I know this is not a forum for iPOD users, but I have seen there are lots of people who use iPODS in their TL. Here is an interesting site for people who want to copy back songs from their iPOD to their Computer:

http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/software/podutil.php

 

You meant TLers link their iPOD to Navi screen and play music via TL's speakers? Or just use iPOD on the car?

 

I'm still waiting for Blitzsafe to come out with something that will allow us to use our Ipods via an aux-in without affecting the functionality of anything else.

 

I'd love to be able to play my iPod thru my car system. Does anyone know how to do this directly into the Navi computer and bypass the FM Belkin link that most people use?

 

Dude, do you mean to tell me that you can play MP3s from your iPOD in the Navi system?

Damn, I should have gotten Navi then, it actually has a purpose!

 

why wouldn't you get the nav?

 

Let's see. I believe someone will make this happen soon.

 

You can listen to your MPS in TL. Burn it on to a CD and tada.

I obviously don't know anything about the iPod, but will pay attention to this thread to see if that is posssible. It would be great to have access to all my MP3 w/o having all those CDs.

 

$2000.00 I could use elsewhere...

 

I usually know where I'm going. I only think it's worth it if you do alot of traveling out of your area. Otherwise it seems to be a "Look what I have" sort of thing that some people waste money on. I'll keep the 2K and pay 2 years of insurance. Just my .02

 

The nice thing about the iPod is the ease of selecting albums, songs, playlists etc. That convenience would be ruined by burning the stuff onto a CD, not to mention the loss of quality. Since my iPod contains almost all my CD collection, I just thought that it would be nice to take it along with out draging hundreds of jewel boxes with me. I doubt if the MP-3 is going to sound anywhere near as good as the DVD-A format in a TL, but it would be nice anyway.

 

You do realize that converting the MP3 that you have on the Ipod into a WAV file that you burn onto the CD results in no additional loss of quality?

The hit on quality occurs when you first compress the original WAV into MP3 (or another lossy format).

 

Lore, I think you are missing my point. I don't want to haul around a boatload of CD's if I could just carry my little iPod with me and just plug it into the car's system, I don't want to burn WAV files since I already have the original CD's of every song on my iPod except one that I purchased from iTunes...and the quality was so bad at 128bps, I never listen to it. I burn all my songs at a much higher rate, usually 256 or higher for some.

 

Have you heard of Griffin's Itrip? It's an FM transmitter like the Belkin, only it was engineered specifically for the Ipod, mounts directly on the top, taking up little space, and it has the ability to transmit over any FM frequency, not just the four that the Belkin does. This allows you to find the most empty frequency in your area. I love mine. Sure, the sound isn't as great as it would be if it were hard-wired, but it's sooooooooooo convenient. You don't even have to turn it on or off. Just hit play and it goes.

 

No, I got your point the first time, I just wanted to clarify for our not-so-MP3-technology-savvy readers didn't get the idea that converting MP3s to WAV and burning them to audio CDs decreases the quality even further.

 

fwiw, here in dallas the itrip is utterly useless as far down as 87.7 and all points higher. you simply won't find a frequency here that isn't either taken or right next to one that has serious enough bleed through that the itrip doesn't hook up well enough with the acura's tuner.

i dl'd the station finder from griffin's web site, and the majority of frequencies they id as available have full-on stations right on the frequency.

 

Alpine is the OEM of our navi systems and they are 100% behind creating interfaces for their products to the iPod. *But* according to my car stereo shop, no such solution currently exists to feed MP3's through an AUX that also has an integrated XM Radio.

God giveth, God taketh away...

 

Instead of using an FM trasnmitter, use a cassette adapter.

The 'cassette' has a mini-jack that you plug into your iPod. You get *much* better sound than with an FM transmitter and you don't have to keep searching for free stations.

I got one with a black cable to minimize clashing with the interior (i have ebony). I also got low profile car charger for the ipod (also black to minimize clashing, low profile so it fits flush.)

iPod then sits in the lower of the 2 comportments under the navi system. Stays out of the way and I have all 40GB's worth of my music available.

May get the cup holder but that really messes up the look of the interior.

Links:

Cassette adapter:
http://www.monstercable.com/computer...r.asp?pin=2182

Low profile car charger:
http://www.monstercable.com/computer...r.asp?pin=2132

Cup holder iPod mount:
http://www.theistore.com/belkintunedok.html

 

maecrispy- not great advice there buddy. A *hard wired* FM Modulator sounds 300x better than either the iTrip wireless or cassette tape solutions. The iTrip is suspect to FM radio drift and the cassette tape (you can't be serious) has lousy signal-to-noise characteristics and suffers from (get ready for it) wow & flutter. Holy Austin Powers, Batman!

Either go hard wire FM Modulation or do nothing; wait Alpine out for the integration you really want- touch screen folder navigation and ID3 support smack dab on your OEM Alpine TL Nav.

 

Agreed, I was not impressed by the cassette quality. So much that I've decided to burn to CD the music I want to listen to.

 

I suppose it just depends how much and to what lengths you're willing to go for your music.

It's true that anything I really want to listen to intently, I burn to CD.

Of course there will be those who'll go the hard wired FM route. For those who just want something cheap (<$20), quick, and easy, the casssette adapter is a decent alternative to hardwired FM and certainly better than wireless FM (drift, poor separation.)

 

here is an article about the new alpine interface. i think acura would have to upgrade the firmware on the audio software in order to support this. this seems to be a feature for new headunits.

Alpine Ipod

Picture of Unit

 

Since the sound equipment in the TL will play DVD audio, is there a way to burn normal music onto a DVD then play it in the TL? Since a DVD can hold around 3 gigs and a CD only 700 megs, I would assume you could put a lot more songs on a DVD to then play in your DVD player in the TL.

Actually, I'm surprised the TL doesn't have an mp3 player in it!

 

Yes -- DiscWelder can do that. The consumer version of that software is coming out on 3/31/04 for $99.

 

Lore,

Do you know if Discwelder will come in a Macintosh version?

 

lore/fotodad: While DVD's *can* hold many, many more songs than a basic CD-R, be advised that the upcoming DiscWelder solution is capped at a mere 99 songs. Sucks, but true.

 

They said, MP3 is not high quality sound, compared to DVD-A, so they went that route.


also if anybody wants a cheap portable FM transmitter for their iPOD, I found this one...


at : http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/64fb/

 

This looks good. No mention of integration to factory installed systems though.

Is our system proprietary for the most part?

 

well the audio portion of the system is made by panasonic but the navigation is made by alpine. i was big on alpine stereo products on my last car and everything was able to be integrated via their ai-net cable. there were seperate modules that could be purchased to add additional components. the only thing about our car is the fact that there is no aux input for both the audio and the video. i would imagine that in order to integrate we would need to have an aux input and video to display the title and artist info. i have written to alpine and they said its too new of a product and they do not have any answers.

 

Not quite- All my music is uncompressed wave files, each song about 30+ meg. This is true cd quality and I have 1 Tera bite of drive to store. If you take an MP3, even at 330 compression and convert it to wave you will not have CD quality as 330 is not CD quality to start with. If you burn an uncompressed wave file (bot fo bit copy) to a CD then it is as good as the original. There is an udible difference of the best MP3 file when compared to a uncompresed wave file- just not as noticable on a cheap set of head phones or inexpensive stereo.

 

As far as I know, Minnetonka Audio (the company that developed DiscWelder) is a Windows only shop.

 

Here's a source that may provide a solution:

http://densionusa.com/merchant/merch..._Code=IA_Honda

Another one, less of a kit, is:

http://www.logjamelectronics.com/snhond3navinst.html

I have not used either, but have been looking for a good solution. Am currently using Belkin components with my 20GB iPod, with the cassette adapter. It's an acceptable solution, but we need an integrated solution. An aux-in jack in the faceplate would be good, along with a programming interface so the NAVI display shows the iPod info would be nice. 20GB and no CDs (DVD-A only) is pretty nice.