Rockford Fosgate Omnifi DMP1 20GB Jukebox Car Digital Media Player Kit | 
 enlarge | Brand: Rockford Fosgate
Category: CE
This item is no longer available
Rating:  15 reviews
Media: Electronics
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 2 x 6
MPN: DMP1 KIT
Model: DMP1 KIT
UPC: 081258004651
EAN: 0081258004651
ASIN: B000931HZA
Release Date: April 12, 2005
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| Features:
| • | Streams digital music through your existing car audio system | | • | Removable 20 GB drive stores up to 4,000 songs | | • | Dash-mounted, removable control is handy and easy to use | | • | Includes SimpleCenter software | | • | Download music wirelessly from your home computer without getting out of your vehicle |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description
Is your car cluttered with loads of CDs? Then get it together with the Rockford Fosgate Omnifi DMP1 Mobile Digital Media Car Player and you'll no longer have to mess with cracked jewel boxes and misplaced discs. The DMP1 is a quick, easy companion to your existing car audio system and holds enough music for even the longest, most grueling road trip. At the heart of the DMP1 is a rugged, removable 20 GB hard drive cartridge that slips into the housing installed in your car. This enormous drive can hold up to 4,000 songs in MP3 format, so you'll have more music than you can shake a stick at for any automobile adventure. The DMP1 comes equipped with a dash-mounted, removable controller that features an easy-to-read screen and handy, push-button controls for quick navigation. Included with the media player is Omnifi's SimpleCenter software that makes transferring new audio files to the DMP1 easy as pie. Simply connect the cartridge to your computer via the included USB cable, plug in the power adapter and -- voila! -- you're on your way to downloading loads of more music. Plus, this software will help you organize your music on your computer for quick, easy access to your favorite tunes. If you just can't be bothered to remove your hard drive cartridge from your car, then simply park within the range of your wireless router and download music via your Wi-Fi. Select the "Sync" option on the controller and wait for the tracks to download directly to the DMP1. You can change the music library in your car without unlocking the door! What's in the Box
DMP1 media player, USB cable, AC adapter, software, and mounting hardware.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
Da bomb December 17, 2006
Please note: my review is written with the Omnifi DMS1 in mind, which is made for the home system rather than the car. Because my comments mostly address the idea of putting your music on harddisk, which is how the DMP1 works, I hope you will find them helpful.
Da Bomb!
Nutshell:
This technology is da bomb if you want to enjoy your CD collection at home on your stereo system. It's the next step in the evoloution of enjoying music. We had the phonograph, then the CD, and now this.
The only caveat: It's da bomb as long as it's working well. If you have trouble, then it's useless. I am currently living with the DMS1 for a short time. So far it works OK, but if I have trouble in the future I may have to report back.
Detailed review:
This is a fabulous system that will allow you to keep your entire CD collection online in your home entertainment system. It's easy enough for grandma to use, and that's important because other systems are so complicated that only a techno-geek will be able to work them.
What you do with this system is copy all of your CDs to the hard drive on your computer. Then you replace the CD player in your home entertainment center with this little Omnifi device. Then you turn the Omnifi on, and you instantly enjoy any CD in your collection. That's just getting started, but already that is worth the price of admission because you have access to all of your CDs. You don't need to search for your CDs anymore, and you don't need to find handy space to store them. You can file them away for safe keeping in your mini-storage warehouse. You just need a large hard drive and a computer that is turned on. Using this system gives you the many advantages of having your music off of the CDs and on the harddrive, yet your music is still available on an easy to use device in your home entertainment center without having to have a computer there, which is largely unworkable.
And then we go on from there to many more fab activities.
I am a musician and music lover that, as odd as it may seem to you, is just now in 2006 starting to explore the mp3 revolution. If you are like me and don't yet understand what mp3 can mean to you, I'll explain it. I never explored mp3 because I equated it with piracy, but mp3 can be used legally as well.
You use a program called a "ripper" to "rip" your CDs into files on your harddrive. The music on CD is just computer files anyway, so all "ripping" really is is "copying" the computer files from the CD to the harddrive. In the past this was for unfathomable reasons difficult for a program to do, but now we can get it done. The Simplecenter software that comes with the Omnifi can do it, as can iTunes and a host of other programs. There is a freeware program called "Exact Audio Copy" that reads the CD and gives you a 100% accurate file, and it gives you a report of any problems that it had so you can be sure, without having to listen to the file, that it made it to your harddrive without error.
At the same time you copy the CD, you encode the files to mp3. This shrinks the file by a large factor without sacrificing any meaningful sound quality and makes the files easier to manage. That way you can fit much more music onto your hard drive or your portable mp3 player, or even copy the files back to CD and get more than 74 minutes of music on a CD! Simplecenter, iTunes, and most other programs do this for you automatically.
When ripping CDs, mp3 is the way to go, you want to avoid any other format if possible. Simplecenter gives you a choice to rip to mp3 or to windows media format. iTunes and other programs give you a similar choice. Ripping to mp3 allows you to avoid having to deal with digital rights management (DRM) and allows your music to be played anywhere. iPod doesn't support Windows media, and generic mp3 players may not support Apple's AAC format, but everyone will play mp3. Ripping to any other format is helping Microsoft or whoever lock you in to their solutions, don't tolerate that! DRM gives you onerous restrictions like having to jump through hoops to transfer a license when you transfer your music from one computer to another or only allowing you to burn your music to CD a limited number of times, and other evil restrictions. mp3 avoids all of this and it's the way to go.
If you're worried about any legal restrictions on this type of activity, just think of all the mp3 players available for sale here on Amazon and that should tell you something. If you're still concerned, just punch up a few web searchs on the subject and I think you'll relax.
Don't worry about sound quality. Sound quality has never been an issue. Sound quality is an issue to people that want to sell you expensive equipment or magazine subscriptions. Your enjoyment of any music, classical or otherwise, will be the same as long as the sound quality is acceptable. That last 10% of full fidelity really doesn't matter. Do you have a $5,000 entertainment system or $3,000 speakers? If not, then it really doesn't matter. That said, this Omnifi and mp3 technology will deliver sound that is essentially equal to the CD, but it really doesn't matter. What matters is that you have your music available in ways that make it convenient to listen so that you will play your music more often. Don't listen to anyone that tells you that some proprietary format gives better fidelity than mp3. #1, it doesn't matter. #2: They are assuming the same bit rate, so if you really want to stick on this issue, just rip at a higher mp3 bit rate. The standard is to rip at 128 bits, so just rip at 160 and you're there. You can easily afford the extra space with today's prices.
This Omnifi is an alternative to a 400 disc CD changer jukebox. Those jukeboxes are not a great solution for various reasons: 1: They are huge, 2: They have a finite capacity, you may outgrow 400 slots, 3: They can damage your CDs, 4: They require hours of typing in order to set up the artist, album, and song names, 5: They can glitch and erase all those hours of typing, 6: They have limited functionality for skpping songs you don't like and random playing, 7: they are prone to mechanical failure, #8: they are slow, etc.
Using Omnifi and mp3 gives you these advantages:
+ You have your entire CD collection available in a small device
+ You can copy your music to a portable hard drive so you can take your entire collection to the office or elsewhere
+ You can easily copy your music to an mp3 player for enjoyment. iTunes is compatible with mp3, so Omnifi can even work with an iPod.
+ You can backup your music for safekeeping to DVD
+ You can use more than one Omnifi in the home so that you can enjoy your entire collection from various rooms.
+ You can delete songs you don't like so that you don't ever hear them. That's a big advantage because I usually only like a few songs, or just one, from any given CD.
+ You can shuffle play through artist or genre, which is also a big advantage. Otherwise you would have to create a custom mix CD, and that's a lot of trouble and it gets old after a few listens. This way it's always new.
+ You can buy songs from web sites like Amazon. That's a great way to pick up old favorite songs without having to buy the whole CD or music that's hard to find. Once you download them Omnifi can play them. However songs downloaded like this will often suffer from DRM.
 Love it! February 25, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This system is really nice. Its easy to find the songs you want to play plus you can symply make a playlist with the included Software. I'd recommend it.
Great product with Openfi software February 11, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This product has made driving much more fun and safe. I have a very small car and can't store many cds in the car since there isn't much storage spage, so this product makes life very nice.
The Openfi software also is very nice and is always being upgraded.
Sending for Brazil January 10, 2006
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
Please it will be that it would have the possibility of sending for Brazil?
Good made great thanks to open source support December 17, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a great item for someone who spends a lot of time in the car. I do about 2 hours a day and now I never listen to radio. RF stumbled a bit with the software but somehow left a hole in which the open source community blasted through and provided replacement software for the unit. Fixes have also been made to the PC side software but because of the unit's new programming, PC software is optional. The drive is removable and connects via USB. Using openfi (the aforementioned open source alternative) you can drag and drop and rock and roll. If you are like me and love the geek factor that overnight automatic wifi updates provide you will have to install Simple Center and it's updates to your PC.
In the end, you can easily cram 3500 songs on it. I currently have 600 using up just over 3 of the 20 gigs available. Playlists, shuffle play, grouping by artist, album and even genre are supported. If you don't drive a whole lot then I would look elsewhere... but for the price it's nearly a steal.
Loses a star because of buggy included software. Otherwise she's a champ.
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