New original BMW entretainment products
07-20-2005, 07:17 AM
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My Ride: 535d Eccelsa, 05 2005 (built 12-04), sapphireblack, beige dakota leather, electric seats, poplar wood trim, sport suspension, 124 style 18" alloys, differentiated f/r runflat tyres, steptronic, adaptive light control, bi-xenon, BMW PRO nav, cd, cd changer, electric-foldable and automatic antidazzle rear mirrors, automatic antidazzle internal rear mirror, adjustable central armrest, BT, Hifi Professional LOGIC7 , extended functions aircon, full lighting package, green comfort fascia on windshield, PDC park distance control, voice control, CPT9000 car phone, BMW Assist, BMW On-line, BMW Tracking, alarm system, programmable remote controls.
Yesterday my SA allowed me to surf on the BMW internal computer network to have a look at all the new products coming up from Munich especially conceived for aftersale installation.
I focused my attention on the entertainment products and I saw some very interesting new products.
First, a new ceiling mounted DVD player is now available; it's a smart unit made up by a PORTABLE unit with 10,4" Lcd screen that can read DVD, Divx, MP3, WMA, Mpeg2, Mpeg4. When in use in the car, it's located in a docking station installed in the ceiling (there are special versions for standard, sunroof and alarm equipped cars) and can play music/audio from its diffusers or via infrared earphones. Of course, the monitor folds down when in use and folds up, flush with the ceiling, when not operated. When you've reached your destination, you can just take it off and use it in your hotel room powered by its internal battery or by an AC/DC adapter. COOL!
In Italy the cost is about 1300,00 Euros the DVD player, 200,00 Euros the docking station and about 5 manhours the installation.
The second product is a full retro-fit entertainment system with one or two Lcd monitors (its a customer's choice) on the back of the front passengers headrests and a DVD player unit integrated in the car's entertainment system. The picture of the system (just one, unfortunely) shows a very professional installation, with a lot of pieces to change, including the front seats back-shell and a lot of other components.
It will be available in October 05, so no prices yet.
The last one is Becker DVD unit, fixed, to be installed on the ceiling and working in the usual way: monitor folds down in operation and then folds up (in this case electrically operated)l
On top of this pretty cool products, BMW offers now some devices designed to improve the performance and capabilities of the E60 entertainment system:
-iPod interface unit
-refit TV and digital TV units (for cars manufactured from September 04 the TV tuner is analogue and digital as standard; for older cars, you should buy the TV tuner plus the settop box)
More is on the way, BMW knows how to appeal the techno fanatics!
I focused my attention on the entertainment products and I saw some very interesting new products.
First, a new ceiling mounted DVD player is now available; it's a smart unit made up by a PORTABLE unit with 10,4" Lcd screen that can read DVD, Divx, MP3, WMA, Mpeg2, Mpeg4. When in use in the car, it's located in a docking station installed in the ceiling (there are special versions for standard, sunroof and alarm equipped cars) and can play music/audio from its diffusers or via infrared earphones. Of course, the monitor folds down when in use and folds up, flush with the ceiling, when not operated. When you've reached your destination, you can just take it off and use it in your hotel room powered by its internal battery or by an AC/DC adapter. COOL!
In Italy the cost is about 1300,00 Euros the DVD player, 200,00 Euros the docking station and about 5 manhours the installation.
The second product is a full retro-fit entertainment system with one or two Lcd monitors (its a customer's choice) on the back of the front passengers headrests and a DVD player unit integrated in the car's entertainment system. The picture of the system (just one, unfortunely) shows a very professional installation, with a lot of pieces to change, including the front seats back-shell and a lot of other components.
It will be available in October 05, so no prices yet.
The last one is Becker DVD unit, fixed, to be installed on the ceiling and working in the usual way: monitor folds down in operation and then folds up (in this case electrically operated)l
On top of this pretty cool products, BMW offers now some devices designed to improve the performance and capabilities of the E60 entertainment system:
-iPod interface unit
-refit TV and digital TV units (for cars manufactured from September 04 the TV tuner is analogue and digital as standard; for older cars, you should buy the TV tuner plus the settop box)
More is on the way, BMW knows how to appeal the techno fanatics!
07-20-2005, 07:59 AM
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My Ride: [i][b][u]Since 19 august 2004[/u][/b][/i]: [color=red][b]530i[/b] High Executive[/color], Silvergray with beige interior, Popular wood, Servotronic, Sportssuspension, electric foldable and dimmed mirrors, dimmed interior mirror, pappelmaser braun wood, cupholders, styling 123 18" wheels, Logic 7, Steptronic, alarm class 3, electric sunscreen in the rear and suncreens for sidewindows, Comfort seats, heated seats, Xenon with headlightwashers, Adaptive corner lights ALC, Advanced airconditioning, lightpackage, Nav Pro, 6 cd changer, side airbags rearseats, bluetooth siemens S55, chrome kidneys, gearlever with wood, voice recognition retrofit, front windshield with green band.
Waiting for trunkopener button from Hobi :)
The second product is interesting if it also gives some picture on the I-Drive screen hehehe 
07-20-2005, 08:12 AM
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My Ride: 545i Mystic Blue/Black Leather Type 124 Wheels
The first DVD unit is the one that came out with the E90 3 Series
Its a laptoplike DVD player and screen and a docking station is installed on the roof. You can then take the DVD player out the car and watch it using battery power or plug it into the mailns at home/hotel and watch
The second sounds like the system that has been available in the 7 Series for a while with the boot mounted DVD multichanger
The third one came out with the E60, and is very big
They have jutst released a IPOD unit for the E90, but you canot see the ipod info on idrive, you have to add a small one line screen on the dash that shows the info, but you can control the ipod from the steering wheel, but its not available for cars with bluetooth. Lets hope the E60 system is better.
Its a laptoplike DVD player and screen and a docking station is installed on the roof. You can then take the DVD player out the car and watch it using battery power or plug it into the mailns at home/hotel and watch
The second sounds like the system that has been available in the 7 Series for a while with the boot mounted DVD multichanger
The third one came out with the E60, and is very big
They have jutst released a IPOD unit for the E90, but you canot see the ipod info on idrive, you have to add a small one line screen on the dash that shows the info, but you can control the ipod from the steering wheel, but its not available for cars with bluetooth. Lets hope the E60 system is better.
07-20-2005, 09:12 AM
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My Ride: 2006 530i Sport
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Rear sunshade
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Autobahnd Roadblock (3M) film kit
Originally Posted by E60Speed' date='Jul 20 2005, 11:12 AM
The first DVD unit is the one that came out with the E90 3 Series
Its a laptoplike DVD player and screen and a docking station is installed on the roof. You can then take the DVD player out the car and watch it using battery power or plug it into the mailns at home/hotel and watch
The second sounds like? the system that has been available in the 7 Series for a while with the boot mounted DVD multichanger
The third one came out with the E60, and is very big
They have jutst released a IPOD unit for the E90, but you canot see the ipod info on idrive, you have to add a small one line screen on the dash that shows the info, but you can control the ipod from the steering wheel, but its not available for cars with bluetooth. Lets hope the E60 system is better.
Its a laptoplike DVD player and screen and a docking station is installed on the roof. You can then take the DVD player out the car and watch it using battery power or plug it into the mailns at home/hotel and watch
The second sounds like? the system that has been available in the 7 Series for a while with the boot mounted DVD multichanger
The third one came out with the E60, and is very big
They have jutst released a IPOD unit for the E90, but you canot see the ipod info on idrive, you have to add a small one line screen on the dash that shows the info, but you can control the ipod from the steering wheel, but its not available for cars with bluetooth. Lets hope the E60 system is better.
[snapback]151146[/snapback]
Heck, let's hope we get Bluetooth iPOD connectivity instead.
07-20-2005, 09:18 AM
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Originally Posted by UUronL' date='Jul 20 2005, 12:12 PM
[quote name='E60Speed' date='Jul 20 2005, 11:12 AM']The first DVD unit is the one that came out with the E90 3 Series
Its a laptoplike DVD player and screen and a docking station is installed on the roof. You can then take the DVD player out the car and watch it using battery power or plug it into the mailns at home/hotel and watch
The second sounds like? the system that has been available in the 7 Series for a while with the boot mounted DVD multichanger
The third one came out with the E60, and is very big
They have jutst released a IPOD unit for the E90, but you canot see the ipod info on idrive, you have to add a small one line screen on the dash that shows the info, but you can control the ipod from the steering wheel, but its not available for cars with bluetooth. Lets hope the E60 system is better.
Its a laptoplike DVD player and screen and a docking station is installed on the roof. You can then take the DVD player out the car and watch it using battery power or plug it into the mailns at home/hotel and watch
The second sounds like? the system that has been available in the 7 Series for a while with the boot mounted DVD multichanger
The third one came out with the E60, and is very big
They have jutst released a IPOD unit for the E90, but you canot see the ipod info on idrive, you have to add a small one line screen on the dash that shows the info, but you can control the ipod from the steering wheel, but its not available for cars with bluetooth. Lets hope the E60 system is better.
[snapback]151146[/snapback]
Heck, let's hope we get Bluetooth iPOD connectivity instead.
[snapback]151177[/snapback]
[/quote]
07-20-2005, 09:29 AM
#7
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Like someone explain in some other tread. BMW currently employs BT v1.2 on E60 and it has low bandwidth which is not good enough for transferring both music and voice (phone). Unless BMW go for BT v2.0 or so which would have double bandwidth.
I-Pod in i-Drive? Please wait for version 30.1. Hahaha. We're dreaming.
I-Pod in i-Drive? Please wait for version 30.1. Hahaha. We're dreaming.
07-20-2005, 10:03 AM
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The DVD unit from the ceiling is available in europe for over a year. If you go to a european BMW website and download the accessories PDF you will see it. It only does not work if you have the panorama roof (as I do with my 530xiT...)
07-20-2005, 10:28 AM
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My Ride: 2006 530i Sport
Silver Gray - Black Leather - Anthracite Maple
Manual Transmission
Premium Audio
Cold Weather Package
Rear sunshade
Sirius Radio
Autobahnd Roadblock (3M) film kit
Originally Posted by my530i' date='Jul 20 2005, 12:29 PM
Like someone explain in some other tread. BMW currently employs BT v1.2 on E60 and it has low bandwidth which is not good enough for transferring both music and voice (phone). Unless BMW go for BT v2.0 or so which would have double bandwidth.
I-Pod in i-Drive? Please wait for version 30.1. Hahaha. We're dreaming.
I-Pod in i-Drive? Please wait for version 30.1. Hahaha. We're dreaming.
[snapback]151188[/snapback]
Actually, EDR (enhanced data rate) is an addendum to v1.2. EDR allows up to 2.1 Mbps vs. 721 Kbps on current technology. As you point out, the A2DP profile is designed to transport 700Kbps stereo audio across the link, which would leave a small amount for voice. In tests of currently available PC devices supporting these profiles, reviewers reported some drops or popping sounds in the audio when the phone was in use. It is unclear as to whether or not optimizations could improve upon performance. It may also be possible (and probably makes some sense) to switch off not only the audio when a call comes in (mute), but also break the A2DP link. This "switching" action could also alleviate the bandwidth contention.
Also, it isn't really necessary to use the full bandwidth of the spec when transferring MP3s, so it may turn out that the entire 700 Kbps will not be used for transmitting the bitstream. We'll see. A proprietary Apple interconnect could easily be made to work using v1.2 without EDR. Or, BMW can code the EDR addendum into the v1.2 implementation it has in the E60.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but I can't imagine Apple and BMW will let this get in their way. There are too many possible hacks.
A compromise situation which might be palatable would be to allow the audio to pass via some form of wired kit that provides power to the unit, and pair the iPod for AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile) only - which would allow us to both send control commands to the iPod via the iDrive controls and receive screen update information to the iDrive screen via Bluetooth.
