Head Unit with USB to read hard drive?
Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Audio
Forum Discription: Car Stereos, Amplifiers, Crossovers, Processors, Speakers, Subwoofers, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=75991
Printed Date: April 28, 2024 at 7:59 AM
Topic: Head Unit with USB to read hard drive?
Posted By: atomic punk
Subject: Head Unit with USB to read hard drive?
Date Posted: April 10, 2006 at 6:59 AM
Is there a head unit that has a USB port built-in - so that you can plug a portable drive into it? I'd like to plug in a 250gb hard drive of MP3's into a head unit and have the head unit be the MP3 player/controller for that HDD. Or, perhaps I could plug in a small 512 flash/pen/jump drive into the port and the HU could read/play the MP3's on that drive. I have yet to see a HU with this capability, and it's too bad. There really is a market for this, since the only choice out there right now is to build a CarPC, from what I've seen. ------------- 05 4Runner, some mods....
Replies:
Posted By: ss-installer
Date Posted: April 10, 2006 at 7:05 AM
JVC has a few USB head units
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Posted By: atomic punk
Date Posted: April 10, 2006 at 7:22 AM
I believe those units require the USB connection to be a "MP3 player" though. Although I have an MP3 player, I do not want to hook up the player, but, rather, just a hard drive, and have the head unit read/play/control/manipulate the files. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what those models look like to me.
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05 4Runner, some mods....
Posted By: atomic punk
Date Posted: April 10, 2006 at 7:32 AM
Damn... look like a couple Kenwood models have that feature, but no Nav, no DVD player.... ------------- 05 4Runner, some mods....
Posted By: h2oskierfl
Date Posted: April 10, 2006 at 7:45 AM
There is on made by Insignia (Best Buy house brand) that will read directly from a jump drive. I believe the limit is 2Gigs though. Not sure if it would work with an actual hard drive or not.
Posted By: jkirkku
Date Posted: April 10, 2006 at 12:33 PM
There's the kenwood music keg. You can get it up to 80 gb and it will work with other stereos with the adapter. I know its not a head unit but its a large storage drive.
Posted By: sprawl85
Date Posted: April 10, 2006 at 2:01 PM
You can get hard drives off of ebay that you can play it from and it will plug into a minijack that tons of headunits have. Or aux input RCA's... here is a linky. Never tried one and pretty much know nothing about them, but you could probably upgrade the hard drive in it to 250gb no problem just by swapping it out. Sounds like you need a carputer though. you could take your hard drive in to bestbuy/cc and try it on the usb decks that say only use 2.0gb or smaller flash drives and see what happens. The sales reps probably wont know any better, just tell them you want to see how good it works and they won't give a doodie ------------- fiberglass reminds me of peanut brittle... but fiberglass tastes better!
Posted By: atomic punk
Date Posted: April 10, 2006 at 2:22 PM
I had the Omnifi player for about a month then ditched it. The proprietary sofware sucked big time - was very tempermental to use. Plus it had it's own control/head unit with only 1-3 lines of text display, and that made it really aggravating to scroll through 60gb of music (after I removed/replaced the 20gb hard drive). The kenwood's I don't imagine would be any different. (In terms of software use, and the searching/scrolling) I called tech help at Clarion and talked to someone about their N.I.C.E. unit. It will only recognize a jump drive through the USB 1.1 port. It will not recognize an external hard drive, even if I hardwire the HDD to the car's power/ground. Not sure "why", since he didn't really give me an answer. I would think that would be true for the ones at BB too. Thanks for the replies.... I am leaning towards the carputer, but I just want to exhaust all my options - and make sure that nothing exists that will give me 100% of what I want, before diving in. ------------- 05 4Runner, some mods....
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