What should this forum do now?

[amb]

It would be nice to see a good solution to albums with "various artists" too...

Have you read my solution in the following thread?
http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1125375278

Its just a shell script and requires a Linux box, but someone should be able to develop something similar for other OSes.

[amb]

As for what should this forum do, maybe some of the more knowledgeable folks could try and figure out a solution to the problem of ogg files sometimes stopping playback before it reaches the end?  [smiley=evil.gif]

[bazmk2]

not delete me!

Things I would Like to be able to do
1. See as well as well as have announced the CD (esp track so I don't have to press scan to remind me what the hell I'm listening to) (have AUDI headunit)
2. Have support for HDD over 128GB, even if it means a physical hack to use a 3.5hdd (as I am just reripping my cd's to 320 Mp3's)
3. Have cleaner voice support, mine sound crap, pop and whistle and sound like the robot from lost in space
4. I know there was a 4 just can't remember it

Dave

P.S. thanks for the wicked stuff done here folks

[shack]

I'll put in a vote for integration with PhatVoice.  

I'd also love to see song information on my head unit (BMW).  I know someone was looking into that at one point, but don't know if it ever happened.

[todd1010]

not delete me!

Things I would Like to be able to do
1. See as well as well as have announced the CD (esp track so I don't have to press scan to remind me what the hell I'm listening to) (have AUDI headunit)
2. Have support for HDD over 128GB, even if it means a physical hack to use a 3.5hdd (as I am just reripping my cd's to 320 Mp3's)
3. Have cleaner voice support, mine sound crap, pop and whistle and sound like the robot from lost in space
4. I know there was a 4 just can't remember it

Dave

P.S. thanks for the wicked stuff done here folks

You "NEED" to get Phatvoice along with the ATT 16k voices. That will solve the voice prompts issue.

[todd1010]

Could you add the possibility of "refreshing" all the databases? Or maybe even better "clean" and re-read? I've noticed that when PMM ejects and closes. Phatvoice reads the databases and it sometimes generates voice prompts for ID tags that I've "changed or modified." I then would end up having two voice prompts for one mp3? Or it will generate voice prompts for both the "old" ID Tag & the "new or modified" ID Tags.

I'm not sure how this exactly works but some of the databases are not being re-read correctly! And I'm not sure if this would eliminate this or not, but this is something that I've had a problem with.

[SteveC]

Personally, I've really wanted to write a new database generator that handles multiple artist and genre tags properly. That way, correctly tagged files with multiple artists and/or genres would show up under all of the correct artists and genres in SSA/VIOT mode. Unfortunately, time hasn't premitted me to really get into it yet.

[Firefox]

Shame people who have benefited from this forum (especially DMS hack) to contribute a one-off $20 to the running of the forum as per this earlier thread...
http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1119315190

I still can't believe that only a handful of people have donated.........  

[todd1010]

Shame people who have benefited from this forum (especially DMS hack) to contribute a one-off $20 to the running of the forum as per this earlier thread...
http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1119315190

I still can't believe that only a handful of people have donated.........  

I agree!!!

[markbowen]

The forum already serves the purpose of providing an alternative to Phatnoise's practically non-existent customer support, and that is something I hope will continue.  The forum has helped to me to find answers to problems that I couldn't find in the Phatnoise "knowledge base."  (And I don't know that I will live long enough to receive a proper e-mail response from them.)

I also hope to see more software and hardware tweaks.  I think the PB has a lot more potential to be tapped, and innovation is more likely to come from the passionate users found here.

[todd1010]

Can the Phatbox be reprogrammed to be controlled via another language? What I'm talking about, since the Phatbox doesn't support CD Text but my head unit does (Audi RNS-E). It seems that if the Phatbox could be controlled via the CANbus in my Audi it would support ID tags on the head unit!

I't may not be that simple but, possible maybe? I know over at the navplus forums.

http://www.navplus.us/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8265#8265

There's a company called Dietz that knows the CANbus programming language. Is it possible to talk with them about how this would work. Well only if it could be reprogrammed?

This is just something that I've been thinking about!

[S80_UK]

There's no CAN bus on the Phatbox of course, but if we had an open command interface that allowed  control and access to tags etc, then it should be possible to add any kind of external protocol adapter, whether CAN, Bluetooth, or whatever.  This could be connected to the PB via the serial port on the PCB, but for the hardware shy, maybe this could be done via the 26 way connector with a software layer running on the 8052 microcontroller - then no need to open the box.

Just an idea.

Les.

[S80_UK]

Just had an idea - maybe we need to approach this from the other end.  Is there merit in trying to understand more of the low-level details of the various head unit interfaces?  It may well be that some of them can display text from a CD changer (CD text, MP3 file names or tags, etc).  It may also be the case that the Phatbox emulation of a CD changer is deliberately basic in order to minimise the difficulty for the folks at Phatnoise when the want to support a new headunit.

But if more of the head units have the potential to support text, then I think that his would be a very worthwhile upgrade to the Phatbox software.  I would love to have this working on my Volvo (which has a text capable display).

Or is there stuff already known that means that this is not possible?

Les.    

[sbingner]

Just had an idea - maybe we need to approach this from the other end.  Is there merit in trying to understand more of the low-level details of the various head unit interfaces?  It may well be that some of them can display text from a CD changer (CD text, MP3 file names or tags, etc).  It may also be the case that the Phatbox emulation of a CD changer is deliberately basic in order to minimise the difficulty for the folks at Phatnoise when the want to support a new headunit.

But if more of the head units have the potential to support text, then I think that his would be a very worthwhile upgrade to the Phatbox software.  I would love to have this working on my Volvo (which has a text capable display).

Or is there stuff already known that means that this is not possible?

Les.    

The kenwood Protocol supports that

[S80_UK]

Hi,

Yes - I know the Kenwood does.  I was wondering whether others could as well, even if they weren't supporting it today, on the basis that it may already be supported some other headunits but not by most PB firmware builds.

Les.

[jnitis]

Uhm, yeah.  Just about everything already suggested:

Nested navigation
Updated PMM (Phat4X?)
Better database handling (PMM has to constantly be babysat)
OGG tags for FLAC (Phat4X)
PhatVoice/PhatSort/mark-for-deletion integration with Phat4X
Addition of a USB/Ethernet port to add/remove/manipulate music while on the go
LBA48 support

Notice the first line (and of course most important): nested navigation.  That would be great.  Also, the ability to go forward/back 10 entries at once.

I've wanted more out of the hacked PB ever since the first hacks were successful.  It seems that the folks with the know-how have been busy with other things since then.  Perhaps we need a way to entice people with the development and/or hardware knowledge to step up and begin producing new features?

I really feel for the people asking for text support for non-Kenwood HUs.  I was squarely in that camp (BMW factory navi) until I decided "F it" and went the Kenwood HU route.  It also helped Kenwood had a great product refresh just out at the time doing everything I wanted in a HU (the DDX-8017).  I mostly navigate now by pressing the "LIST" button and waiting for my playlists (up to 255) to be populated graphically in the list format.  Whenever I want a playlist I can read the name and just hop to it.  I know I'm in the small minority of folks out there with this capability.  Unfortunately it's very slow to populate, but I doubt we can do any modifications to the PB alone that would speed up that process.

I think we should focus on mods that would affect the greatest number of people (ie: everyone).  While adding text for non Kenwood HUs incorporates a large sub-section of forum-goers, I think features that would serve everyone would be more useful at first.

Interestingly I've still never filled up my original 60GB DMS.  Mostly I stay away from lumping all of my music onto the DMS because of the poor management software (PMM) and the nightmare of a navigation issue I'd have with the current feature set.  I don't know how you guys do it: even with all of the myriad suggestions on how to organize music (and I've read them all on these forums for ~3 years now) I'm just like Prince: never satisfied.

John

[sdc395]

I'd like to see the community develop support for new codecs, including the various flavours of AAC, etc.

Also, surely, the most important function of this forum is to provide support to Phatbox newbies when Phatnoise let them down.

[crunch13]

I'm an Audi PB user (self - installed) and a computer "hacker" (not the malicious kind). My interests in this board are:

1. I recently bought a Kenwood HU for my other car and am interested in putting a keg/other compatible PB in too.
2. Using one music manager instance for an Audi PB and a Kenwood Keg.
3. Player Usibility/UI enhancements (SSA/VIOT)
4. DIY DMS size upgrades
5. Cable pinouts/How-Tos to integrate Sirius Satellite into the Audi factory head/PB combo

Great board, keep up the good work!

[xvw]

I would like some better voice prompts, that about the only thing I am not totally happy with

[redhat]

Paul,

As I have a VW Phatbox and am satisfied with the size of the original DMS, I have not had the pleasure of using the hack disk, until that time arises I will probably not hack my box.  From other posts I am aware there is a seperate hack disk for VW Phatboxes that is being worked on, I would like to see that finished.  For the future I don't have a clue and never will if my account is deleted.....