Phatbox/Phatnoise gone under??

[derdle]

Hi all,

Has anyone heard about the demise (or otherwise) of Phatnoise - makers of the Phatbox?

Just tried to use their website for fitting details for a different car (I'm now a 2 phatbox family) and it seems that it has been unavailable for much of this year.

Paul

[MarkB]

That's a shame. Nice piece of kit. I've heard about supply problems over time.

Is there anything else out there that does the same?

[derdle]

If they have gone down...? I guess they are up against stiff competition from the likes of standard MP3 players like iPods, except with a Phatbox you have a much larger capacity.

[GardinerG]

Yep, they have gone. You can no longer download the software, and the licensing requirement was removed from the last version. However, as the Phatnoise servers no longer exist you can't activate the software.

I'm considering the RNS-E as it at least handles MP3 SD cards.

[derdle]

Another website has sprung up http://www.phatnoise.org with downloads and other stuff on it. Haven't had time to browse around yet, but have registered and posted.

[GardinerG]

Cheers for the link Paul! This may come in handy, now all we need is the source code.

[VorTechS]

I've been trying to work on that one - but no-one at Harman/PhatNoise is answering, although people in the U.S. have had no problems calling the PhatNoise support line for help.

I got as far as Harman Consumer Group UK, and they said they'd look into what's going on with PhatNoise and that they'd e-mail me back. Then I think they hit the website and decided better to keep quiet.

Upshot is that it seems to a certain extent they are still doing some basic support stuff. But I can't get hold of anyone to provide replacements to broken versions of firmware files for a firmware upgrade tool I've written, and also more importantly the controlling am.xml file (although I've hacked together one that just about works).

This is all I want to start with, then source code for the the encrypted stuff on the box later

I don't need the source for the PhatNoise MM, as I've been writing my own replacement for the last 10 months.

[Nige_RS4]

It doesn't help when the chinese come up with these .... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MP3-Player-for-AU ... dZViewItem

[derdle]

The Engrish is good eh?

[GardinerG]

It doesn't help when the chinese come up with these .... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MP3-Player-for-AU ... dZViewItem

I wonder how this compares to the Phatbox? Hmmm.

I don't really like the Phatbox, but at least it means I have MP3s without having to own a fooking Ipod. God, I miss my Alpine headunit.

I guess the RNS-E or Pioneer http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/products/10 ... index.html double din sat nav unit is going to have to be on my shopping list in the near future.

[Nige_RS4]

You'll probably be interested in one of these ;
[img]modules/pnCPG/Coppermine/albums/userpics/10231/rs246_norm_infill-g4-002.jpg[/img]
http://www.navigadget.com/index.php/200 ... on-system/

[derdle]

It runs MS Windows in a car? Where the f**k are the CTRL-ALT-DEL buttons then?

The attached picture shows quite clearly why they don't use MS Windows in aircraft..

[GardinerG]

Oh dear! I guess there'll be a tiny reset button on it somewhere!

It's just a shame that Audi is so far behind the aftermarket systems in terms of MP3 support and Nav features. E.g. Full postcode matching, and FULL MP3 / ID3 Tag support.