busterheine

hey guys, I'm scrounging the net to find info for a project that I'm looking to undertake. I'm installing a new system in my car. My goal is to be able to simply browse all of my music via a touch screen in the dash of my car. I'm always adding new music to my collection (which is presently at 200GB) and would like to be able to sync the library in my car with that on my pc. The 2 most viable options for me are to install either an Apple TV or a mini mac in the car.

The apple tv is basically everything I want. It has a simple user interface to play your music, or video's or view photos and it sync's with your computer. If i hook up my external harddrive to an airport extreme I can have both my PC and the apple tv for my car sync'ing from the same hard drive. However there's some obstacles and i don't know if I can overcome them.

First - the touch screen. I COULD use the remote by installing an IR sensor in the dash of the car, but that'd be a little less sexy than if I could just use the touch screen to navigate to the music that I wanted. Does anyone know if there is any possible way to make this happen, so that I can just use my finger on the screen as the input commands for the apple TV?

Second - the hard drive isn't big enough. I remember seeing people upgrade the hard drive size on the first apple TV's when they just came out, but i haven't kept up with it at all since they made the new one. Can I get a 250 GB 2.5 Hard drive and put it in the box?

Third - i'm really not familiar with some of the stuff on Apple TV. If i DO manage to get it to work, what happens when I turn the car off? is there a way to make it go into "sleep" mode like you could a regular mac? And, after everytime that i power down and then power it back up am I going to have to go back through all my lists of music to get back to what I was previously listening to?

I'd like the whole thing to be as seamless as possible. In the morning I add new music to the hard drive, then a few minutes before leaving my house for the day, I go into the garage, turn my car on, and have it sync the new music before I go. I select the artist that I want apple tv to play by scrolling through the artists on my touch screen, and then head out listening to beautiful music. When I have to get out of the car for 15 minutes to go to into a store, I'd like it to be able to it turn off when I turn the car off (maybe I'll have to press a button on the dash to make the apple tv go to "sleep"). Then once I get back in and turn it on, it will resume playing from the point in the song where it stopped.

not tooooo much to ask right?


lemme know what you guys think, and your ideas on how this will/or won't work.

Thanks a ton!

dennisls111

Sounds quite impossible..

LiquidIce_ATV

You might be better off going with a mac mini as the main computer.

look at http://mp3car.com for in-car touchscreens

__________________
-LiquidIce

LiquidIce's Apple TV Hacks
http://appletvhacks.blogspot.com