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Topic: OGG in Car Audio Source Units (Read 6202 times) previous topic - next topic
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OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Hey guys, I've been searching for this for a while, but are there any devices such as source units for cars that allow ogg playback, I know that kenwood has its 10gb unit that will encode ogg but not play them back.  Any that I havent heard of, because I would really prefer to use ogg in car as it is a much better form of compression (IMO) than MP3 or WMA, which are the only other two formats I've seen to be supported in car.  Thanks.

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #1 –
If you can find an empeg player (out of production now) there is a software update for ogg.

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #2 –
The Kenwood Jukebox supports FLAC as well ... and personally, I do not see any advantrages of vorbis over lame mp3 in a car stereo system.
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #3 –
Ogg allows for much more compression than LAME MP3 whilst retaining the same quality, allowing me to fit more songs onto one CD, and when you listen to metallica like me and there are about 10 ablums, it would be nice to fit them all on a CD, but thanks anyway.

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #4 –
I too am interested in a car cd player that will play ogg.

MP3 is nice, but all of my cd's have been encoded to ogg already, and I really don't feel like ripping and encoding 600+ cd's to mp3 format when I could find a player that supports ogg.

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #6 –
Quote
I have a Phatbox that will play Ogg.  The kenwood musickeg will also play Ogg.  See the Phatnoise forums for more info: http://www.phatnoise.com/forum/index.php

Hey, a familiar face! 


Concerning the advantages of Ogg Vorbis over MP3 (in my opinion), two words:  gapless playback.

Very important for me, personally, when deciding on a format for my car system (as well as for my home system).  Although I currently use FLAC exclusively on my 60 GB Music Keg, I've used Ogg Vorbis on it as well.

If anyone needs it, I've written a procedure document for configuring the Phatbox/Music Keg to play Ogg Vorbis, as well as the steps for encoding and file transfer.  It's linked in my sig in the PhatNoise forums (as well as the FLAC encoding/transfer procedure).

PhatNoise Music Manager doesn't encode Vorbis gaplessly, at the moment, so in this thread I've given an alternate procedure to correct this.  Although, most people in HA probably use the reference encoder(s) anyway, so for them this particular issue is moot.

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #7 –
Scorlibran,

I was compelled to be here by your propaganda machine in the Phatbox forums!

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #8 –
One of these would be amazing if the thing didn't have to go in one's trunk and if they weren't so expensive!  What would be nice is to have a head unit to plug a hard drive cartridge into, you know, instead of having a cd player behind the head unit display, have a spot for a hard drive cartridge there.

The reason for the current configuration I would guess is because people don't want to give up their cd playability.  I wouldn't mind giving mine up at all, as I have all my music encoded.

Man, wouldn't it be amazing if I could just plug my Rio Karma into a dock in the car (the current dock doesn't really fit very well in a cup holder or ANYTHING) and gain full control of the player at the head unit or at the steering wheel.

Anyone know of any other Ogg Vorbis compatible hardware for the car that might do the trick?
WARNING:  Changing of advanced parameters might degrade sound quality.  Modify them only if you are expirienced in audio compression!

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #9 –
Quote
One of these would be amazing if the thing didn't have to go in one's trunk


Why wouldn't you want it in the trunk?  The Phatbox is controlled with my head unit and steering wheel controls using the SSA intereface.  It has 60GB of memory, so you would not have to pull it out unless you were going to add new music or used the cartridge to play music at work.  I would also guess (Scorlibran could correct me if I am wrong) that the kenwood music keg could be mounted anywhere.  I prefer having it in the trunk because theives would never know that I have the thing installed.  If you look around you could probably find a good deal on a keg.

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #10 –
So these things are protected enough to leave in the trunk?  My trunk gets VERY hot, and is not climate controlled when I am driving either.  I would NOT want to leave a hard drive sitting in there in the heat, OR in the cold.  So, that requires me to remove it every time I leave my car.
WARNING:  Changing of advanced parameters might degrade sound quality.  Modify them only if you are expirienced in audio compression!

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #11 –
I think this has been addressed in the Phatbox forums, but I live in Memphis and never bring the cartridge in unless I am updating something.  I have had zero problems in extreme heat.  I am not sure about what happens when it gets really cold, but I have never brought it in for the weather.

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #12 –
I live in Georgia (US), where the summer days hit 100 degrees F quite often.  I've left my DMS (Digital Media Storage...the HD cartridge) in my Music Keg, which is mounted in my trunk, during such times and I've never had a problem.

It's definitely true that hard drives in general don't like extreme temperature conditions, but I believe the DMS is rated for some fairly extreme temperatures.  (I'll look up the exact numbers.)

Some people have reported problems with their DMS in extremely cold conditions (until it warmed up a little), but I've never had a problem with mine personally down to about 20 degrees F.

The DMS has actually become the center of all my music systems, home and car, since it supports all the formats I use, is portable, and stores more than my PC's internal hard drive.  And the Kenwood Music Keg can indeed be mounted anywhere in the car you like, and the new Kegs/Phatboxes they're coming out with soon (shown at CES) look to be smaller, and might even be close to DIN-sized.  If that's the case, an in-dash mount could be possible.  (The new ones will have 802.11g wireless support as well, for remote music uploads/downloads, lowering the priority of where it's physically located in the car since you would never have to pull the DMS out of it.)

Concerning head units with hard drives, I've seen a Sony (last year) with an integrated 10 GB drive, but the drive itself wasn't removable from the head unit.  I believe it could simply copy music from an inserted CD (but I'm not sure of that part).

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #13 –
Good to know.  I WOULD like to see the temp. ratings, but I am glad to know that that from a reliable source that they have been safe.  One of these will DEFINATELY be in consideration of mine once I get a new car to put one in.  I have all my Vorbis music literally ready to drag to one, lol.
WARNING:  Changing of advanced parameters might degrade sound quality.  Modify them only if you are expirienced in audio compression!

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #14 –
Quote
Good to know.  I WOULD like to see the temp. ratings, but I am glad to know that that from a reliable source that they have been safe.  One of these will DEFINATELY be in consideration of mine once I get a new car to put one in.  I have all my Vorbis music literally ready to drag to one, lol.

One thing to be aware of...

The Tremor libs modifed for the Phatbox/Music Keg for Vorbis decoding can only reliably decode music encoded with Vorbis v1.0 or v1.01 at -q 5.  Any bitrate spikes higher than about 275kbps will cause skipping and pitch distortion because of limited processor speed and memory (ARM 74MHz, 32 MB RAM).  Buffer underruns are the culprit.

The new Phatbox/Keg models coming out will have a faster CPU (and I think more memory as well), and PhatNoise claims they will be able to decode Vorbis at higher bitrates.

So if you encode with anything higher than non-GT3b1 at -q 5, or GT3b1 at about -q 4.25 to 4.5, then you should wait for the newer models of players to come out.


Edit: The operating temperature range of the Phatbox and Music Keg, as quoted from a PhatNoise employee...

"The PhatBox and Kenwood Music Keg can operate at a temperature range between -20 and 70 degrees C. If the climate where you're at gets even colder than this, the PhatBox may take longer to start up in the morning, but eventually it will."

(-20 to 70 C = -4 to 158 F)

Here's the thread the quote was taken from... http://www.phatnoise.com/forum/showthread....ght=temperature

OGG in Car Audio Source Units

Reply #15 –
Great!

I encode at q5 GT3b1, and will probably wait till then anyway because I don't even have the car to put it in right now.

I like the part about:
Quote
802.11g wireless support as well, for remote music uploads/downloads

now THAT is handy.
WARNING:  Changing of advanced parameters might degrade sound quality.  Modify them only if you are expirienced in audio compression!