Hip Street's MP3 Playing FM Transmitter

I check out Wal-Mart's electronic dept every so often, for they carry stuff I never see anywhere else. The most recent find was the FM Transmitter from Hip Street.

This one works like others, where you connect your MP3 player, and then it transmits the music through your car's radio. 

But this one has added features:

• An SD memory card slot and a USB connector. 
• A remote control.

That's because it is also an MP3 player. And I love it. Finally, and FM transmitter that is also an MP3 player -- one that makes sense. Stick in a memory card, and instant music. It turns on when the car turns on; it connects immediately with the radio (some FM transmitters take a while to connect, subjecting you to static). 

The unit has four buttons: 

• Change channel (FM frequency). I find that 103.9 is the best.
• Play/pause
• Previous track
• Next track (max of 999 tracks).

The included remote control does the above, plus:

• Change equalization setting 
• Change volume

Unfortunately, the unit comes with zero technical specs, so it took me a while to figure out its limitations. Here is what I found:

• The memory card or USB stick must be formatted with FAT file structure. 
• The FAT system is limited to 119 files in the root folder.
• But that's okay, because you can create a folder, and then stick in hundreds of MP3 files; this unit finds the MP3s in folders.
• The maximum size of memory card is 2GB, because that is the maximum capacity supported by the SD standard. This device does not support SDHC (too bad, since I have a spare 4GB card laying around).
• The maximum size of USB stick is at least 16GB (the largest size I have here). 

Curious: This MP3-playing FM transmitter is not shown on the Hip Street Web site. $40 at Wal-mart.

Comments

[Peppy]

This really helped me how to use this MP3 player, thanks so much