PHATDB generates database and signature files for Kenwood ACDrive/mCD Car Stereo Head Units, making it an essential tool for managing and updating these devices.
PhatDB is a software project that enables users to generate database and signature files for mCD ('enhanced' CD) / Kenwood ACDrive Car Stereo Head Units. To build the project, users must have libid3tag and OpenSSL (libcrypto). The software can be built using the following commands: ./configure make make install.
PhatDB is designed to work with ACDrive USB head-units that understand only FAT-formatted disks, and the database must contain short (8.3) filenames. To generate the database correctly, USB drives MUST be mounted as 'msdos' (NOT 'vfat') so that the short filenames are shown. Linux has an ioctl which allows retrieval of short filenames from mounted vfat volumes since version 0.0.2, so this is no longer necessary.
For a disk to be recognized by an ACDrive head-unit, it must contain an 'mcd' directory in its root. This directory must contain the files: pkeys2.e pkeys2.sig. These files are NOT distributed with phatdb, they can be found in the phatnoise distribution or on the sample mCD CD which came with your head-unit.
To generate a database with all the music on a USB hard-drive mounted at /media/usbdisk: phatdb -g /media/usbdisk. This will create the files: /media/usbdisk/mcd/mcd.db /media/usbdisk/mcd/mcd.sig. The disk should now play as enhanced media in your head-unit.
Browsing and Index searching should work correctly, however, phatdb does not currently generate voice-prompt files. It is recommended that you disable this feature when using phatdb. A future version may support voice prompting.
PhatDB requires libid3tag (libid3tag0-dev) and OpenSSL to function properly. This is the first release of PhatDB. It can search all MP3 files on a device and build and sign the mcd.db file. Voice prompts are currently not supported.
PhatDB is designed to work with ACDrive USB head-units that understand only FAT-formatted disks, and the database must contain short (8.3) filenames. To generate the database correctly, USB drives MUST be mounted as 'msdos' (NOT 'vfat') so that the short filenames are shown. Linux has an ioctl which allows retrieval of short filenames from mounted vfat volumes since version 0.0.2, so this is no longer necessary.
For a disk to be recognized by an ACDrive head-unit, it must contain an 'mcd' directory in its root. This directory must contain the files: pkeys2.e pkeys2.sig. These files are NOT distributed with phatdb, they can be found in the phatnoise distribution or on the sample mCD CD which came with your head-unit.
To generate a database with all the music on a USB hard-drive mounted at /media/usbdisk: phatdb -g /media/usbdisk. This will create the files: /media/usbdisk/mcd/mcd.db /media/usbdisk/mcd/mcd.sig. The disk should now play as enhanced media in your head-unit.
Browsing and Index searching should work correctly, however, phatdb does not currently generate voice-prompt files. It is recommended that you disable this feature when using phatdb. A future version may support voice prompting.
PhatDB requires libid3tag (libid3tag0-dev) and OpenSSL to function properly. This is the first release of PhatDB. It can search all MP3 files on a device and build and sign the mcd.db file. Voice prompts are currently not supported.
What's New
Version 0.0.2: N/A