encore888

Here's a site article which speculates on the provider of Lexus' audio server tech:

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/04/20/le...0h_hard_drive/

XeroK00L

Hmm the article only seems to speculate the HDD size of the system, and yet that is exactly the part that needs no speculation, as Lexus has already publicly announced that it is an 8GB HDD.

Also, that the audio server will play for 3 years without repeating is a COMPLETE BS from Jim Press.

At 128kbps, the minimum acceptable MP3 bitrate for near-CD quality music, each minute of music takes 128kbps / 8 bits/byte x 60s = 960kbytes. For the music to last for 3 years it'll therefore require 3 years x 365.25 days/year x 24 hours/day x 60 minutes/hour x 960 kbytes/minute = 1,514,764,800kbytes or roughly 1.5 TERABYTES!!! To complete my calculations, a 8GB (about 8,000,000 kbytes) HDD will hold 8,000,000 kbytes / 960 kbytes/minute = 8333.33 minutes. And that's what, 5.79 days! So much for 3 years worth of music.

rgbyhkr

I've thought about Press' comment about 3 yearsworth of music. My guess is that there's an assumption behind it of X number of average hours of music listening per day or per week vs 24/7/365. The average could easily come from survey data about how many hours drivers listen to music in the car, etc.

Jeff

encore888

I think that the audio server bit hasn't been too clearly thought out in its presentation. For one, at NAIAS, supposedly the sign at the showfloor originally said "2,000 songs" but this was hastily revised after the first day to read "over 4,000 songs" -- with the cars over 6 months away, I wonder whether this was finalized.

One caveat is that Jim Press might have been referring to 3 years of music listened through an 'average' driving person who maybe is in their car 1-2 hours a day.

IMO, this could be one of the weaker points of the LS 460 gizmos if not well thought-out. 8 GB Audio Server sounds good to me, sort of like an entry-level iPod with the car. However, loading to the server needs to be more technically savvy.

Is there any truth to that bit about Autospies and a pic of a Lexus memory slot?

Additionally, I imagine the audio server is one of the expensive options packages...we'll see how this works out. Otherwise we might have to wait until the refresh...and, the 'most technologically advanced vehicle in the world' should have mp3 player/iPod control capability.

XeroK00L

Not nearly 1-2 hours a day, actually. If we spread the 5.79 days of music over 3 years, one is gonna listen to only 5.79 days / (3 years x 365.25 days/year) x 100% = 0.53% day of music everyday. That's just 24 hours x 60 minutes/hour x 0.53% = 7.6 minutes per day!!! Now tell me anyone who owns a car but drives for less than 7.6 minutes per day.

Also, 8333.33 minutes of music = 4,000 songs? Then those songs had better be short because 8333.33 minutes / 4000 songs = 2.08 minutes per song. The original claim of 2,000 songs is more like it.

flipside909

Wow you guys are spending too much time with the numbers game. Just enjoy the fact that Lexus is offering a 8GB HDD for musicon their vehicles. It's definitely a first. Sure it's not alot of space by our standards but it is plenty for many others. If space is really a deficit, utilize the AUX INPUT and plug in your favorite 60GB+ Audio player and enjoy countless decades of music.

Gojirra99

Even 2000 songs are way more than enough to me, I'm more concerned about the loading part.

XeroK00L

Well, I played this "numbers game" because Lexus decided to. If they want to include numbers in their claims they'd better make sure their numbers are correct, or at least nearly so. I have no problems with them saying infamously vague numbers like "the IS350 will do 0-60 in under 6 seconds" or "the GS450h will have over 300hp" or even "the LS460 will have fuel economy in the mid-20's (later revised to low-20's), but this time they've carried their claim too far. They probably should've simply said "the new LS has an audio server that can store countless hours of music" if they couldn't come up with the right numbers.

I had high hopes when I first heard about this new feature from the LS460 PR. A HDD-based audio server? Yes! You know what that means? That means no more burning and swapping MP3/WMA CDs. That means integrated playback controls and display of song titles that are not possible with an AUX input. That means a high capacity HDD that can store my entire music library (about 30GB so far) unlike the Germans' flash card approach that can store only a few GBs of it at a time. It could've been so much more, and yet, Lexus decided that all its flagship customers are dummies whose mental capacities are not big enough to figure out anything more complicated than feeding an audio system regular CDs, and as such the new audio system has to be kept as rudimentary as technically possible. A 40GB laptop (2.5") HDD can be bought for under $60 at street prices these days. Many JDM Lexus and Toyota models already have a 30GB-HDD-based audio server. What cost is Lexus trying to cut here with a 8GB HDD? CD-TEXT is widely supported in modern head units including Lexus's own audio systems (even my 2002 ES300 supports CD-TEXT). Is the capability of ripping song titles from CD-TEXT too much to ask? Digital music files could've been easily loaded onto the HDD with the same MP3/WMA CD (DVD maybe?) interface or even the existing Bluetooth interface. I have hundreds of music CDs that I already spent countless hours ripping to my digital music library with proper ID3 tags and song information filled in by CDDB, and now Lexus is asking me to do the ripping all over again? And in real time? How nice of them.

You're right that this is a first by Lexus, but they could've done so much better than this, especially with the meticulous attention to details demonstrated by the rest of the car.

rgbyhkr

We have no idea what format and bitrate was used in the assumption. They may not have necessarily used a CD quality bitrate. For instance, the Eclipse solution uses ATRAC and offers 3 bitrate choices, the lowest of which is 66Kbps. So that certainly impacts the calculation.

More importantly, I think we're looking at the average daily usage from the wrong end. For someone who embraces and listens to a lot of MP3s, average daily usage could be an hour or multiple hours a day. But there are certainly drivers who listen to none at all. I'd gues there are probably way more drivers who listen to none at all vs heavy listeners. Think about where an average listening number would have come from. They almost certainly didn't pull from data that included radio or Sat radio listening. They may have even ignored CD usage, focusing solely on data on MP3 listening. So you then are talking about a small sub-segment of audio system usage data. Beyond that, you have an age demographic factor. If they were pulling from data on LS owners, that age probably skews older as it is a more expensive vehicle in the line. So, I can very easily see the "average MP3 listening number" used to calculate the 3 years as being pretty low based on stuff like this.

Now, it's still a bit of selective data choosing to get a really big number, but that doesn't surprise me. If they had concealed the storage size, that would be a different story but the 8GB number has been announced. That's all the MP3 listening crowd needs.

I tend to agree with flipside. I'm curious about the details because I'm a geek. However, there's pretty much no way I'll use it over my iPod. My collection is too large and I just don't want to manage multiple systems. Even if the HDD was 40GB, supported transfers from MP3 CDs, had an updatable CDDB databse, etc I'd still use the iPod. For that reason, the aux jack is hugely important. I would probably have preferred a direct iPod interface, but an aux jack will do (and yes I'm sure and after market solution will become available for the Ls after it launches).

Jeff

spwolf

so in 3 years, you will never listen one song more than once? :-).

encore888

Agreed that Lexus used numbers, and should be held accountable for them. I also think that the JDM comparison is revealing, I didn;t know that in Japan they already have 30 GB systems...wow! I don't know if I would ever need that much capacity though.

With a lot of extra capacity, for instance the HDD NAVI system, could it be possible to 'download' NAVI updates via satellite connection?

I'm taking a wait-and-see approach to this...and btw, where do you get $60 40 GB HDD? Is this an internal HDD? I've been looking for an external HDD...

rgbyhkr

I'm sure they could easily validate the 3 year number even if people disagreed with them choosing a low bitrate and the average listening time per day (my guess is the number used was probably a weekly average). So, I don't think they outright liead or pulled the number out of the air.

Nope. Navigation data comes from GPS satellites, which are run by the US DoD. While civilian use of positioning data has been possible for a while and they even removed the intentional errors (to prevent the system from being used by enemies to precisely target), I haven't heard of anything that would allow for the satellites to transmit other data. It may be possible for the military, although I think they use separate satellite networks for communications and data transfer, but not for civilians. The satellites used by XM and Sirius are their own, but they don't have a direct tie in to the nav systems for something like map data updates. Traffic is a completely separate data type as it is giving real time conditions rather than updating the mapping software for road changes, etc. The map data itself comes from a separate company which I think is Navteq.

I think his reference was to internal notebook sized HDDs. Here's a list of 40GB versions from one online retailer right at the $60 mark:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ubCategory=380

Jeff

encore888

Thanks for the information rgbyhkr! I agree, Lexus wouldn't come up with that press conference line without some careful justification (although the swap from 2,000 to 4,000 songs on the show floor was pretty quick).

Thx for the link too, it seems then that we are paying a huge $$$$+ premium for the convenience of having it in the car (the HDD), not the actual cost per se...

And as for the NAVI system, I wonder then how updates will be done; you can't just buy a new DVD like the current systems do, so apparently you will need to take it to the dealer to upload new NAVI info in to the HDD?

spwolf

Why cant you simply buy an dvd? I am sure it will work that way... As to the cost of 8 GB HD, depends. I am sure it is super duper shock proof hard drive designed to last a long that normal hard drive, under hard conditions. It still wouldnt cost a lot, but thats how automotive industry works.

rgbyhkr

There may be a separate drive for nav disk updates or it might be possible that the audio system can accept DVD-ROM discs specificaly for nav updates.

Jeff