing the interface if it won't fit later.

I just ordered the TFT, as soon as it gets here, I'll proceed on the project.

As far as I know...

Computer motherboards use 0/5/12V+ power. The 12v power can be taken from the car's power supply, which could probably be hooked into a Uninterruptible Power Supply [after a series of proper voltage regulators] which only needs to be large enough to supply power to the computer for say 1 minute at most. Upon shutdown of the vehicle, Windows will notice it is running on temporary battery reserve, which will then cause the computer to automatically go into standby. Stand-by mode uses 5v (or less) to provide power to the board's logic and memory while the vehicle is shut off. The amperage used to maintain motherboard memory should be insignificant in comparison to a car battery's capacity, so you won't need to worry about the computer draining the battery when you're away from it. The benefit of this is that standby mode only requires about 3 seconds to resume in comparison to a cold boot (checking bios, hardware, loading drivers, etc.) and you can resume exactly where you left off before when the car was shut down.

On the matter of hard drives - I think you can get away with using laptop hard drives, as they are built to be sturdy enough to be carried around and operated in moving vehicles, even race cars and trains. Suspension mounting would be cool too I guess..

What would be ultra-cool is if you could find a way to interface the computer to the car's ECU [which would require some knowledge of CANbus interface and programming] and use your TFT as a gauge cluster display or live diagnostic report...:D

GiN,

Acutally the Opus PSU that I mentioned in the "Startup/Shutdown" thread monitors the ignition and battery... it stops you from killing the battery, and it will startup and shutdown/standby/hibernate your machine when the key is turned off... it supplies power to the CPU for how long you specify (jumpers in the PSU) and at the end of that shuts the CPU down.

You have to have a power regulator in a car even if PC Mobo's run at 12V, because a car alternator does not put out a very stable 12V and a computer requires a very stable 12V power supply. Thus people buy the Opus unit which has that and the above features...

Very interesting posts. I totally agree with you GiN. I didn't think of using an UPS. That's a very good idea but I might as well get the Opus unit if it has this built in. It's expensive, compared to what I had in mind, but it's almost twice as strong. That'd give me some room to daisychain usb devices :p

The screen is 16:9 so, I'm way off with my 1024x768. If anyone knows the exact screen resolution of an 7", please let me know. It'll make my life a bit easier until I have a development unit

edit: I'm thinking of the ECU but I'll get everything else out of the way first. It'll be tricky, never done that. Sounds like an adventure tho ;)

The native for the Xenarc 7" unit is... 800 x 480... check out the specs here...http://www.xenarc.com/product/700ts.html. Also see the link Ihad for the skin for Media Car... the guy posted it in two sizes... one for the Car PC 7" of course...

odd, but ok. Sounds pretty standard, it's the 2nd time I'm hearing from this resolution. Just wonder why they are advertising the unit as 4:3 (1024x768).

I'll go with the flow, 800x480 it is. thx ;)

You've got me on that one too. I suppose the screens can display 4:3, but it's no good for using as a in-car touchscreen (too hard to read and touch)... hence the 800 x 480 resolution....

As you mentioned in the LCD thread... going with a shell replacement is a good idea. Media Engine offers this option, but it looks like it only works for Win98SE... which sucks. Who is going to use that "blue screen of death" POS instead of Win2k or WinXP??:confused:

Anyway here are a few things that came to mind...

I noticed that you didn't mention DVD movie playback in your specs. Just an oversight? How would you go about running this? I mean would you use somethign like WinDVD and embed that into your "media center"?

As far as button size goes... from using Japanese ATM's (they are all touchscreen) I'd say to make sure that your buttons are big... especially since you will have to fiddle with them while driving...:eek: (get a RF remote!)... at lights, etc.

I like the looks of your background, but... do you think it'll be ok to look at while driving? I mean... not to difficult to make out the icons at a glance? How about at night... not too... flashy as so to distract the driver?

You're going to need to add gamma correction via push button and timer to adjust the brightness for nighttime driving.

Don't forget to have a "tools" section to tune/adjust the shell you're writing.

I'd recommend doing something like Coyote did with Media Car for audio. By pumping it all through Winamp he can use Winamp's eq to tune all your music except for videos (whose audio doesn't go through the same way). I think having an eq beyond "treble and bass" is important.

GPS software... I like Destinator and the SDK is free! CoPilot Live... no SDK it looks like... hmm... routis 2004 looks pretty good... but I can't find anything on SDK for them either. I don't see why anyone would want to use MapPoint other than the tools it comes with... feature wise it's not a Nav system really. I guess that covers the major ones...


OH... BTW... for those of you who plan to remove the HU entirely and would like to have radio functionality still... a lot of people are using Dlink USB FM receiver, but it looks like crap to me for inside the beautiful 8. I've found this solution instead...Cadet PC Radio.

Oh, DVD playback is supported, as long as you have codecs installed, it'll be launched within my program.

I've reduced the size to 800x480, looks better. I just hope the buttons are big enough (what do you think?) Btw, the contrast of the buttons (main menu) change on hover. I'll also add a click state when I'm all done.

All the "fine tuning" of the graphical elements has to be done once I have a unit I can test it on. Otherwise it's pretty hard without visual feedback.

<snip: images removed in favor of new version>

Still working on the playlist and stuff. You see the little arrow button on the headers (VISUALIZATION and PLAYLIST) ? With those you can switch the panes around, so you have big visualization and small playlist. Or click on visualization and get fullscreen mode.

One after the other, but some good ideas/info are coming down with this thread ;)

The main screen looks like it'll probably be fine. The media player... well the "delete" and "reset" buttons are too small. Those arrows/triangles you're talking about may be too small.

The Volume level "Volume 95" looks like it may be difficult to read when driving or at a glance. I also wonder (but not sure) about type like "Play, stop, etc." and "playlist" and "Elapsed, Length, etc."

Coming along well... keep up the great work!

The delete/reset button are probably big enough because I don't expect anyone to manage their playlists while driving. I'll have to see about that when I have a test unit.

The Volume description (Volume 95) changes color to white if the volume is in use. it returns to red after 2 sec idle. The Play, Stop, Etc are only for design purposes, you all know what these buttons are for, but it looks better with a little description :) but yea, defeats the purpose if it's not readable later on.....

Appreciate your feedback and comments!! :)

EDIT: Give me another 5 hrs today and the first version of the audio player is done. I'll be doing the preview release tonight.

Hi,

Great thread, the media center looks quite promising. One thing I want to bring to attention... I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) that all the data for the LCD panel comes from the factory HU, so if you remove that you will lose all your vital info. :( Reverse engineering that looks like a PITA too. Given that, I'm not sure where the best placement for the TFT would be.

mohrt

Uh mohrt, you confused me, what are you talking about?

I meant to say LED... the red LED that says "mazda rx-8" when you start the car, shows you radio station, outside temp, vent controls, etc. Although I'm not 100% sure, I *think* that is all driven by the factory HU.

No... OverLOAD and someone else looked at it while he was working on the AUX unit. It APPEARS that the climate control signals are separate. The climate control plugs into the HU board and the HU to the red LED, however... the EE's on the board think it'd be too convoluted to have the signal actually "decoded" and the LED controlled by the HU.

Reverse engineering this may be a PITA, but very necessary. Not everyone wants to keep the POS stock HU in the car... some want aftermarket HU and some want carputers...

As far as resolution goes, you should check the specs of your display, but... the popular Xenarc and Lilliput screen are XGA (1024 x 768)...

As promised, here is the first version (0.03.1)

RELEASE NOTES

This release contains only the Audio Player.

Known bugs
- no SHUFFLE, REPEAT
- playlist does not advance (found out after releasing)
- ADD SOURCE [File] only works
- Identifying song length during load is n/a (song has to be played to retrieve info)
- Pane-Switcher (visualization <-> playlist) disabled.
- bitrate n/a

THE GOOD STUFF

This is really premature but I thought I'd share it.
Work in progress, 'nuf said.


What you need is the following:
Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime Files
Windows Media Player 9

DOWNLOAD

v0.03.1 RAR-Archive
v0.03.1 Self-Extracting RAR-Archive

Please post any errors you may run into. Thx ;)

http://www.golfreservationshawaii.co...udioplayer.jpg

u mentioned that you are Greek...thats cewl...have a look at this site www.carnavigation.gr ...i think is a nice idea have many features and costs 1.500 euros with a free nav map


the only problem is where to put the screen

yes, I know. I'd prefer to have it in-dash too but for the time being, there is no alternative to using that 1-DIN slot.


The Audio Player is almost done. Adding folders (and subfolders) is implemented now. Song duration are retrieved when the song is added to the playlist. NOTE: This feature is very slow at the moment. In my test run I am adding 3000 songs, I don't even want to mention how long it takes (Athlon XP Barton 2600+, 1024mb ram, 10000 RPM HD) :mad:
(10+ minutes!)

I'll look into optimizing this for the future, I'll also move that stuff into an database for save keeping.

Playlist advancing is still not working. I yet have to figure that one out (I killed that function with something else, I'm confused!)

I'll be working the entire weekend on this, once I"m done, I'll tackle the Movie Player.

When the basics are out of the way, I'll start looking into ODBII scanning. If I can't get it up as I want, I'll have to rely on someone (piggy back manufacturers) to provide some sort of integration help to their own unit. I have already contact Ric Shaw in regards to software. It would be very cool if I could read out the values of his piggy back and display them from within my program.

<edit> My C++ knowledge isn't that great but I think it's time to flip the switches. Besides, I'd like to make this Linux compatible as well. Might take longer because I'm practically learning the language first. So, definately not in time.

How is it coming along? Sorry I haven't had a chance to install and check it out yet... a bit of drama going on in my life at the moment...