[dinkoh]

Originally Posted by Former_Boosted_IS

I am confused. Isn't there a couple of second delay between songs on all albums, CD or IPOD? Is this delay any different? I really want to buy a hard drive or IPOD and I am waiting to see what you guys figure out. I would love to get the hard drive since per dollar it seems like a much better choice.

Nothing to figure out. Songs normally don't have a delay. It might have some silence, but thats intention by the artist/label. But, music genre like trance/electronica do not have silence at the end of tracks since much of their music is continous track to track.

[Dr_Dirt]

Originally Posted by dinkoh

Nothing to figure out. Songs normally don't have a delay. It might have some silence, but thats intention by the artist/label. But, music genre like trance/electronica do not have silence at the end of tracks since much of their music is continous track to track.

Do you have an artist or album in mind? I could test it out for you.

[Former_Boosted_IS]

Originally Posted by Dr_Dirt

Do you have an artist or album in mind? I could test it out for you.

I thought about the IOMEGA 120 GB 4200 rpm drive. Is there any advantage on some of the drives?

[dinkoh]

Originally Posted by Dr_Dirt

Do you have an artist or album in mind? I could test it out for you.

I think must electronica albums work. But, what comes to mind is "Sasha & John Digweed - Northern Exposure"

[dinkoh]

Originally Posted by Former_Boosted_IS

I thought about the IOMEGA 120 GB 4200 rpm drive. Is there any advantage on some of the drives?

I don't think so. Most 6FL will not play 5200rpm drives. So you are stuck with 4200rpm ones.

[Dr_Dirt]

Originally Posted by dinkoh

I think must electronica albums work. But, what comes to mind is "Sasha & John Digweed - Northern Exposure"

The pause in between songs never bothered me however, I did a search and apparantly this "gap" in between songs is a real issue with mp3's.
http://www.pretentiousname.com/mp3players/

[Dr_Dirt]

Originally Posted by Former_Boosted_IS

I thought about the IOMEGA 120 GB 4200 rpm drive. Is there any advantage on some of the drives?

I'm currently testing the buffalo 300gb drive, I think its 4200rpm and comes with a perfectly short right angle usb2 cable. I think it works great, but I usually don't listen to albums that play out as one big long song.

[gloster]

My problem with USB solutions is that you can't set it to remember the position within a song/audio file. I listen to a lot of podcasts. With a one hour podcast, it is annoying to have to either listen to the whole thing at once or fast forward back to your old position.

BTW, I don't mean remembering position when you turn off the car. I mean remembering position when you take a break from your podcast to listen to a couple other songs on your usb drive.

If anyone knows a solution to this, I will praise you.

[Former_Boosted_IS]

Originally Posted by Dr_Dirt

I'm currently testing the buffalo 300gb drive, I think its 4200rpm and comes with a perfectly short right angle usb2 cable. I think it works great, but I usually don't listen to albums that play out as one big long song.

That Iomega is tough to beat for the price. I don't think there is anyway I could use the full 120 gb either. 300 gb is GIANT for someone like me.

[jtmccabe]

Originally Posted by gloster

My problem with USB solutions is that you can't set it to remember the position within a song/audio file. I listen to a lot of podcasts. With a one hour podcast, it is annoying to have to either listen to the whole thing at once or fast forward back to your old position.

BTW, I don't mean remembering position when you turn off the car. I mean remembering position when you take a break from your podcast to listen to a couple other songs on your usb drive.

If anyone knows a solution to this, I will praise you.

Even the iPod is like this. It's like they don't understand that some people listen to 2+ hour programs. You can't take a break to listen to something else. More annoying is that if you have the misfortune to accidentally hit the FF or REW button, it takes you FOREVER to get back to where you left off since max FF speed is 30 seconds at a time.

[gloster]

Originally Posted by jtmccabe

Even the iPod is like this. It's like they don't understand that some people listen to 2+ hour programs. You can't take a break to listen to something else. More annoying is that if you have the misfortune to accidentally hit the FF or REW button, it takes you FOREVER to get back to where you left off since max FF speed is 30 seconds at a time.

I have good news for you; on the iPod you can set this. I do it all the time. That's why I won't switch from an iPod. Just "get info" on a song and change it to "remember position".

Now if someone can come up with a "remember position" for a hard drive/thumb drive

[drwtsn32]

Originally Posted by Dr_Dirt

There maybe a 2-3 second delay at the end of the song. But there doesn't seem to be any delay at the start of the next song in the album.
When selecting a new song there is a 2-3 sec delay in starting that song but that is no different than an ipod.

There's no delay in the MP3 files themselves (no more than there is on the original CD). The delay is caused by a device taking too long to read/play the next song.

I'm using a USB HD with the 6FL and when I hit prev/next or manually choose a song it takes 2 or 3 seconds to start playing the new song.

This is very noticeable with dance albums where there is not normally silence between songs at all. But most MP3 players don't handle that correctly and introduce an unwanted gap.

[dinkoh]

Originally Posted by drwtsn32

There's no delay in the MP3 files themselves (no more than there is on the original CD). The delay is caused by a device taking too long to read/play the next song.

I'm using a USB HD with the 6FL and when I hit prev/next or manually choose a song it takes 2 or 3 seconds to start playing the new song.

This is very noticeable with dance albums where there is not normally silence between songs at all. But most MP3 players don't handle that correctly and introduce an unwanted gap.

+1. Only winamp on my computer does it well. :sad0147:

[Dr_Dirt]

OK i took my friends collection of > 54,000 songs in over 3,400 albums (265GB of music) and loaded them into my little 300GB drive and it worked.
I did the alphabet sorting (A,B,C etc) which helps but I think I need to break it down to Artists within each folder so it doesn't take extended time to pull up each list.

[cpippolo]

This is a great post, espectially for a newbie like me. I'm getting my 335xi with the Ipod/USB port in a couple of weeks and am planning to get a 4200 rpm hard drive for it (I have an Ipod Nano, but I use that on the train and when running, and it can be a pain to always remember to disconnect and take with me). Sorry If I'm asking questions that have already been answered. I understand that so far no one has had a problem with a 4200 rpm drive. Still true? I understand there might be some issues with connecting the USB cable without a cable that extends to the left or right, rather than coming straight out (perhaps depending on the size of the drive?). I've seen a lot about discussion about time of indexing (I believe a one time issue, until you add songs to the hard drive), time lag between songs (a few seconds) and time lag when starting the car (maybe 20 seconds?). I've also seen some posts about the song not starting up in the same place after the car has been off for a while, but that perhaps the latest software fixes that problem. Finally, scrolling through songs takes a long time, although depending on how your folders are set up (e.g., a folder for each letter or two of the alphabet) can help. Are their any other problems I may not have caught? Has anyone tried this with the latest software to see which, if any, of these problems have been fixed?

Not sure if it matters, but I'll have the Logic7 system with NO i-drive.

Also, regarding song quality, if I get a large hard drive I might re-rip my CDs using WMA lossless, or at least an WMA or MP3 bit-rate that doesn't compress as much. Has anyone tried WMA lossless? I assume it will still add ID3 tags, unlike ripping WAV files?

Thanks for your help. I've learned a ton from this forum!

[drwtsn32]

Originally Posted by cpippolo

Also, regarding song quality, if I get a large hard drive I might re-rip my CDs using WMA lossless, or at least an WMA or MP3 bit-rate that doesn't compress as much. Has anyone tried WMA lossless? I assume it will still add ID3 tags, unlike ripping WAV files?

The car does not support WMA files. Your choices are either MP3 or WAV. Personally I use MP3 with the highest possible bitrate (320kbps CBR) and to me it sounds great...indistinguishable from the source CD.

[gloster]

Originally Posted by drwtsn32

The car does not support WMA files. Your choices are either MP3 or WAV. Personally I use MP3 with the highest possible bitrate (320kbps CBR) and to me it sounds great...indistinguishable from the source CD.

The car also does AAC.

[cpippolo]

Thanks. I'm sprprised that it wouldn't work with WMA files. The following is from BMW's website:

Notes:
The USB audio interface currently supports the following compressed formats: MP3, AAC, WAV/PCM, WMA, M3U. WAV files are not supported in playlists.

However, MP3 with high bitrate may be good enough. Want to get as close to CD quality as possible, and since the hard drive I ordered is 120gb, I have plenty of room. Is there an advantage of AAC or any of the other supported compression technologies over MP3?

[GreekMaverick]

Hey Guys, another Newbie here, sorry

Questions:

1) Where can i buy the 6fl and how much is it?
2) Who does the installation? BMW? How much do they charge?
3) I have the I-drive with the AUX port no USB, would that be a problem?

I Appreciate your answers, although i can see ppl replying as ""
I am on the run and not much time to do so, thx in advance

[gloster]

Originally Posted by cpippolo

Thanks. I'm sprprised that it wouldn't work with WMA files. The following is from BMW's website:

Notes:
The USB audio interface currently supports the following compressed formats: MP3, AAC, WAV/PCM, WMA, M3U. WAV files are not supported in playlists.

However, MP3 with high bitrate may be good enough. Want to get as close to CD quality as possible, and since the hard drive I ordered is 120gb, I have plenty of room. Is there an advantage of AAC or any of the other supported compression technologies over MP3?

Both WMA and AAC provide higher sound quality at equivalent bit rates than MP3. So using WMA or AAC will save you space or gain you sound quality versus MP3.

[dinkoh]

Originally Posted by GreekMaverick

Hey Guys, another Newbie here, sorry

Questions:

1) Where can i buy the 6fl and how much is it?
2) Who does the installation? BMW? How much do they charge?
3) I have the I-drive with the AUX port no USB, would that be a problem?

I Appreciate your answers, although i can see ppl replying as ""
I am on the run and not much time to do so, thx in advance

Come back and do a then.

I had to... Too easy.

[cpippolo]

I received the Iomega 120gb 4200 rpm hard drive and have loaded up my music (used 256K bit rate to play it safe as I found A BMW document that suggests higher bitrates are not supported). However, I did not reformat the hard drive. I remember seeing some posts that said their hard drive "worked right out of the box" and other posts that have indicated they had to reformat. For those of you who bought an Iomega drive, did you have to reformat it to make it work with 6fl?

I haven't received my car yet (hopefully within a week or so) so can't try it myself yet.