I am writing my own car computer or CarPC software. There is no definite name for it but I intend to have the following features: . Touch Screen . iPod playback . DVD, MP3, AVI, WMV and all Win XP formats . Navigation . Rear view camera If anyone wouldnt mind helping out trying my programs, that be great.
I am almost done coding my iPod player. It has the following features . Play songs from your iPod . Save/Load custom made playlists (not iTunes playlists) . Save your favourite songs to your harddrive (prolly C:\iPOD_TEMP) . Choose songs by Album or Artist I have not added an "Upload songs to iPod" since iPod needs the songs to be load from iTunes only. The program does not look very fancy since I am only testing if the library for the iPod is working. I will put the installer to download in the next week. If anyone can download and try it and give me feedback on the bugs that exist, that will be great. Do not worry, your PC will not get a virus or crash, my program may crash but thats the reason why I am hoping you guys can help me out.
Unfortunately no MAC version. I am coding my stuff using Microsft Visual Studio .NET, hence it will run only on a Win XP/ .NET enviroment. I do know how to program stuff on mac, as far I know Windows is the best wasy to go for Multimedia stuff, mac has their own advantages too. But if you can emulate the program on your mac, then :bigthumb: :jerk:
Whoa windows better than Apple for multimedia?!?!?! Thats something I've never heard of before. That sounds really cool that you're doing all of this and I wish you luck.
Eitherway I do not have the SDK to develop stuff for MAC, I run Win XP with Windows SDK so thats how I'll be going.
regardless, the media center like enviorment is one of the better options for a media based entertainment computer (hence its creation). We'll be testing it with other mp3 players as well (Dell DJ, etc).
i've worked with both for over 10yrs, developing everything from print to multimedia. apple was better before the P4 chipset came along... now the architecture used for P4/Video rendering is equal to that of what apple puts out. (for example, final fantasy-the movie, was created and rendered on a team of DELLs) now... user experience architecture and product design on the other hand... is quite another thing sorry, couldn't help myself
Had severe graphics card overheating problems entire last week. iPod player is almost done, will have a download up by sunday-mondayish.
:bowdown: If you ever need any .NET help, give me a shout. I develop .NET web applications Mon-Fri...yes, I geek out. :bigthumb:
I'm a graphic designer and have been working with Macs for well over 10 years. I must say that Macs kick ass. But I'm partial. I mostly design for print. Some web design. But haven't designed any multimedia. Seems like it would be fun thou. Anyway hope this turns out for ya, sounds very cool. BTW, I love my iPod. Can't live without it! -drums
iPod player is ready. Will put it up for download in the next day or two. Since this is the first build there may be some bugs, thats why I need you guys feedback. It is not very fancy looking since my objective was just to perfect the library running the entire program. I have a 40GB G4 iPod hence my program is kinda tailored towards that, I am guessing the others should work too unless Apple has some different method of placing the music files. If your iPod is connected and not being detected by the program: 1. You just connected your iPod to your PC, give it a few secs to detect and configure itself 2. You may need to enable the "Enable Hard Disk" option in iTunes. The first time you run this program, it may take a while to loadup all the files. I am working on a more efficient file loading/locating algorithm. Once that is ready, I will put the new build to download too.
I doubt this will work with the Dell cause I have written to code to search for files in the way iTunes places them in the iPod. I will be making another player that will handle external USB/Firewire drives too.
Here is the download. I doubt it should cause any problems to your PC since I dont play with Windows registry or delete any files. The first time you search for your iPod, it may take a min or less (wokring on a more efficient search routine). However for my own safety I will say:- I am not responsible for any damage that may be caused to your computer by installing this program. Please remember that you are installing this program at your own risk. Now that the formalities are through, enjoy.......
This site does not allow me to upload anything more than 100K, my setup is 350K, will figure out another way.
Here are some pics. I took my mold to the body shop to have them color match the dash and it looks OEM now.
that custom mount looks great amol! My screen bezel is coming in next week, so we should have a carPC meet then to show off our installs. I will post pictures on my blog thread of the auto power on mod i am doing currently for the laptop docking station(it's an RC delay circuit). So you wrote the software for front end? That's hardcore. Good job.
No, I did not make the front end. I was in the process of making my own but research and classwork has really killed my time. However, it is running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and I am really happy with it. The only sucky thing is that you cannot FWD and RWD divxs and xvids. You can skip like 30 secs at a time but you cannot drop the time bar so I am trying to working with MS tech to get an update on that. Also the GPS works sweet, should have taken a pic of that. I currently have a 80GB high shock laptop drive. I am putting Music, movies, GPS and lots of ATQF, Birdman, Seinfeld, Raymond etc. Yeh buddy....:wavey::wavey::wavey:
last week i tweaked my laptop to hell and it's now running XP with RoadRunner. I was able to add in voice commands and an N64 emulator, so those are some pretty sweet features, plus the music and movies operate fairly well. In that respect it's not as good as frodoplayer, might switch back to that. to dyno day!
So could I potentially use my laptop as a car pc with an inverter running and a lilliput touch screen. I think the foot print is plenty small to fit under the seat. Is there some type of adapter I could hardwire for the powersupply? This would certainly allow me some flexability....
For GPS I am using Microsoft Streets and Trip 2005. It is $129.99 w/ USB GPS unit retail. I think it is better than street atlast because the SA UI looks like something out of Win 3.1
I dont see why not. Thing tho that laptops run on Pentiums or AMDs which are high power CPUs that heat up alot. Even centrinos get pretty hot compared to VIA chips. So breathing ability should be taken into consideration. Besides that all you need to figure out is the power ratings of your DC adaptor (e.g. 12V 2000mA) and build a basic PSU unit that will work accordingly. I think laptops run 12V, dont know about the current ratings.
Keep in mind that the regulation of the PC power supply is quite good, compared to the dc voltage that your car puts out. -- Brian
That looks impressive. Maybe someday I'll try something like this. First I must do speakers and a sub.
Yes Voltage regulation is good and required. You will probably need to put a inline voltage regulator or capacitor(s) to smoothen the signal out. Besides, the DC input iwll provide add on power over the laptop battery so some minor fluctuations in the input will be controlled by the SMPS's at the DC in (or maybe in the adaptor, will need to look into that). Besides that I have ordered my custom made circuit board from ExpressPCB that will handle the 12V smooth signal to my screen and 5V 3A signal to the USB devices. Getting the parts from Digikey over the weekend.