jhr3uva90

I received "The Girl in the Other Room" DualDisc for my birthday and the DVD side actually works in the RL! This is my first DualDisc where there is a DVD-A side. "Kind of Blue" was a great album, but did not work because its surround sound is in SACD format.

Has anyone else bought any DualDiscs with DVD-A that works in Acuras?

Tommy_boy

Rob Thomas Dual Dsc wrks great.

vp911

Yup. One of my favorite dvd-a discs.

jhr3uva90

So, do you all think the DualDisc/DVA-Audio format will survive?

vp911

Yes. With more manufacturers putting the technology in their cars, I think it will. I think lexus and infiniti both have the tech in some of their cars, don't they?

jhr3uva90

The optional Mark Levinson system in the Lexus GS definitely supports DVD-A as well as DVD-V. I think the top-of-the-line audio system in the Infiniti M has similar support, although it is with a separate single-disc player in the armrest as opposed to the in-dash changer.

Nocturnal

It's a nice feature to have but with limited software availability it's of no particular interest to me. I went to the 5.1 site and tried to pick a disk (the freebee that comes with the car) and out of 91 titles there weren't many that interested me.

I would gladly give up the 5.1 for a built in harddisk based MP3/WMA player. Or at least an aux jack in the armrest or somewhere. I sure got spoiled with my MP3 player hookup.

jhr3uva90

Well, Acura and Apple are supposed to work together to incorporate iPods into the cars. I hope that those changes can be retrofitted.

kgd

If you burn MP3's to a CD-R you can get over 700 songs using the 6 disks. They sound very good and are easy to Navigate. Not quite as great as a built in hard disk player. I currently use two MP3 disk that have about 250 songs and the others I keep DVD-A's in. I have really not had much of a desire for more music options than that so far.

jhr3uva90

Yeah, one of the reasons why I bought the RL is because it plays MP3's in the CD changer. It might be the only car I know of that does that straight from the factory.

Nocturnal

MP3 playback from CDs is pretty common these days. Subaru has it on their high end Outbacks, Mustangs in the GT (other models possibly as well). I really don't understand why the RL radio can't read MP3s from DVD, that's a little weak. It has all the pieces, just misses a few lines of software to make it happen.

I will of course burn a bunch of mp3 CDs. It would just be so much easier if you could sync your car with your PC. You buy a new CD, rip it and sync it to your car. Presto. I wonder when the first car with Wifi will come out? Now that would be sweet. Add a few MB of flash to the nav system for incremental updates (with subscription, sigh) and you're really cooking.

jhr3uva90

That's really interesting. Mustangs, etc. can play MP3's while more expensive Lexus GS's, BMW 5 Series etc. cannot. I wonder why that is?

Nocturnal

I didn't know 5s and GSs can't play MP3s. That's pretty lame. There's really no excuse for a car manufacturer not to have this feature. It's cheap/trivial to add when you leave out fancy features. Simply show the track number on the display, forget about the tags. I don't think you can even buy an after market car-CD player anymore that doesn't support MP3/WMA. For a while I thought about retrofitting one in my S but that would have required quite a bit of work as it's a double DIN unit. Of course in the RL there's no way it can be done. And no need IMO :-)

jhr3uva90

I don't think the Mercedes E-class can, either. Drivers of those types of cars don't seem to care about electronics. That's a shame. Hell, the 5 Series and the A6 still have CD changers in the glove compartment that cost extra. At least the 2006 Infiniti M finally lets you play MP3's in the CD changer.

A few friends of mine have spent this afternoon extolling the virtues of BMW. Not once have they mentioned anything like MP3 or satellite radio. I don't think BMW owners really care.

vp911

There is a reason I decided not to get the 5 series over the RL. It was primarily because of the lack of the features. Sure, it is a fun car to drive, but the interior looked like an old car with no flow to the dash. The RL just looks great and has all the features I wanted: bluetooth, XM, mp3 and a good navi.

Nocturnal

Well it's probably true that German cars traditionally are 'drivers' cars and Japanese ones are 'gadget' cars. The lines are blurring a bit but I do notice little things in the RL that re-affirms it. I mean how long did it take before German cars got cup holders? You *drive* down the autobahn, no time to drink or eat. Man, how I wish I could take the RL there. If you've never driven there I can tell you it's an experience. You can be doing 90 Mi/h and some fool will come flying in at 110 or faster, flashing his lights and signal light firmly fixed to 'pass'. Fun but dangerous.

Nocturnal

Oh yeah, looked at some Verizon BT phones today. The E815 seems an obvious choice although that new LG VX9800 looks pretty nice. It has BT but not yet certified by Acura. E815 is but no data link. Maybe that's hackable. Apparently you can tweak these phones to enable stuff that Verizon disabled. Gotta love kids with lots of time on their hands

vp911

I can only imagine the joy of driving on the autobahn. I would probably be a little scared to do so at first, but would be an experience.

vp911

I think we all got a little off topic in this thread already. But, as far as the phone - yes the e815 works fine with the BT in the RL. I have it. You can also enable DUN for use with the data link (there is a thread on it somewhere here) I am thinking about trying out that new samsung phone, the sch-a950 - the BT is supposed to work flawlessly with the RL also.