Software:

Currently, my car MP3 player uses the following software:

• Microsoft Windows Millenium Edition
• Nullsoft Winamp music player - v2.78
• Michael Lynch's LCDisplayer plug-in for Winamp - v1.01
• This plug-in displays the MP3 ID3 tags on the LCD module
• Here is my customized definition file for this plug-in
• Versions .60 beta and newer offer many upgrades as well as a much better parallel port compatibility/tuning parameters that can fix problematic LCD issues (like mine)
• I've also tried Nathan Stuart's WinLCD plug-in for Winamp - v1.01
• It has a nice spectrum analyzer, but I don't need it since I have a dedicated one
• It doesn't have as much ID3 tag info as LCDisplayer, which is the main thing I want to display
• It is updated often though, and is worth a look
• Ties Bos's Universal Infrared Receiver Plugin for Winamp - v2.53
• CarPlayer.com's CarMP3 Keypad Plugin for Winamp
• This plug-in allows Winamp to be controlled by the numeric keypad (I only use this while the system is out of the car)
• Peter Petrov's RockSteady plug-in for Winamp - v2.1
• This plug-in attempts to equalize the volume of the MP3s so the highs and lows are more neutral
• Nathan Ford's Dudsoft Gapless Output plug-in for Winamp - v1.4
• This plug-in gets rid of the gaps between tracks which is especially useful for entire ripped CDs

I've tried to optimize my settings for boot time. With Win98SE, I got the boot time down to 42 seconds when I disabled the network support in the BIOS. With networking enabled (and not connected to a network), it would spend another 50 seconds or so searching for a network connection before booting. Upgrading to WinMe cut my boot times only by about five seconds, but having networking enabled only added about 8 seconds to that, even when not connected to a network. I've also just updated my BIOS to Intel's new "Rapid BIOS" which dropped my boot times by maybe another five seconds or so. My boot time now stands at 31 seconds from power to when I can start playing music. Not bad for Windows.

I'm currently running the car MP3 player under WinMe because I know it well. I initially left room on the hard drive for a Linux partition, but when I put the new hard drive in I didn't bother with that partition. I've set up my MP3 directory structure so that it is compliant with CAJUN Car Audio Jukebox, so I may switch to that software at some point, but at this point, it seems unlikely.

The directory structure and file format for my music is CAJUN compliant, but works well for Winamp also. One benefit of it is that the songs are always kept in numerical order for each album.

Here is my MP3 directory structure:

• First_Artist_Name
• First_Album_Name
• 01_First_Song_Title
• 02_Second_Song_Title
• Second_Album_Name
• 01_First_Song_Title
• 02_Second_Song_Title
• Second_Artist_Name
• First_Album_Name
• 01_First_Song_Title
• 02_Second_Song_Title
• Second_Album_Name
• 01_First_Song_Title
• 02_Second_Song_Title

I am slowly converting my entire collection of CDs into MP3s. - Update: I'm finally done - over 400 CDs worth, and now over 5,400 songs. I've chosen Xing's Audio Catalyst v2.1 to rip my CDs and convert the songs to MP3. My MP3 settings are 160kbps using variable bit rate. With my current 17GB hard drive in the MP3 player not being good enough for all of these songs, I've upgraded to a 30GB one and with 5,400 songs, I am close to filling it.

This page was last updated on Friday, February 8, 2002

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