I've been wondering this for awhile now. How come nobody makes a head unit that has a slot for a flash card? This is so much more portable, more robust, easier to use, more capacity, and just overall better than a standard MP3 CD Player.

It would be cool to take a 512mb or 1gig flash card and just put it in my stereo. When I want to change the content I just take the flash card in the house and change it.

Or, what about a USB drive?

I'm just surprised that the aftermarket car audio people aren't doing this yet ... unless they are and I don't know ... or, maybe I'm wrong and this idea is just stupid.

One 512 card can hold more music than my 6-disc changer in the STi ... and almost as much as an MP3 CD. A one gig flash card can hold more than a MP3 CD.

t

I've seen headunits that use memory sticks. I think it was a Sony headunit.

I'd love a HU with a usb dongle for thumb drives and such. That would just own all.

I could then just get a 150gb HD in an external usb housing and hook that up...keep my entire collection in the car.

-- Dave

theres a couple headunits (clarion perhaps?) that have like 128mb of embedded memory, but as far as I know nothing removable. My question to you is why have an expensive 512mb flash card when you could use a 20 cent CD to hold more music? A CD does everything a flash card could but for MUCH MUCH cheaper, i just dont see where there would be a market for this sort of thing, although it would be cool.

It's just the reusability factor. I could maintain a good collection on a gig card. And add/remove songs one at a time...it's harder to do that with CD.

After I have a good collection of drivable music, then I could finalize it on CD, but while building a good mp3 cd, I have to make a lot of changes sometimes.

Flash cards wouldn't skip, either (though the only time I've had a skipping CD was going down dirt roads..)

My question to you is why have an expensive 512mb flash card when you could use a 20 cent CD to hold more music?

I actually covered that in my first post when I said ...

This is so much more portable, more robust, easier to use, more capacity,

Yeah, flash cards would be great. Many of us have portable mp3 players with flash cards so it would be easy to pop it into the car.

why wouldnt you just buy an fm mod or a rca adapter for your changer controls and plug your jumpdrive mp3 player into that... sure it woudl be a 1/5 of the price of a new head unit that would do that...

why wouldnt you just buy an fm mod or a rca adapter for your changer controls and plug your jumpdrive mp3 player into that... sure it woudl be a 1/5 of the price of a new head unit that would do that...

exactly... why make things more complicated than they need to be. I still stand by what i said, if you really find that CDs are too big, too hard to use, and are not robust enough (do you mean CDs don't hold up as well? Thats why you buy 50 for 10 dollars) then keep dreaming for a flash card based deck, but i have a feeling that manufacters won't answer. We're seeing more and more HD decks, and after the miserable failure of minidisks in this country I think manufacturers will stick to proven media. There's no universal format for flash cards like CDs, so you'd have different manufacturers supporting different cards and you'd end up with no market. hard drive head units have a much brighter future than anything flash based.

AcquaCow,
I hear you 100%. I have 80GB HD enclosed in a USB-driven external case. I use it to take my mp3's to work and back. It would be so sweet if I could plug it into my HU and have 7000 songs at my disposal.

Auxilarry inputs are ok if you have a high-capacity player. But you pay $300 for a 20GB player, or $50 for a 200GB external USB hard drive?

Plus, with a usb input, you can leave all the sound eq controls in the capable hands of your HU, instead of a mp3 player the size of my pinky finger!

There is DEFINITELY a market for usb inputs. Is it really that big of a deal to put a usb host controller in a HU? C'mon! Gimme!

We are building (and selling) an in car computer that fits right into a single DIN slot. It supports both USB and Firewire up front. Runs off of Windows XP and has it's own "Media Center" software on there as well.

We are offering a few units below cost to get some excitement built up. They will require an in dash screen.

Please PM me for more information.

-Matt

www.mp3car.com

check out the forums
As soon as nano itx comes out, I begin work on my mp3/navi/pc system.

I thought Clarion made one a while back called the Joyride that had compact flash..........