chemo

Why doesn't MB incoroporate the satellite antenna into the antenae pod on the rear roof line of sedans? Make it a little bigger and satellite ready, then I wouldn't have to cut a hole in my trunk or have to deal with blank stares when I try to discribe the under rear deck possiblility.

chemo

BoSoxFan

Good question!!

Here's a related one: why didn't they come up with a modular design for their audio systems which would allow easy integration of almost any cell phone -- especially since cell phones have been around for about ten years and the whole industry is moving to GSM/3G? Meanwhile, we are stuck with obsolete TDMA technology if we want integrated cell phone services.

Here's another one: why don't they display text descriptions of music selections of both CD's and radio stations when that is available on almost every Europe-spec car, some competitor's US-spec cars, as well as any IPOD or Rio player?

Barry45RPM

Its called RDS or Radio data system. The sad truth not many (out of all the stations in the U.S.) stations are transmitting that packet of information. They are able to transmit in that packet at least the following info: Their call letters, Artist & Title, their PTY/Pty (Programming type-Oldies/Rock/Talk/News, a text message, a text advertisement, etc...) As I said very few stations are transmitting that packet of info. Of those that do, most of the time its their call sign, format & a stale message that they never change, like "Where the hits keep on coming"

The thought behind profram tyope is that you would be able to scan the stations by 1st selecting a format & then searching for radio stations that play that format only. Since there are so few stations transmitting that info, the feature is not too important in the US. With the advent of Satellite radio, searching for a station has become a moot subject, since you never are out of range of the station you listen to.

I have YET to see a CD I am playing display its CD title or track title either, whether its in the changer or single slot.

BoSoxFan

Thanks. I couldn't remember the name of that system. It's probably one of these chicken-egg problems. The broadcasters won't go to the expense of implementing it because few cars can receive it. The car manufacturers won't do it because few stations are transmitting the data. The same syndrome is holding back deployment of HDTV.

In the Washington DC area, only a few stations are broadcasting their call letters. I have never seen anyone do programming type in this country. When I picked up my Boxster in Zuffenhausen four years ago, I drove all over Germany using the programming type to find stations. When it was shipped back here --- nothing.

I would expect a high end manufacturer like MB to make it available. Porsche does! I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Japanese cars do also.

There is no excuse for not displaying CD information.

Barry45RPM

It hast been turned on in the software in the cars in Europe. Some of the pix posted here by guys who have had the european Head Unit installed in their cars to add a Nav system show the preset list displaying the station's call sign rather than the frequency.

HELL ONA HARLEY

Just what we need an other avenue for the stations to broad- cast more commercials...

onpaws

Most CD's don't come with CD-Text (song title and artist information explicitly burned into the CD, the technology for this is popular in Europe and Asia, and CD's are marked with the CD-Text symbol).

MP3 Rippers such as iTunes and musicMatch retrieve CD specific information by way of CDDB (now GraceNote). This CDDB information is NOT encoded on the CD and instead is inferred from the CD's characteristics such as track length.

As for RDS information, i know for sure that many, if not all, Pontiac's have this feature, and so do recent e46's. sigh. As I recall, OSLO made some great screen captures of the RDS feature activated in Europe.

BoSoxFan

Hmmm . . . I have copied a number of my CDs on to a Rio Bravo and titles and artists are all on there. Maybe I've been lucky and all of my CDs are of Euro origin. I have so many CDs that I never do downloads, only make copies of something I already own. It's possible that the Rio software is going out on the Internet and grabbing the text information but I believe that I have done some transfers off line.