Frequently Asked Questions

What is MP3? MP3 is one of the latest forms a sound file can come in on your PC. In the old school we used to use WAVE (*.wav) files to record sounds. That was all fine and good, except that if you wanted to record cd-quality music (16-bit stereo @ 44kHz), you'd be using from 9 to 14 megabytes per minute of digital audio. That's the same format a compact disk uses. Do the math and you'll quickly see why a regular audio CD can only hold about 74 minutes of music (they can only hold 650MB of data). MP3 Compression brings that 9-14MB/min down to about ONE meg a minute. So not only can you fit a whole lot more tunes in the same space, you can do it with very little compromise in sound quality. Catch is, you can't play mp3s in a standard audio CD player. But that high compression rate with negligible loss in quality is why MP3 has taken off in the internet community. People can now download entire albums in 60-80MB chunks instead of the old 500-700MB chunks that a WAV file would have required. In the car audio scene, this is great, because we can fit more of our music on one disk (witness the new lines of in-dash CDR MP3 players and handheld portables). At home, it's the same thing. I myself have all my favorite CDs encoded into MP3 on my PC, so I dont even use my cd player anymore. I just cue up whatever genre I'm in the mood for and I have the ultimate shuffle play.

Why not just get a CD changer? While CD changers are OK for most people, I'm not most people. I don't like having to stop, open the trunk, change out disks, or find that a speck of dust I can't even see has managed to scratch yet ANOTHER CD. And on road trips, the selection in the changer often gets stale. Not to mention how CDs skip. I like having ALL of my music available to me in the car, especially on the long road trips I take, and I simply can't do that, even if I were to spend a ton of money on daisy-chained CD changers and stuff. And trying to change CDs in a single-disk unit or an interior mounted changer can be dangerous while driving. Now let me explain why I think a changer isn't enough. If your average CD holds 9 songs, and even if you spring for an expensive 16-disk changer with all sorts of gimmicky skip protection, you still only have access to about 144 songs. OK, now spend even MORE money and get some more changers and daisy chain em. What are you up to... 400 songs? Sure, sounds like a lot right? But you just spent at least a grand on stereo equipment that takes up a lot of space. But in a box smaller than one 16 disk changer, and for about the same amount of money, you could have a Carputer to play ALL of your tunes from.

OK, so I understand why you use MP3s. But why not just use one of those portables, or a CDR/CDRW-based in-dash player that you brought up? As I mentioned above, I don't like messing with changing CDs. They scratch, skip, get warped from heat in the car, etc etc. Now let's generalize a little bit. Now, if you had a 20 gig hard drive in your carputer, going on that 1MB/min MP3 compression average, and assuming an average song is 5 minutes long, you end up having enough room for approximately 4,000 songs. Yes, four thousand. And that's just going by averages, since obviously not all songs are 5 minutes long. So you could have more or less than 4000 on that 20 gig drive. And If you figure that 9 songs per CD, that works out to about 450 CDs. Hmmm... can't say I've ever heard of a 450 CD changer for the car yet... Most of those little portables only have 32, 64, or maybe 128MB of storage. that's not even a whole CD! What's the point of that? waste of money/time IMHO. As for the in-dash units that can play data CDRs with MP3s burned on them - these are actually pretty good. But like I said, I don't like swapping disks all the time. Most of the mp3 cds I've burned only hold about 90-120 songs. Still doesnt even come close to that 4000 of a 20 gig drive. And I have yet to find an mp3-in-dash unit that had controls or features I liked. Gimmicks dont earn my money.

Well, isn't this costing you an arm and a leg? Not really. I'm building this mostly out of parts that were leftover from upgrading my and my friends' home PCs over the years. In total I think I've spent about $400 on this whole endeavor, since several parts I already had, and a few were even given to me. Find me a car stereo that has 4000 songs on it, will never skip, and has as many features as this for that price tag.

OK, I'm sold. Where can I get one? Much as I'd like to, I can't really sell these. You can certainly take your time browsing my site, and other sites I've linked to, and get some ideas for building your own MP3 Car. But please don't just take my ideas and sell em... Didn't you learn about plaigarism in High School?

I've got a question that's not on here. Who should I ask? If you want to ask me about the carputer or anything else, click the Links button on the menu to the left. My email, ICQ, and AIM contact info are there for you.