[jingai00]

Is it really not possible for the car to remember my last playback mode? As in, if I enable Random Mode, it seems to disable it everytime I turn the car off. I know people have complained about this before, but was wondering if anyone knew of any "tricks" to keep my tracks shuffled.. if not, man.. that is really a pretty serious oversight.

Also, from my understanding, selecting "CD 01" is Playlist mode. For some reason, though, only my first playlist is listed on the display. The other 4 are not shown at all. Am I doing something wrong?

[JSpira]

I don't understand why anyone would think that not remembering the last mode is a SERIOUS problem. It's a minor inconvenience.

Re your playlist, they should all be visible and displayed (you should see at least 5 or more at once) and then you can scroll down for more.

[jingai00]

I see it as a serious oversight, not a serious problem. The voice command "Random On" is simple enough, but really, I shouldn't have to. How hard is it to store the setting in NVRAM and retain it? You also have to realize that I listen to my iPod as a replacement for the radio -- I never listen to full albums. It's /always/ in shuffle mode. So, if I make several short stops on my way home from work, I'm turning random mode on each and every time. It's goofy to have to do that.

As for the playlists, I've connected it back to the computer and verified I have 5 playlists on the iPod, but only 1 shows on "CD 01" in the car. Any ideas what might be wrong?

[JSpira]

Originally Posted by jingai00

I see it as a serious oversight, not a serious problem. The voice command "Random On" is simple enough, but really, I shouldn't have to. How hard is it to store the setting in NVRAM and retain it? You also have to realize that I listen to my iPod as a replacement for the radio -- I never listen to full albums. It's /always/ in shuffle mode. So, if I make several short stops on my way home from work, I'm turning random mode on each and every time. It's goofy to have to do that.

It's not supported by the CD Changer so yes it is hard to store the setting.

Originally Posted by jingai00

As for the playlists, I've connected it back to the computer and verified I have 5 playlists on the iPod, but only 1 shows on "CD 01" in the car. Any ideas what might be wrong?

I see the actual names, not CD 01 and I have dozens of playlists so something is wrong: you should see the names clearly displayed.

[jingai00]

Originally Posted by JSpira

It's not supported by the CD Changer so yes it is hard to store the setting.

Not necessarily -- the iPod interface unit itself has its own processor as well, probably a PIC microcontroller. They could have added a very small amount of NVRAM (or Flash, or whatever) to store preferences such as this.

Alternatively, the iDrive OS itself could store it in the same location as the other preferences, and set it for you on bootup.

And even another way would be to query the iPod itself for the setting (my Dension iceLink>Plus did it this way).

Regardless, a small one-time effort on the designers' part would have saved us from having to repeat an action each and every time we start our cars.

Originally Posted by JSpira

I see the actual names, not CD 01 and I have dozens of playlists so something is wrong: you should see the names clearly displayed.

I see the actual name of one playlist (Electronica, if you care) under "CD 01". The other 4 playlists are not there, though.

[JSpira]

Originally Posted by jingai00

Not necessarily -- the iPod interface unit itself has its own processor as well, probably a PIC microcontroller. They could have added a very small amount of NVRAM (or Flash, or whatever) to store preferences such as this.

.

It has its own microprocessor but all of the commands go through the CD Changer interface and it only accepts the commands that a changer would require. This is also why we see CD1 and CD2 instead of playlists genre album etc.

[jingai00]

Originally Posted by JSpira

It has its own microprocessor but all of the commands go through the CD Changer interface and it only accepts the commands that a changer would require. This is also why we see CD1 and CD2 instead of playlists genre album etc.

I am aware, but they could have done it like Dension did. Dension made special tracks the adapter itself that could be selected for setting preferences. CD6 was reserved for this -- if you selected it, it would have empty MP3 files that meant special things to the adapter if you play them. I.e., when the adapter is told to play track 1 of CD6, it would mean to toggle random on/off. The title of Track 1 Disc 6 could have been something like, "Toggle Random Mode." Etc etc for the other settings.

I do this kind of stuff for a living. I realize it's a kludge, but it worked, and it's easy to implement. It does mean that you couldn't use CD6 for your music, but really, it's worth the loss.

The best way to do it would have been to make the adapter respond to a packet to identify itself as an iPod adapter, if they could find some sequence of bytes that did not confuse a real CD Changer (i.e., cause it to crash, etc). And have iDrive just treat is a seperate device. I suspect they did this with the 6FL option.

Despite all this, I've managed to figure out how to make myself happy anyway:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showth...187#post758187

The only thing that still irks me is that only the first of my playlists show up.. I have no clue why the others are not there.

[JSpira]

I´ve already applauded the playlist option you created in the thread dedicated to that.

Now, regarding your playlist problem, which iPod are you using and can you try another iPod with your car?

[jingai00]

Originally Posted by JSpira

Now, regarding your playlist problem, which iPod are you using and can you try another iPod with your car?

It's a 4G 60GB iPod Photo. I do have a 20GB gen 4 also that I can try.. I'll see if I get different results with it.