Displaying Music ID Tags Via The MINI's Factory Nav System
 

Hi All,

Just thought you might like to see a pretty cool looking way of displaying your music's ID tags and album art on the MINI's factory nav system. :grin:

Sorry for the really poor quality photos. My camera kinda sucks.

http://www.theofficemaven.com/mini3/DVDMusic1.jpg

http://www.theofficemaven.com/mini3/DVDMusic2.jpg

http://www.theofficemaven.com/mini3/DVDMusic3.jpg

http://www.theofficemaven.com/mini3/DVDMusic4.jpg

OK, I'll bite, what and how did you achieve this?

There's nothing magic about it really.

My MINI has a DVD player hooked into the nav system (full details of how I did that can be found here: MINI Video Input) and I'm simply using what is called a "Music DVD" to play my music over the DVD player. The Music DVD can hold up to around 36 albums (or about 50 hours of music) if you make it out of a dual layer DVD+R.

The latest version of the Roxio/Sonic Easy Media Creator 8 Suite includes this really cool feature of creating Music DVDs (I think Nero and some others do as well). It automatically generates all of the menus for you and you can select from pre-defined styles for the menus or use your own custom backgrounds (such as a picture of a MINI, etc.).

The music is encoded on the DVD in the same way it is done for a movie (using Dolby Digital format). It sounds quite good even coming from lossy formatted MP3 files as the starting point. I imagine that it would sound even better if you started with original music CDs where the files are in a non-lossy WAV or AIFF format.

It has turned out to be a really sweet way of playing music in my MINI as the songs (including their ID tags and album art) just roll across the nav screen just as if they were being played from an iPod, etc. I can even move forwards or backwards through the songs using a small wireless remote that controls my DVD player.

I actually think that it would look even better on a plain black background (instead of on that vibrant green one). I'll have to play around with it some more and see what looks the best for me.

-- MIKE

Very creative :) How do you operate/control it? I assume you cannot use the steering wheel controls and have to use the nav buttons somehow?

Nice! Thanks for sharing :thumbsup:

I don't have a video ipod, but doesn't it output video when playing music? Track info, etc? I wonder if this approach could be taken - an adapter of sorts or rewiring the icelink cradle would probably be enough to get the video signal out.

Makes me wonder - has anyone tried just putting in a movie DVD?

I control it via a small wireless remote control. The only buttons on the MFSW that work with it are the volume controls.

Sure! I play DVD movies and PlayStation games on it all the time.

Thanks and you're most welcome.

I don't own an iPod and so I can't say either. However, any aux video source can be run to the nav display on my setup and any aux audio source can be run to the radio (via the OEM Aux input).

Simple yet effective. :nod:

Here are a few more shots with the menus toned down a bit.

BTW, the screen is actually pretty crisp and clear in real life. My camera just stinks at taking photos in the dark is all. One day I'll buy a new one. :)

http://www.theofficemaven.com/mini3/MusicDVD5.jpg

http://www.theofficemaven.com/mini3/MusicDVD6.jpg

http://www.theofficemaven.com/mini3/MusicDVD7.jpg

http://www.theofficemaven.com/mini3/MusicDVD8.jpg

http://www.theofficemaven.com/mini3/MusicDVD9.jpg

Hey me too.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...medium/MP3.jpg

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...um/console.jpg

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ht=ice+minitor

i doubt this would work on the current ipod video models. while you do get album artwork while playing it doesn't show up when docked and connected to a video source.

also the video out is kind of weird, it's a mini-plug to RCA connection, but apparently apple (trying to force you to buy their mini to RCA adapter) switched connections, so the standard red, yellow white RCA cables are switched around. i forget the exact change, but i think white and yellow are switched.

For some reason I thought you were able to plug Ipod videos up to monitors. Am I wrong?

Nice! :thumbsup:

I like that music menu. I take that your DVD plays MP3 discs and that's what the menu is derived from. Unfortunately, I don't think mine (a thin model PS2) can deal with MP3 discs. That's why I was so jazzed when I found the "Music DVD" stuff.

Thanks for sharing.

You are correct. Yeah, I almost went the PS2 thin route as well, but I didnt think that I would ever play games and I am an xbox guy anyway so I went the less expensive route. Ive only seen a few others with the video setup through the nav though like us, but man do I love to watch movies in traffic.

well you can and you can't. you can hook it up to a video monitor/television, but it will only support video out when viewing a slideshow or video content. nothing shows up on the screen when you're just playing music.

Ah thanks. So then it is only flat images supported, not moving video with audio?

no it's the video content and photo content/slideshows, just no visual feedback of what's playing when connected to a monitor (for music only content that is).

Sorry to hijack but I've been wondering this, last question - so could you for example have music videos on your ipod for both video and audio when using a monitor?

yes you can have music videos on your ipod video and have it hooked up to a monitor. in fact itunes sells loads of music video content. basically the video ipod is set up like this on the main menu:

Music
Videos
Photos
Extras
etc...

when you select content in either the photos or videos sections you are presented with an extra screen/option that says TV Out - Yes / No. selecting yes will turn on the video out circuitry. in the ipod settings you can choose whether you want to be asked each time you select video content, as just described, or you can have it automatically set the ipod to use video out (or not) when selecting video content. i have my set to ask me as sometimes i watch through my television and sometimes i watch through the ipod itself.

as far as i've been able to tell you can't get video out with songs at all. now if you wanted to get tricky, you could create a "dummy" movie in something like final cut pro, premiere or imovie that would have the album artwork and artist/track/album fields that would mimic the look of 'now playing' screen on your ipod. then import your songs to the audio track and make the visual track last as long as the song itself. export that as a .mp4 file and re-import in to itunes. you could automate the process with whatever scripting language your computer/os supports so you wouldn't actually have to do it over and over again.

of course doing this would increase your song file size dramatically. you wouldn't get playback status, all of your music would now be located in the "video" section of itunes and not the "library". not mention you'd have audio/video duplicates of your library. all in all i'd say it's not really a good solution.

Guys.

You might always want to check out the IVII BMW/Mini I-BUS to Alpine Ai-Net interface Gateway from Intravention http://www.intravention.co.uk if you are interested in seeing MP3 Tags on your NAV system.

The IVII allow you to hook up additional music sources to your factory Mini (and BMW) NAV System. There are various options available, including using the Alpine S-634 MP3 CD changer and/or the Apple iPod with Alpine KCA-420i Ipod Interface.

Heres some installation options along with some screenshots of the interface in action. The unit is still in beta right now, but you can join the beta program by contacting Simon at Intravention. (I'm currently testing the interface in my BMW with NAV and it works really well). The nice thing about it still in beta is that you can influence for example the layout of the menus and such. Maybe worth checking out, and it would be nice for some Mini owners to give the unit some testing !! :-)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/richard...and%20iPod.JPG

http://www.intravention.co.uk/new_ww...us/small19.jpg


http://www.intravention.co.uk/new_ww...us/small35.jpg

For more screens, go here

Cheers, Adrian

Wow! That's cool.

However, the interface is just waaaay to cluttered looking for me. Also, I don't really like the fact that it only works with an Alpine CD changer or an iPod (via some Alpine adapter). It would be cool to cotrol my MP3's via the built-in nav controls though.

Kudos to Intravention for figuring it all out though.

Thanks for passing along the info.

that is really cool! i've sent off an email to steve so hopefully i'll get on the list. i'm definitely interested in contributing to the UI discussion as i do a fair bit of UI work myself. though i suspect that the options are fairly limited simply because of the underlying structure of the BMW software.

Thanks for the input. Could you elaborate at all on what you consider looks cluttered. Like I said, the displays are still very much work in progress and we are trying different options right now - thus beta :)

As far as support for Alpine, yes right now the IVII Gateway is from I-Bus to Ai-Net. Only Alpine uses Ai-Net at this time, although does offer a good range of products.

Hi Adrian,

I guess that I just like the cleaner look of the menus in the screen shots that I posted above (especially the solid black background ones). To me, the Intravention interface just looks too confusing (i.e. there's too much stuff going on at one time on the screen). Also, I really like having the album art displayed as it makes it MUCH easier to quickly glance over at the nav screen and see the album that's currently playing while you are driving.

I'm not knocking the Intravention unit mind you (I really like the search features, etc.), but I just feel that the screen is a bit too busy looking for me is all. I guess that I'd have to see it in person to make a final decision about it.

I'd love to try it out, but the unit is not for sale at this point and from reading their forums, it appears that they have more testers than they need at the moment (thus there's no need for me to even try and apply to become a tester). If I could purchase one (even a beta unit), I'd give it a try for sure. BTW, do you know what the estimated cost for the unit is going to be? Also, how much is one of the Alpine KCA-420i units that is required to interface with the iPod?

Thanks again for passing along the info. I'm most impressed (especially after looking at the really poor nav interface the Dension ICE Link Plus unit is using).

-- MIKE