RockBox as Car Stereo / iPod FLAC APE file solution

[directjj]

I have a lot of music on my computer (some MP3) including FLAC and Monkey's Audio APE files.

I'm tired of burning CD's.

Have been looking at late model Infiniti G35 and Acura TL automobiles and learned from Best Buy and Sound Advice that nobody makes a kit to install aftermarket radio's in these cars. I'm not interested in 2007 so doubt the factory radio will have any sort of auxillary port, but there is a BlitzSafe HONM-LINK1V.2X 03-07 Acura Charging Adapter for iPod.

Because I like lossless music I was leaning towards COWON America's X5 for a portable media player, but I guess iPod is the most commonly supported interface to car stereo.

IS ANYONE USING a hard drive iPod with RockBox firmware connected to a car stereo with a factory or aftermarket iPod interface?

Does the RockBox firmware merely add the capability to interpret audio files other than MP3 and WMA (e.g. FLAC, APE) or does it change the operation of the iPod in a way that would make it less compatible with a iPod friendly Car Interface, e.g. charging the iPod, looking at a playlist on the Car Stereo's faceplate, selecting a song, controlling the volume etc. through the car stereo as opposed to the iPod's wheel?

What if any drawbacks are there to the RockBox firmware versus the factory firmware?

[michael.conner]

I have a lot of music on my computer (some MP3) including FLAC and Monkey's Audio APE files.

I'm tired of burning CD's.

Have been looking at late model Infiniti G35 and Acura TL automobiles and learned from Best Buy and Sound Advice that nobody makes a kit to install aftermarket radio's in these cars. I'm not interested in 2007 so doubt the factory radio will have any sort of auxillary port, but there is a BlitzSafe HONM-LINK1V.2X 03-07 Acura Charging Adapter for iPod.

Because I like lossless music I was leaning towards COWON America's X5 for a portable media player, but I guess iPod is the most commonly supported interface to car stereo.

IS ANYONE USING a hard drive iPod with RockBox firmware connected to a car stereo with a factory or aftermarket iPod interface?

Does the RockBox firmware merely add the capability to interpret audio files other than MP3 and WMA (e.g. FLAC, APE) or does it change the operation of the iPod in a way that would make it less compatible with a iPod friendly Car Interface, e.g. charging the iPod, looking at a playlist on the Car Stereo's faceplate, selecting a song, controlling the volume etc. through the car stereo as opposed to the iPod's wheel?

What if any drawbacks are there to the RockBox firmware versus the factory firmware?

Pretty much nothing other than line-out and charging will work with iPod accessories in Rockbox. (I think recording from line-in has been enabled in the newest builds, but I don't personally know how one gets to the line-in on iPods, so...)

Rockbox doesn't handle WMA files (but neither does the Apple factory firmware.)   FLAC can be played by Rockbox, APE cannot; however, transcoding APE to FLAC is a pretty easy process if you have dBPowerAmp Music Converter and those two codecs installed.

As for drawbacks to Rockbox, you can't play copy-protected files from the iTunes store without some sort of work-around (it's up to you to determine whether that's a drawback or not).  Battery life on iPods is at the moment roughly half that of the original firmware.