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      05-08-2013, 01:41 AM   #1
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Question Transferring Music?

Can you move tracks/albums from a memory stick, an iPod or a telephone onto the hard disc in the car? Sorry if this question has been asked before. But I can't find the answer.
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      05-08-2013, 01:53 AM   #2
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Yes you can

Stick the USB drive in the car

Going off memory, go into multimedia secton and press options. Choose manage music and then import music...

It's Something like that. Menu is quite intuitive when you are in the manage music section
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      05-08-2013, 02:57 AM   #3
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Thanks. I keep forgetting that there is an OPTIONS button. Its surprising what additional options there are and how screwed you are without them!
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      05-08-2013, 03:19 AM   #4
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Watch out. You might lose all your track ordering playing from the HDD. It may still play alphabetically. Worth checking.
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      05-08-2013, 04:13 AM   #5
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I wondered my my albums played in an odd order. So by playing from an iPod, track order in as per album.
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      05-08-2013, 05:35 AM   #6
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from what i have found you are best leaving them on a big stick...
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      05-08-2013, 05:43 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by changed View Post
from what i have found you are best leaving them on a big stick...
+1
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      05-08-2013, 05:47 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by changed View Post
from what i have found you are best leaving them on a big stick...
I'd go along with that. I found that keeping my music on the hard drive had so many limitations and frustrations that it really wasn't worth it. I bought one of these and never looked back.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-SDCZ...m_computers_21
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      05-08-2013, 06:15 AM   #9
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This is a bit irritating. The convenience of leaving them on the hard drive was a big selling point for the Pro Media. I wanted to be able to charge either my or my wife's phone via the USB and still have access to music not on either phone. What exactly are the limitations? Venkata's thread seemed to suggest there were none?

While we're on the subject - Venkata suggested that the sound was poorer from the HDD than from an external device. Can anyone verify that, because it makes no sense. From the car's perspective, it's playing the same files from different storage devices, but it's still loading the file into its memory, decoding it, and playing it, so they should be identical. It's not like it's ripping the files and changing the quality.

Last edited by Zero71; 05-08-2013 at 06:34 AM..
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      05-08-2013, 06:22 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zerolight View Post
This is a bit irritating. The convenience of leaving them on the hard drive was a big selling point for the Pro Media. I wanted to be able to charge either my or my wife's phone via the USB and still have access to music not on either phone. What exactly are the limitations? Venkata's thread seemed to suggest there were none?
charge the phones from the glove box usb - or buy a converter for the 12v power socket.
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      05-08-2013, 07:23 AM   #11
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Whats the biggest memory stick that the car will be able to use ?
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      05-08-2013, 07:26 AM   #12
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No glove box USB.

The album/track order can be solved (I think) by extremely detailed editing of the various mp3/AAC file tags. But why you'd put yourself through that when you can just copy your entire iTunes/Google/Amazon music folder onto a USB in a few minutes is beyond me. And anyhoo, the HDD would be no good for me because it's not big enough to include music and video.
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      05-08-2013, 08:20 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zerolight View Post
What exactly are the limitations? Venkata's thread seemed to suggest there were none?
Like you, I was a little peeved to find that the hard disk MP3 implementation was so half-hearted and useless after the way they advertise it. The functionality is there when using a USB stick, so why not from the HD - it just seems like they couldn't really be bothered (or maybe they gave the design of the HD interface to the new graduates).

I'm talking from the perspective of the 2012 iDrive, whereas I'm assuming you have the newer system which may be different, but the main issue I have with it is that there is no easy way of adding or deleting individual mp3 tracks without doing a complete export/import cycle, so once you've put some files on it, it's a real PITA to change anything. Ok, that's not quite true, you can add (but not edit or delete) single tracks, but the way it's handled is a joke.

A secondary issue is that no album art is displayed when playing from the hard disk, although it is when using a USB stick. Why this should be is beyond me. Yes, I know, it's only a cosmetic thing, but if I can have it when using a USB stick why on earth would I want to use the HD?

By using a USB stick it is dead easy to add/edit/delete music, change album art, MP3 tags, create play lists, etc. Job done - why make life hard for yourself.

Strangely, you won't find any mention of this in the BMW literature.
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      05-08-2013, 08:29 AM   #14
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OK. So it doesn't sound like there's any technical issues with the onboard HDD other than it's limited size. For the sake of £40 I decided to order one of these Verbatim (Toshiba) 500GB HDDs from eBuyer though. Enough to fit my library on 3 times over. Thanks.

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      05-08-2013, 11:53 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rich1068 View Post
Watch out. You might lose all your track ordering playing from the HDD. It may still play alphabetically. Worth checking.
I spent an afternoon using tagscanner to automatically rename all the audio files because of this problem...

Most of the MP3 had the appropriate Titles and Artists etc, where the tags where missing the software filled them in by obtaining info from the internet.

All my music has the following format now

Album Name - CD Number - Track Number - Title
eg Anthems 90s - CD 1 - 01 - Rhythm Is A Dancer.MP3

Now the audio stored on the car plays in the right order...
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      05-08-2013, 11:58 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Poohbore View Post
Whats the biggest memory stick that the car will be able to use ?
I have an external 320GB USB Hard Drive that i use to play the Kids TV Shows. The car seems happy with it and powers via USB. I leave the the music on the car's Hard Drive.
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      05-10-2013, 02:10 PM   #17
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Will the car play 320k mp3 files. The Americans are saying 256k max - but maybe that's on the old system?
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      05-10-2013, 05:06 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zerolight
Will the car play 320k mp3 files. The Americans are saying 256k max - but maybe that's on the old system?
A lot of my music is 320k. I wonder, if it plays from hard drive does it then downgrade to 256k?????? Hmmmmm
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      05-10-2013, 05:51 PM   #19
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I've converted the unmatched mp3s to AAC now, at 256k. Most of my library was already iTunes matched AAC anyway. There was a good article on an audiophile website comparing different formats and whilst lossless formats were best, they noted that 256k AAC was better than 320k MP3.

Interestingly, some files that failed in itunes match as mp3 are matching via AAC.
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      05-18-2013, 10:59 AM   #20
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So I've got my music all playing fine off the above HDD. One thing I notice though is that even when the engine is off I can hear the HDD spinning. Is the USB port powered whether the car is on or off? Similarly, I could hear the faint whirr of the iDrive fan in the dash despite the car being off - does that stay powered up for a short while after the engine goes off?
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      05-19-2013, 02:36 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zerolight
So I've got my music all playing fine off the above HDD. One thing I notice though is that even when the engine is off I can hear the HDD spinning. Is the USB port powered whether the car is on or off? Similarly, I could hear the faint whirr of the iDrive fan in the dash despite the car being off - does that stay powered up for a short while after the engine goes off?
I think I read somewhere here it's powered for about 10 mins after locking then powers down...
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      05-19-2013, 04:54 PM   #22
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