[Fractal]

I have been eyeing this interface for some time now as I imagine many people here have. Basically, it provides the cleanest possible audio output from the digital MOST50 based audio stream in our vehicles. Unfortunately, it is quite expensive and hasn't gone on sale that I know of.

I was wondering if anyone has already attempted organizing a group buy from Nav-Tv (for any products) and could maybe point me in the right direction. If so, I would love to know how that went even if it failed.




On a related note, for any software/hardware devs out there, this guy seems to have a decent amount of MOST50 related code on his repository: https://github.com/inePark/AVR32_ECU

As far as I can tell, a good chunk of this could be pulled and used with a dev board and a codec/dac to get the audio stream out of our in-vehicle network. The missing link is the MOST50 INIC like this one: https://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/en/OS81092

MOST Corp does not appear to have disclosed the spec for the internal workings of the INIC. So if we can source an OS81092 or OS81082, we could potentially make an open source solution for the rest of the signal path. The time it would take is not necessarily less expensive than purchasing the above mentioned unit though so perhaps that's a bad idea. Probably comes down to how much community support and demand there is for a DIY version.

[gblaue]

Not nearly quite that simple. Unless you plan on joining the MOST Consortium, the most you'll get is their one page data sheet/flyer. I'm pretty well versed with MOST. I was involved from the beginning. I'm not endorsing the Nav-TV solution, but they have spent the money to become part of the consortium. Per node, MOST is very expensive to implement. Especially, if you're not high volume manufacturer. Which I don't think that they sell hundreds of thousands of units per year or lifetime.

[drfeelgood]

I have the NAV-TV unit, it works flawlessly. Absolute single most important piece of hardware in my audio setup in my ZL1. I don't think a group buy would work, not here. No offense to the audio guys here, but most aren't building real setups. most appear to be completely fine with trying line-out options and adding a woofer. most are asking what's the least they can spend on a setup. most don't want to spend more than $1000 for the entire setup. If that's the crowd you have, they prob aren't willing to get a group buy together and spend $600 on a unit (which is likely the best we would get on a group buy) like this.

I am in no way arguing that it isn't a good idea, or that the item isn't worth it... IT IS! And in my opinion, if they sold if for $1000 it would still be worth it. It's just that, based on the posts I have seen in the audio section here, not sure we could get even 10 people interested, and many of those that understand the significant benefits of this unit have already purchased it.

But it doesn't hurt to try, and I hope you are successful because it's a da*n good unit.

[Fractal]

Originally Posted by gblaue

Not nearly quite that simple. Unless you plan on joining the MOST Consortium, the most you'll get is their one page data sheet/flyer. I'm pretty well versed with MOST. I was involved from the beginning. I'm not endorsing the Nav-TV solution, but they have spent the money to become part of the consortium. Per node, MOST is very expensive to implement. Especially, if you're not high volume manufacturer. Which I don't think that they sell hundreds of thousands of units per year or lifetime.

The MOST Book (which is publicly and freely available) appears to go into reasonably good detail on the various protocols and layers of MOST. From a reverse engineering perspective, you don't often have even this much information available so easily. From what I have been able to gather, the cost is in the INIC as that chip alone is several hundred and does not have a suitable replacement in either hardware or software.



That said, it's great to be able to talk with someone who has first-hand knowledge of it. What other expenses come into play here? What component of it am I not taking into account? For such a prominent protocol, I'm surprised more open source attempts to reverse/expose/manipulate it have not been made. Maybe you can help me understand why.

Originally Posted by drfeelgood

I have the NAV-TV unit, it works flawlessly. Absolute single most important piece of hardware in my audio setup in my ZL1. I don't think a group buy would work, not here. No offense to the audio guys here, but most aren't building real setups. most appear to be completely fine with trying line-out options and adding a woofer. most are asking what's the least they can spend on a setup. most don't want to spend more than $1000 for the entire setup. If that's the crowd you have, they prob aren't willing to get a group buy together and spend $600 on a unit (which is likely the best we would get on a group buy) like this.

I am in no way arguing that it isn't a good idea, or that the item isn't worth it... IT IS! And in my opinion, if they sold if for $1000 it would still be worth it. It's just that, based on the posts I have seen in the audio section here, not sure we could get even 10 people interested, and many of those that understand the significant benefits of this unit have already purchased it.

But it doesn't hurt to try, and I hope you are successful because it's a da*n good unit.

No offense taken. Most car audio is barely good audio anyway. It's a very different field than audio engineering in other respects. That said, I literally cannot allow myself to step down an amplified signal into line level. That is just so gross and wrong all of the ways. I agree that the M650 is worth it even at the current price.



My motivation in a group buy is of course because a lower price is even better and because I've seen some demand for the unit already in these forums. There are more people buying camaros every day and some of them will come here. If they see a group buy being organized and have some patience, it will accumulate into a group.


As for the DIY route, that is a matter of principle. It really annoys me that protocols like MOST are not open source to begin with. In a more general sense, car (electronics) modification is not even close to the level of community involvement and ingenuity as cell phone modification despite the fact that most people have both cars and phones. The auto industry has done an amazing job of keeping this stuff proprietary, unexplained, esoteric, and in many cases insecure because there is little visibility of it from the community of car enthusiasts. So to wrap that mini-rant up, I want an alternative solution for the M650 because I want to encourage DIY solutions, not because I have anything against NAV-TV. Just against the consortium perhaps. (Yes, I know, they need to make money too)

[drfeelgood]

Originally Posted by Fractal

The MOST Book (which is publicly and freely available) appears to go into reasonably good detail on the various protocols and layers of MOST. From a reverse engineering perspective, you don't often have even this much information available so easily. From what I have been able to gather, the cost is in the INIC as that chip alone is several hundred and does not have a suitable replacement in either hardware or software.



That said, it's great to be able to talk with someone who has first-hand knowledge of it. What other expenses come into play here? What component of it am I not taking into account? For such a prominent protocol, I'm surprised more open source attempts to reverse/expose/manipulate it have not been made. Maybe you can help me understand why.





No offense taken. Most car audio is barely good audio anyway. It's a very different field than audio engineering in other respects. That said, I literally cannot allow myself to step down an amplified signal into line level. That is just so gross and wrong all of the ways. I agree that the M650 is worth it even at the current price.



My motivation in a group buy is of course because a lower price is even better and because I've seen some demand for the unit already in these forums. There are more people buying camaros every day and some of them will come here. If they see a group buy being organized and have some patience, it will accumulate into a group.


As for the DIY route, that is a matter of principle. It really annoys me that protocols like MOST are not open source to begin with. In a more general sense, car (electronics) modification is not even close to the level of community involvement and ingenuity as cell phone modification despite the fact that most people have both cars and phones. The auto industry has done an amazing job of keeping this stuff proprietary, unexplained, esoteric, and in many cases insecure because there is little visibility of it from the community of car enthusiasts. So to wrap that mini-rant up, I want an alternative solution for the M650 because I want to encourage DIY solutions, not because I have anything against NAV-TV. Just against the consortium perhaps. (Yes, I know, they need to make money too)

Understood. I would think that Gen5DIY would be the first to try and reverse engineer something as an alternative to Nav-TV. I, for one, am just happy that somebody came out with something. The guys that bought the 6th gens when they first came out were SOL.

Yes, totally agree about using a line level. haven't done that in a vehicle for over a decade.

[drfeelgood]

also, OP, you're here in LA. Let me know if you want to link up at some point and listen to the system. It definitely isn't as extensive as my CTS-V system, but it's much better than the factory BLOWS (Bose) system

[Fractal]

Originally Posted by drfeelgood

also, OP, you're here in LA. Let me know if you want to link up at some point and listen to the system. It definitely isn't as extensive as my CTS-V system, but it's much better than the factory BLOWS (Bose) system

drfeelgood, I would love to have a listen. I haven't made any changes to the camaro's audio system so far but I did purchase a dynaudio set ahead of purchasing the car. Didn't realize it was going to be such a pita to switch out. So at some point (sooner rather than later) I would like to upgrade but I just wasn't sure how to until the M650 came out.


Let me know when a good time is to meet. I am always roaming around between Glendale and Glendora so most of SGV is good for me. Thanks for the offer

[gblaue]

Originally Posted by Fractal

The MOST Book (which is publicly and freely available) appears to go into reasonably good detail on the various protocols and layers of MOST. From a reverse engineering perspective, you don't often have even this much information available so easily. From what I have been able to gather, the cost is in the INIC as that chip alone is several hundred and does not have a suitable replacement in either hardware or software.



That said, it's great to be able to talk with someone who has first-hand knowledge of it. What other expenses come into play here? What component of it am I not taking into account? For such a prominent protocol, I'm surprised more open source attempts to reverse/expose/manipulate it have not been made. Maybe you can help me understand why.

The INIC chip isn’t several hundred, I can’t tell you the exact price, but if you paid $30,you paid way too much. There other costs associated with it. License keys, which you have to have licensing agreements With DTLA. That will cost you a small fortune for annual fees and legal fees. Plan on $50-100k in fees, between your MOST fees and DTLA fees. You have to have a secure system to hold and distribute, said keys. Depending on which documentation that you have found, someone has violated their NDA with MOST. There are several software stacks that need to be obtained (from MOST) and written to implement a compliant MOST node. The hardware design, of which I am intimately knowledgeable of, is very detail oriented, in order to pass MOST compliance testing. I have $250k in just test equipment alone, to verify MOST bus compliance on a the physical layer. Countless man hours are spent in getting ring running, and getting all the different manufacturers components to play nice. Even though everyone use the same SW stacks, everyone implements them slightly different. This is what compliance test is so important, but expensive. It’s not a simple as Windows Plug-and-Play (sarcasm). I could go on and on and on, but let’s just say that they Nav-TV is a bargain for what you need.

[drfeelgood]

Originally Posted by gblaue

The INIC chip isn’t several hundred, I can’t tell you the exact price, but if you paid $30,you paid way too much. There other costs associated with it. License keys, which you have to have licensing agreements With DTLA. That will cost you a small fortune for annual fees and legal fees. Plan on $50-100k in fees, between your MOST fees and DTLA fees. You have to have a secure system to hold and distribute, said keys. Depending on which documentation that you have found, someone has violated their NDA with MOST. There are several software stacks that need to be obtained (from MOST) and written to implement a compliant MOST node. The hardware design, of which I am intimately knowledgeable of, is very detail oriented, in order to pass MOST compliance testing. I have $250k in just test equipment alone, to verify MOST bus compliance on a the physical layer. Countless man hours are spent in getting ring running, and getting all the different manufacturers components to play nice. Even though everyone use the same SW stacks, everyone implements them slightly different. This is what compliance test is so important, but expensive. It’s not a simple as Windows Plug-and-Play (sarcasm). I could go on and on and on, but let’s just say that they Nav-TV is a bargain for what you need.

ummm, what is it that you do , may I ask?

drfeelgood, I would love to have a listen. I haven't made any changes to the camaro's audio system so far but I did purchase a dynaudio set ahead of purchasing the car. Didn't realize it was going to be such a pita to switch out. So at some point (sooner rather than later) I would like to upgrade but I just wasn't sure how to until the M650 came out.


Let me know when a good time is to meet. I am always roaming around between Glendale and Glendora so most of SGV is good for me. Thanks for the offer 05-04-2018 02:15 PM

5/14 or 5/15 before 6 pm works for me. Any time on 5/16 works also. Can meet in Glendale, Pasadena, or Glendora. PM me

[gblaue]

Originally Posted by drfeelgood

ummm, what is it that you do , may I ask?

Let's just say, that I have designed many MOST amplifiers. for many different cars.

[Warsteiner]

PAC is supposed to be coming to market with a MOST version of their AMPPro line. It is very similar to what the M650-GM does. I think that is why this product is so pricey. There is currently nothing else on the market for us that will do what it does.

[BigSky]

Originally Posted by Warsteiner

PAC is supposed to be coming to market with a MOST version of their AMPPro line. It is very similar to what the M650-GM does. I think that is why this product is so pricey. There is currently nothing else on the market for us that will do what it does.

My understanding from talking with them is in the next 30-60 days.

[drfeelgood]

Originally Posted by gblaue

Let's just say, that I have designed many MOST amplifiers. for many different cars.

seriously.. you're speaking another language... I love seeing the diverse backgrounds on here

[Ryephile]

I'd probably bite on a group buy. I'm currently running front line-level into my C-DSP6x8 and it's not great. I think the main problem overall is I also need to add the center channel, and/or make a-pillar tweeter pods; the gauge hood and stock tweeter location are both major problems for the passenger-side soundstage and overall distortion levels.

This box would let me run SPDIF into my miniDSP, giving the front-end a fighting chance to be clean.