jazzdude

After days of messing around with software upgrades and various CD formats, I can now say that after upgrading my software to 27 on pro SATNAV and carefully following the instructions on CD burning as listed below

http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=...rt=#entry262725

I can now say that I enjoy MP3's better than any IPOD could. The unit recognises root folder structure, and lists all the tunes in the correct order per album. I burnt a DVD too and guess what - I have 4.5 GB of music playing from the DVD player, again properly indexed with root folders containing each album, properly named, and the track titles clearly printed with no abbreviations.

If anyone is going to do a software upgrade make sure that they enable the MP# capability because it does not happen automatically in the upgrade. There is a service bulletin that I found on here that you could look for and give to your dealer if they don't know what you are talking about. It is

SI B65 30 05
Sound System, Cruise, Alarms, Monitors March 2006
Technical Service

I must thank this forum, because without it I would still be taking the car to bits.

kearflex

Well Done

jrsamps

Good job

mrfva

Yay

Rizbel

I, too, would like to share in your happiness . Just picked up car from dealer and all my complaints have been resolved. The creaking noises from door seals(SI, wipers, AC, Oil/Filter change, and the MP3 retrofit. First thing I did when I got home is burn an mp3(cd-r) disc ( I'll burn a DVD mp3 disc later). It works too! Is there a way to find out the latest software version installed? Thanks in advance.

wasupdu

Nice work!

jazzdude

it is very important to make sure that the Mp3's are not over 192 bitrate as they dont work. I had sat down and loaded up a DVD with Mp3's without checkingg the bitrate and it was skipping and pausing all over the place. I downloaded an application called 4musics bitrate converter and it batch changed the bitrates that were higher back to 192.

Reburnt the disc and it worked a dream, no skipping or hanging.

To double check, I burnt another DVD with one song only at 320 bitrate and the rest 192 and it skipped that song only and the rest worked.

It seems that the quality of the head in both the CD drive and DVD is nowhere near up to the standard of a normal drive in a PC and shouldnt be seen as that.

The fact is with this set up there is no need to go to the expense of installing the IPOD link as this I think is far superior at the end of the day.

pharding

How is it superior?

jazzdude

the IPOD is slow in responding to Idrive commands, doesnt keep your folder structure if your songs dont have the same ID tags so you end up with bits of an album all over the place, that IPOD itself that hangs and needs resetting all the time and you dont have to deal with I-Tunes AT ALL (the best bit)

I mean, with 4.5GB of tunes on a DVD, it gives you a chance to write a new disk every couple of months or so, and keep things fresh. and you dont have to scroll through 20GB of music, to find your favourite tune.

I have had a IPOD in my car for a couple of years and the DVD is so much nicer (dont use the SAT NAV though as there are no maps here).

swajames

You don't have to scroll through 20GB of music to find your favorite tune on an iPod, either, and despite close to 80GB of music on my iPod I don't have any of the file structure and ID3 tag issues you describe.