[bizzyqu]

Can you get album art to show up by adding the music through USB or burning cds, what is the best way to add music to the harddrive (ipod is not an option)

[TonyS]

I've found that the hard drive is just too much of a PITA to be bothered with. It doesn't display album art, and there is no easy way to delete or add files to it without a complete wipe and re-import.

Once I discovered this I just bought one of the tiny USB drives and plugged it into the centre console socket - you can hardly even see it. Oh look, album art available and it's dead easy to add/delete music, change album art, MP3 tags, create play lists, etc. Job done.

Why BMW made such a pig's ear of the hard drive media software is a mystery to me.

[bizzyqu]

Originally Posted by TonyS

I've found that the hard drive is just too much of a PITA to be bothered with. It doesn't display album art, and there is no easy way to delete or add files to it without a complete wipe and re-import.

Once I discovered this I just bought one of the tiny USB drives and plugged it into the centre console socket - you can hardly even see it. Oh look, album art available and it's dead easy to add/delete music, change album art, MP3 tags, create play lists, etc. Job done.

Why BMW made such a pig's ear of the hard drive media software is a mystery to me.

so a flash drive will do it then, do you have to set up the files in a particular way to get album art, search by artist, etc?

[TheObviousChild]

Flash drive is def the way to go. I got a small profile 32GB for about $20.

I am curious though why album art showing up is rare. And even when it does, sometimes it pops in and out, switching to the artist/album info.

[rich1068]

Originally Posted by bizzyqu

so a flash drive will do it then?

As TheObviousChild says, it certainly is.

For example, do you use iTunes/Amazon MP3/Google Play? If so just copy over your entire iTunes/Amazon/Google music folder to the USB and job's a good 'un. Select External Devices and you've got all your music sorted correctly and with album art.

As far as searching is concerned I've never bothered. It seems overly complicated to me. Just click on search and it will list all the artists alphabetically. Scroll to find what you want.

However, I am quite anal about tags/info/art etc and I do tend to run my media through Bliss.

Note: I'm in the UK and this is my experience with Pro Media in an '11 E91 and Business Media/Pro Media in a '12 F31.

[TonyS]

Originally Posted by bizzyqu

so a flash drive will do it then, do you have to set up the files in a particular way to get album art, search by artist, etc?

I just have top level folders which are the artist names, with sub-folders named as the albums. I mainly use MediaMonkey to get the album art or adjust tags if needed. Make sure that you embed the album art into the MP3 files, it won't work if you have it as a separate file. Using this setup I've never had album art fail to display, and everything works great.

[bizzyqu]

Originally Posted by TonyS

I just have top level folders which are the artist names, with sub-folders named as the albums. I mainly use MediaMonkey to get the album art or adjust tags if needed. Make sure that you embed the album art into the MP3 files, it won't work if you have it as a separate file. Using this setup I've never had album art fail to display, and everything works great.

If I see the album art on the songs in the file explorer on windows, is it safe to say the art is embedded?

[Shuttlegoose]

Question about how to insert the album art into the mp3? Not sure how this is done through iTunes or anything else. I use a 32 gig thumb drive as well.

[TonyS]

Originally Posted by bizzyqu

If I see the album art on the songs in the file explorer on windows, is it safe to say the art is embedded?

I reckon so, seems to be the case for me.

[bizzyqu]

Originally Posted by TonyS

I reckon so, seems to be the case for me.

So I guess my zune and its software has been good for something haha

[TSiSPY007]

I still can't seem to get album art to display on the nav screen... I'm using a Patriot Autobahn 32G drive in the center armrest USB connection. I tried using the program taghycardia to embed the track info as someone suggested in another thread (can't find that thread right now). All I see on the nav screen are the tracks of the album with a check mark beside the track being played and a thin red rectangle framing the name of the track, but no album art... it's like this for all the songs on the USB drive. Help! Thanks.

[rich1068]

Can you post up a pic of what you're seeing?

[bizzyqu]

I used mp3Tag if that helps

[electronutsie]

Originally Posted by TSiSPY007

I still can't seem to get album art to display on the nav screen... I'm using a Patriot Autobahn 32G drive in the center armrest USB connection. I tried using the program taghycardia to embed the track info as someone suggested in another thread (can't find that thread right now). All I see on the nav screen are the tracks of the album with a check mark beside the track being played and a thin red rectangle framing the name of the track, but no album art... it's like this for all the songs on the USB drive. Help! Thanks.

Hi, I'm the author of taghycardia. Could you write to taghycardia@yandex.ru with a more detailed description of your problem and possibly a sample mp3 file you tried to autotag with the program?

For taghycardia to discover and embed art in your mp3s, both "Auto fix cover art" and "Use Cover Art from Discogs" options must be on. Still, whenever the utility is unable to find art for a folder, it displays the corresponding warning. When this is the case, one can either try getting art using taghycardia's internal tag editor or put an image into the folder manually, and then rescan it with taghycardia; the program then would find and embed the image automatically.

[ejholt]

How much space is dedicated to music on the internal hard drive?

[Frogman]

Originally Posted by ejholt

How much space is dedicated to music on the internal hard drive?

On the CIC Nav based cars it's about 12GB.

On the newer NBT Nav based cars, I think it's 20GB.

[jmg]

Originally Posted by Frogman

On the CIC Nav based cars it's about 12GB.

On the newer NBT Nav based cars, I think it's 20GB.

How can you tell which one you have?

[Frogman]

Originally Posted by jmg

How can you tell which one you have?

New nav looks like this:

http://www.f30post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=691510

If you are in the US and don't have the AH3 or the F31, then you have the current (non-new) nav.