[TSX] Project: Drive + Play
10-20-2005, 10:23 PM
#1
Racer
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: New Orleans
Age: 41
Posts: 406
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
[TSX] Project: Drive + Play
So my harman/kardon Drive+Play arrived today... for those of you that don't know what this is, check here: http://www.harmankardon.com/drive-1/default.aspx
I don't have too many impressions just yet. Unfortunately, after a series of bumpy roads, the screws holding my amp in in the trunk were torn out (or came lose), causing things to jostle around and various wires getting yanked out ... so i can't actually hear anything from my stereo, ipod or other...
But that didn't stop me from sloppily plugging it in and just playing around for a bit.
The display is bright and sharp .. white backlight and black text. You can invert this for black on white, but there's still a white border around this, so it looks stupid.
You can customize what is shown on the main menu, much like the ipod .. so I removed "FM Settings" and "Albums" and "Songs". I like it cleaner that way .. just leaving Now Playing, Artists, Genre, and Settings. Props to h/k for carrying over this from the iPod
Interface speed isn't as liquid smooth as an iPod, but there isn't a huge lag either. No points awarded or deducted here, hehe. The only slow down is with text scrolling. You have the option of a normal size font (about a 14pt font), or a large font (maybe a 24...30pt font?). The large font is of course more legible (not that the small one isn't), but then you need to enable the optional text scroll setting. Here is the problem, it's slow. You'll see something like .. "Radioh" then 1 or 2 seconds later "adiohe" then two seconds later "diohea" .. then two seconds later "diohead". That's a bit of an exageration, as it'll display half characters, but the one character at a time with 1-2 second delay is just really pokey and annoying. So either embrace the smaller size font, or get used to seeing truncated large fonts titles.
Now on to the knob. The single greatest feature about the knob is that the blue led light around it is the exact same shade of blue that makes up the TSX mood lighting. I held the knob up to the light in the dome, and they looked practically identical!
You can mount the knob at 3 angles. 0, 30 and 60 degrees. I'm planning on mounting the knob on the front wall of the armrest ... the perpendicular area between the cupholders and armrest. I recomend either the 0 or 60 degree plate for this location. With the 30 degree plate, it makes you bend your hand a bit awkwardly, and protrudes far enough to bump into a snapple bottle in the cupholder. The 0 degree plate looks the best, as it looks like this knob protruding straight out from the front of the armrest. This does required you to bend your hand almost 90 degrees at the pivot point of the front of the arm rest padding area. I thought it would be weirder than it actually felt, it didn't feel too bad .. a little awkward, but i got used to it within a minute. My favorite though was the 60 degree plate, which brings the knob closest to a 90 degree angle .. thus making your hand bend less. Hard to describe, but pictures soon.
The knob feels great. It doesn't spin completely like your finger does on an iPod wheel, it kinds spins 90 degrees and then snaps back to 0, in either direction. For a car, this feels better. The click wheel buttons are also mapped to buttons on the front of the knob, and you can press in on the knob face to click/select.
The main control module that everythign plugs into fits easily into the lower armrest bin, which is great since there is a power socket in there. Speaking of power adapters, you are given 2 plugs. One terminates to a cigarette lighter plug, and the other cable terminates to constant/switched/ground wires. So you can pick how and where you want to power this thing from.
Here's a link to some initial pictures i took of the thing .. unfortunately all i got is a cameraphone since Katrina wrecked my real digital camera ... what was I thinking leaving it by the window, doh! http://www.flickr.com/photos/vasu/sets/1180726/
I hope to install it this weekend, and i'll post more impressions along the way if possible
I don't have too many impressions just yet. Unfortunately, after a series of bumpy roads, the screws holding my amp in in the trunk were torn out (or came lose), causing things to jostle around and various wires getting yanked out ... so i can't actually hear anything from my stereo, ipod or other...
But that didn't stop me from sloppily plugging it in and just playing around for a bit.
The display is bright and sharp .. white backlight and black text. You can invert this for black on white, but there's still a white border around this, so it looks stupid.
You can customize what is shown on the main menu, much like the ipod .. so I removed "FM Settings" and "Albums" and "Songs". I like it cleaner that way .. just leaving Now Playing, Artists, Genre, and Settings. Props to h/k for carrying over this from the iPod
Interface speed isn't as liquid smooth as an iPod, but there isn't a huge lag either. No points awarded or deducted here, hehe. The only slow down is with text scrolling. You have the option of a normal size font (about a 14pt font), or a large font (maybe a 24...30pt font?). The large font is of course more legible (not that the small one isn't), but then you need to enable the optional text scroll setting. Here is the problem, it's slow. You'll see something like .. "Radioh" then 1 or 2 seconds later "adiohe" then two seconds later "diohea" .. then two seconds later "diohead". That's a bit of an exageration, as it'll display half characters, but the one character at a time with 1-2 second delay is just really pokey and annoying. So either embrace the smaller size font, or get used to seeing truncated large fonts titles.
Now on to the knob. The single greatest feature about the knob is that the blue led light around it is the exact same shade of blue that makes up the TSX mood lighting. I held the knob up to the light in the dome, and they looked practically identical!
You can mount the knob at 3 angles. 0, 30 and 60 degrees. I'm planning on mounting the knob on the front wall of the armrest ... the perpendicular area between the cupholders and armrest. I recomend either the 0 or 60 degree plate for this location. With the 30 degree plate, it makes you bend your hand a bit awkwardly, and protrudes far enough to bump into a snapple bottle in the cupholder. The 0 degree plate looks the best, as it looks like this knob protruding straight out from the front of the armrest. This does required you to bend your hand almost 90 degrees at the pivot point of the front of the arm rest padding area. I thought it would be weirder than it actually felt, it didn't feel too bad .. a little awkward, but i got used to it within a minute. My favorite though was the 60 degree plate, which brings the knob closest to a 90 degree angle .. thus making your hand bend less. Hard to describe, but pictures soon.
The knob feels great. It doesn't spin completely like your finger does on an iPod wheel, it kinds spins 90 degrees and then snaps back to 0, in either direction. For a car, this feels better. The click wheel buttons are also mapped to buttons on the front of the knob, and you can press in on the knob face to click/select.
The main control module that everythign plugs into fits easily into the lower armrest bin, which is great since there is a power socket in there. Speaking of power adapters, you are given 2 plugs. One terminates to a cigarette lighter plug, and the other cable terminates to constant/switched/ground wires. So you can pick how and where you want to power this thing from.
Here's a link to some initial pictures i took of the thing .. unfortunately all i got is a cameraphone since Katrina wrecked my real digital camera ... what was I thinking leaving it by the window, doh! http://www.flickr.com/photos/vasu/sets/1180726/
I hope to install it this weekend, and i'll post more impressions along the way if possible
10-31-2005, 09:21 PM
#5
Racer
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: New Orleans
Age: 41
Posts: 406
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
nope ... still haven't installed this yet! stupid weather up here and the shortening sun time has made it tricky to get done. I also wanted to remount the display in the compartment, and I also wanted to dremel out a hole in my not an ashtray for a sirius starbase controller. Finally got these 2 compartments done and looking the way I want:
as you can see, instead of using the included mounting base for the display module and just using contact cement to glue it onto the rubber mat inside the cd bin, i cut a sheet of plastic around it and screwed the display into the sheet .. and L brackets support the plastic sheet from behind.
as you can see, instead of using the included mounting base for the display module and just using contact cement to glue it onto the rubber mat inside the cd bin, i cut a sheet of plastic around it and screwed the display into the sheet .. and L brackets support the plastic sheet from behind.
Last edited by vasu; 10-31-2005 at 09:23 PM.
10-31-2005, 09:34 PM
#6
Moderator
Regional Coordinator (Southeast)
Regional Coordinator (Southeast)
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Mooresville, NC
Age: 38
Posts: 43,555
Received 3,755 Likes
on
2,536 Posts
Originally Posted by vasu
nope ... still haven't installed this yet! stupid weather up here and the shortening sun time has made it tricky to get done. I also wanted to remount the display in the compartment, and I also wanted to dremel out a hole in my not an ashtray for a sirius starbase controller. Finally got these 2 compartments done and looking the way I want:
as you can see, instead of using the included mounting base for the display module and just using contact cement to glue it onto the rubber mat inside the cd bin, i cut a sheet of plastic around it and screwed the display into the sheet .. and L brackets support the plastic sheet from behind.
as you can see, instead of using the included mounting base for the display module and just using contact cement to glue it onto the rubber mat inside the cd bin, i cut a sheet of plastic around it and screwed the display into the sheet .. and L brackets support the plastic sheet from behind.
11-10-2005, 02:27 PM
#7
Racer
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: New Orleans
Age: 41
Posts: 406
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
well i finally got it installed, here's a crappy cell phone camera picture until i can borrow my friend's camera again .. should have better pictures up tonight or tomorrow.
It works great and sounds great too, apart from the ground loop i'm getting since i'm using the cig light plug in the armrest, hopefully a gli will clean it up enough.
I drove around for a while and used it, and you get used to it real quick. The biggest gripe i have is in menu behavior. On an iPod, when you're at the Now Playing screen and hit the menu buttonm it, it takes you back a level to whatever list you were prior (whether that be the songs of an album/arist, or a playlist). If you hit menu again, it takes a level higher, until you get to the main menu. Even when you go to the main menu, when you click on artists, it takes you down to the name of what you're playing. For example, if you're playing a Beck song, and go all the way up to the main menu, and then click Artists, it highlights Beck, and if you click select, it takes you to the album of the song you're playing .. this is good it reduces excessive scrolling, which is important when you have thousands (or tens of thousands) of songs.
However, for some stupid reason, the Drive+Play doesn't follow this iPod behavior. When i was at the now playing screen and hit menu, it took me to the main menu, not up one level to the songs listing. And when i scrolled down and clicked on Artists, it didn't already have Beck focused on, it started at the top of the list! So if you're playing Beck and want to play Radiohead .. you're going to click menu, scroll down to artists, click, scroll down a lot to radiohead (you can customize the speed at which it skips through the menu), click, then click the album you want, click, and the song you want, click.
On an iPod if you were listening to Beck and wanted to play Radiohead, you'd click menu, scroll quickly with your thumb down to radiohead, and click a coupel more times and be done with it .. a lot less clicking and scrolling to be done.
So in short, the Drive+Play looks great, sounds great, and mostly functions great. If you're mainly playing an album at a time, or a playlist at a time, you'll have no problems with this thing, it'll be great. If you like to hunt and peck and pick songs on the go, then it'll be a little cumbersome.
So couple this nitpick with the qualms i had about title scroll speed, and I give this thing a B+. Hopefully this thing has some flashable rom and H/K decide to finetune the menu behavior.
-vasu
It works great and sounds great too, apart from the ground loop i'm getting since i'm using the cig light plug in the armrest, hopefully a gli will clean it up enough.
I drove around for a while and used it, and you get used to it real quick. The biggest gripe i have is in menu behavior. On an iPod, when you're at the Now Playing screen and hit the menu buttonm it, it takes you back a level to whatever list you were prior (whether that be the songs of an album/arist, or a playlist). If you hit menu again, it takes a level higher, until you get to the main menu. Even when you go to the main menu, when you click on artists, it takes you down to the name of what you're playing. For example, if you're playing a Beck song, and go all the way up to the main menu, and then click Artists, it highlights Beck, and if you click select, it takes you to the album of the song you're playing .. this is good it reduces excessive scrolling, which is important when you have thousands (or tens of thousands) of songs.
However, for some stupid reason, the Drive+Play doesn't follow this iPod behavior. When i was at the now playing screen and hit menu, it took me to the main menu, not up one level to the songs listing. And when i scrolled down and clicked on Artists, it didn't already have Beck focused on, it started at the top of the list! So if you're playing Beck and want to play Radiohead .. you're going to click menu, scroll down to artists, click, scroll down a lot to radiohead (you can customize the speed at which it skips through the menu), click, then click the album you want, click, and the song you want, click.
On an iPod if you were listening to Beck and wanted to play Radiohead, you'd click menu, scroll quickly with your thumb down to radiohead, and click a coupel more times and be done with it .. a lot less clicking and scrolling to be done.
So in short, the Drive+Play looks great, sounds great, and mostly functions great. If you're mainly playing an album at a time, or a playlist at a time, you'll have no problems with this thing, it'll be great. If you like to hunt and peck and pick songs on the go, then it'll be a little cumbersome.
So couple this nitpick with the qualms i had about title scroll speed, and I give this thing a B+. Hopefully this thing has some flashable rom and H/K decide to finetune the menu behavior.
-vasu
Trending Topics
I love HK!
11-10-2005, 03:48 PM
#9
Rep'n Taxbrain.com
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: N. Cali-forn-i-a
Age: 44
Posts: 7,075
Likes: 0
Received 3 Likes
on
3 Posts
Thanks for the info man. That's the best Ipod interface I've seen yet.
I hope they come out with one that has a video out and works with the Ipod Video.
I hope they come out with one that has a video out and works with the Ipod Video.
11-11-2005, 05:16 AM
#11
Racer
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: New Orleans
Age: 41
Posts: 406
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally Posted by Tsx536
Can you still control the Ipod and browse for songs while it's plugged into the harman/kardon Drive+Play?
But no, the interface is not available.
If I had one wish for the Drive+Play it would be that the display module had a high rez color display like the ipod and could show album artwork and have a smooth/crisp interface closer to that of the ipod.
-vasu
11-12-2005, 06:14 PM
#12
Racer
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: New Orleans
Age: 41
Posts: 406
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
ok everyone here are the final pictures!
before
after! display module mounted in cd cubby bin with plastic sheet border
2nd compartment with Sirus Starbase controller
that's how it looks at night
control knob; it has to be that high and off center for the cupholder lid to clear it
blue ring around knob
before
after! display module mounted in cd cubby bin with plastic sheet border
2nd compartment with Sirus Starbase controller
that's how it looks at night
control knob; it has to be that high and off center for the cupholder lid to clear it
blue ring around knob
11-12-2005, 07:45 PM
#14
Racer
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: New Orleans
Age: 41
Posts: 406
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
there's an aux in on the Drive+Play core box, you can toggle one of two ways. Either scroll down to Settings from the main menu and click Aux Input, or enable auto sense aux input mode, which auto switchies to the aux source when turned on. since i leave my sirius on all the time, i have this disabled. you could use the auto mode to have it such that when you turn the aux source off, it goes back to ipod
-vasu
-vasu
11-12-2005, 08:41 PM
#15
Moderator
Regional Coordinator (Southeast)
Regional Coordinator (Southeast)
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Mooresville, NC
Age: 38
Posts: 43,555
Received 3,755 Likes
on
2,536 Posts
sweet install man.
11-13-2005, 02:32 AM
#16
Instructor
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: bay Area
Age: 39
Posts: 223
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Can you use the steering wheel controls with this? I'm tempted to sell my ice link plus and get this instead. Is your ipod behind the lcd display? How easy would it be for a passenger to flip through the playlist and change songs with your current installation. Thanks!
11-13-2005, 05:52 AM
#17
Racer
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: New Orleans
Age: 41
Posts: 406
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally Posted by dailo
Can you use the steering wheel controls with this? I'm tempted to sell my ice link plus and get this instead. Is your ipod behind the lcd display? How easy would it be for a passenger to flip through the playlist and change songs with your current installation. Thanks!
but i'll be nice and go through it one more time. You use the knob for all interface controlling, so no, steering wheel controls will not work.
that said, the location where i put my control knob is just as good, cause most of the time i drive with my right arm on the arm rest, and the knob is right there to manipulate (hey take sentence out of context, hehe).
There's several feet of cable coming out of the LCD module, and knob, so you can mount them pretty much anywhere, and then mount the actual central electronics box anywhere. In my center armrest, you'll find the box that everything plugs into, and my ipod is in there as well. There's a cable running from the LCD to the central box, it's just running behind the compartment, under the cupholder area, and into the lower armrest. You could place your ipod anywhere within a couple feet of the central electronics box, which can in turn be placed anywhere within 6 feet of the LCD and knob.
As far as ease for the passenger, they just need to place their left arm on the armrest, and the knob is within reach for them to manipulate, although I think i noticed one friend of mine reaching over with right hand. Since most people are right handed, it might be awkward for a passenger to control things with their left hand, but it shouldn't be that big of a deal.
11-14-2005, 02:06 AM
#18
Instructor
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: bay Area
Age: 39
Posts: 223
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Thanks for the reply. Guess I read through your first post too quickly to get all the details ... decisions decisions, I think I might have to spring for this, the LCD screen is pretty convient. Right now with my ice link I rely on my playlists and shuffle. I end up hitting the next track often. Thanks for the excellent write up!
... decisions decisions, I think I might have to spring for this, the LCD screen is pretty convient. Right now with my ice link I rely on my playlists and shuffle. I end up hitting the next track often. Thanks for the excellent write up!
11-17-2005, 01:32 PM
#20
Racer
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: New Orleans
Age: 41
Posts: 406
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
i used the rca plugs. the sound quality is really great, though I have a bad case of noise since i'm using the cig lighter port in the arm rest, which is really poorly grounded. No radioshack in boston (where i'm living temporarily) knows what a ground loop isolator is, nor do they stock it in store once I show them a picture and provide them a part number. I bet radioshack in hurricane ravaged new orleans (where i'll be next week for thanksgiving) will have one though. stupid stupid radioshack.
But yeah, sound quality is great, as long as the power input is clean
-vasu
But yeah, sound quality is great, as long as the power input is clean
-vasu
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
divac
5G TLX Tires, Wheels & Suspension
16
08-29-2018 10:13 AM
TLDude876
Car Talk
134
12-28-2016 03:18 PM