In this day and age of touch screens and CD players obsolescence (spelling?)...

Do car audio equipment has media storage or it all depends on a flash drive/bluetooth casting and whatnot?

Thinking of buying a car but local salespeople are way ignorant to waste my time asking. Yesterday, for example, when I asked for a car color, the saleswonan changed the car model. Same happened when I asked about opening roof. She started talking about another car. Hard to follow.

Thanks.

0-0

I'm sure some have their own storage, but I think the trend for everything these days is integration with your smart phone. Your media is either stored on or streamed from your phone, and the car stereo controls the phone and plays the media over the car's speakers.

I don't think I've seen a car recently with its own internal storage. Most cars now, however, have a USB data port that you can plug in a USB Drive with media stored on it in folders, and the audio receiver has built in codecs to play .mp3, .wav, etc.

This, of course, is in addition to Bluetooth audio for phone and media.

Most recently, Apple Car Play and Android Auto is available on some cars over USB and even Bluetooth in some cases.

does it make sense to be able to play mkv files or am i stretching my imagination?

0-0

They aren't obsolete if you still listen to them.

Shop around and you may be able to find a CD changer that uses the auxiliary radio of your radio.

If not, they also made a RF kit that feeds into the antenna of the stereo. If you find one like this, please verify if your car has either a European style or North/South American style antenna connector first.

quote:

Originally posted by 0-0:
does it make sense to be able to play mkv files or am i stretching my imagination?

0-0

.mkv video?

No. I know of no manufacturer that allows for the playback of video on the head unit of the vehicle while the vehicle is in motion. There may be few cars that can play back video with the vehicle parked, but I do not suspect many can do this. Tesla, for example, allows you to stream Netflix with the car parked.

You can make aftermarket modifications that can hack many head units to play video, but this is getting more difficult as many cars now use the infotainment screen to control vehicle functions other than audio/video/navigation.

2018 VW Tiguan, has CD/DVD player. and even a cassette player (in the glove box, not part of the console).

No they don't have any storage.
However, there are units that play media files {MP3, FLAC. etc) and don't have a CD unit in them or they may have both.
I put an Alpine in my truck a couple years ago.
It has not built in CD or DVD player in it.
I ripped all my CD's to FLAC and play them with a Flash Drive or SSD w/ usb adaptor.
You can also connect a device to it DVD or CD and play through it but that defeats the purpose unless it is a video DVD.
Additionally, a lot of them including mine with interface with a phone for additional functionality.
Most require a usb cable but some will fully port with Bluetooth.
My Alpine does do Bluetooth with limited functions (phone some streaming) but when the cable is attached it and do a lot more including more streaming and it also does Android Auto which will do GPS on screen.

My '18 BMW still has a dvd/cd player. I can pop a cd or dvd in and play it on the screen. It also has a small 20gb hard drive to copy MP3s to. i usually just plug a usb stick in and have the car copy it to the hard drive. it can play it off the stick but i just rip my cds and sticks to the car's hard drive. it's got car play but i rarely use it.

My daughter's '20 Subaru has car play and android auto and a usb slot for music on usb only. no internal storage. no cd player.

i think her mom's '15 Camaro has usb only, no cd player.

quote:

Originally posted by 0-0:
Do car audio equipment has media storage or it...

In rare occurrences but not generally.

quote:

...all depends on a flash drive/bluetooth casting and whatnot?

Yes. This is the direction of the market (i.e. streaming of content), though most new head units do include a USB connection for your favorite jump drive content.

I put all the music and audio books I care to listen to on my iPhone and it connects via Bluetooth. I find it much more efficient than carrying around a bunch of discs. I still have the discs at home and actually my 2019 Tacoma has a CD player.

As to your comments regarding the car salesperson suggesting other models when you requested a certain feature... that's kind of how it goes these days. You just can't order up a car and dictate the features you want. You have to select "packages" and some will have for instance a sun roof but maybe not LED headlights so you have to go with a different package and some packages are limited to trim levels.

FLAC and MP3 are enough for me.
Be it an USB drive or disk it's fine as a storage device.
Sometimes I wonder if 32GB drives are easy readable because I've had trouble finding all the folders with my TV multimedia app, for example.

Will load Bach's Tocatta & Fuga, a fine Jazz quartet, a piano and a some classic rock live and make some car dealer miserable....

0-0