MDI niggles

[Corey_R]

Yep it works, so I assume the iPod is doing the processing.

Thanks for the info G-rig

You're sort of correct. The icrud(tm) is doing all the processing and passes the signal as an analog signal. The only difference between this and using the standard analog input is that the MDI controls the functions of the icrud(tm) and charges the unit.

Definitely via analogue? I know that several manufacturers are able to grab the signal digitally from the iCruds using custom connections.

IMO a large usb memory stick or SD card is a better proposition if you don't need gapless playback (it is a car after all and not a media room in your house)

Gapless playback is something that consumers have been able to experience since... well, the 1800s when the first gramophones were made. Since then, LPs, Reel-to-reel, tapes, and CDs have allowed it. MP3 didn't have it originally in the specification, but any competent programmer can perform it.

Gapless playback is not something I think should be 'optinonal'. Sure, if all you do is listen to random songs you probably don't care. But I only listen to albums. I also only listen to bands who aren't concerned with 'radio playback' and 'MTV'. So many of the 800+ CDs that I own have songs without gaps. Listening to Pink Floyd's The Wall and having pauses between 'transitions' is frustrating. Listening to any live album or performance is frustrating. etc etc.

don't feel the need to jump on the icrud(tm) bandwagon with the rest of the sheep.

Don't get me wrong, I despise apple. Almost as much as I despise the 'sheeple' who have allowed Apple to permanently damage the portable music player industry, stifle competition, and frankly create a market place where competent portable music players are EXTREMELY few and far between.

It is a SAD state of affairs when the last digital portable music player which could actually output digititally was the iRiver iHP-140 back in 2004. Or that pretty much the only digital portable music players that can ACTUALLY play back gapless is by using aftermarket firmware like RockBox.

The iCrud can effectively play back gapless, although it does it in a rather lame way by having iTunes process the files and store the information on the iCrud, rather than perform it on the fly like any other competent music player.

The methods you mentioned earlier don't work as the icrud(tm) is locked down by apple to prevent access in ways that they can't control. This is also why you can't plug in your icrud(tm) usb cable as apple don't allow access that way. Kindoff like the way they don't allow you to change your own battery.

I know, it p1$$es me off. The f%#king arrogance of a company to not allow you to access the music and files that you OWN and have PAID for. And the stupidity of sheeple for putting up with Apple's crap! GRRRRR, don't get me STARTED!

Meanwhile in a galaxy far far away apple the evil corporation has multiple lawsuits pending to prevent any open source alternatives to the icrud(tm) through dodgy patents (only recognised in the USA and Australia) on areas like multi touch (heck apple though it up and as such only apple users can touch something twice at once) and open source (where is the money to be made from allowing multiple manufacturers to produce decent hardware if you're giving away the OS - goodbye to billions of dollars a year in revenue from the sheep).

lol - yeah, you're not telling me anything I don't know. I seriously don't understand why sheeple spend their money purchasing products from a company that has no respect for their customers, their customer's rights, or their well being.
I would normally say, hey, each to their own, but in this case, it has negatively affected so many other companies and the industry at large.

As I said, no digital portable music players which can output digitally since 2004, and (almost?) no digital music player, including the iCrud, that can natively playback gapless music. Both of these things we could do since the original Sony DAT and CD walkmans in the 80's - until Apple killed the industry

[chilliman]

Similar issues but my ipod just wasnt be detected as a media input, then I tried my usb...that worked for a couple weeks, now neither work.

My car goes in next Tues to get this looked at and also my drivers side mirror fixed.

Mine is in next Tuesday, I personally think its the lead - hopefully they have one in stock to do a straight swap!?!

[hcvo1]

God I love this thread...... It turns from a Volkswagen product to a "I hate Apple" thread in such a short space of time.

People. Maverick is right, your car is not a mobile cinema, it's a car, live with it. MDI is just about the best factory based media interface you can get, and yes, it is biased towards Apple a little, but that is based on market demand....


And also, for all those "Apple Bashers"... If somebody said to me right now, who are your business idols in life, I would answer in order...

1. Michael O'Leary
2. Steve Jobs
3. Richard Branson

And I do not own an Apple computer (Although I do have an I-Pod).

Roll on the I-Pod (or I-crud as I think you folk refer to it)

Well said Dermot,

I exclusively use Apple products and love it, I understand that there are other alternatives out there, but driving is all about the look and feel of the car, not what devices you can attach onto a 'moving cinema'

[Maverick]

Definitely via analogue? I know that several manufacturers are able to grab the signal digitally from the iCruds using custom connections.

I didn't think Apple allowed a digital interface for music????

But the MDI definately receives an analog signal and transmits this to the head unit.

Volkswagen Media Device Interface (MDI)


These are the connections to the head unit. The only digital connection is the CAN bus which is not fast enough to transmit audio on the Golf (updated versions of CAN bus handles audio and video).

Pin 1: Ground
Pin 2: CAN Low
Pin 3: not used
Pin 4: NFR+/AUX R+
Pin 5: NFL+/CD Changer pass thru
Pin 6: NFR+/CD Changer pass thru
Pin 7: 12V
Pin 8: CAN High
Pin 9: NFL+/AUX L+
Pin 10: NF-/AUX -
Pin 11: NF-/CD Changer pass thru
Pin 12: Shield for CD Changer pass thru cable

Gapless playback is something that consumers have been able to experience since... well, the 1800s when the first gramophones were made. Since then, LPs, Reel-to-reel, tapes, and CDs have allowed it. MP3 didn't have it originally in the specification, but any competent programmer can perform it.

For the purposes of MP3 playback from Volkswagen's perspective I guess following the specification for MP3 playback is what they're going to do.

Gapless playback is not something I think should be 'optinonal'. Sure, if all you do is listen to random songs you probably don't care. But I only listen to albums. I also only listen to bands who aren't concerned with 'radio playback' and 'MTV'. So many of the 800+ CDs that I own have songs without gaps. Listening to Pink Floyd's The Wall and having pauses between 'transitions' is frustrating. Listening to any live album or performance is frustrating. etc etc.

Point taken, personally I have no issues with playback as it stands but than my taste in music is also questionable

Don't get me wrong, I despise apple. Almost as much as I despise the 'sheeple' who have allowed Apple to permanently damage the portable music player industry, stifle competition, and frankly create a market place where competent portable music players are EXTREMELY few and far between.

It would be nice to see clock radios without icrud(tm) interfaces and instead a usb or SD card slot. The problem is apple have created a situation where it's hard for anything else to be taken as a sort of standard for portable music. I'd like to see a micro usb connector the standard connector for all head units and some way for any device to control any portable hardware. It's not impossible but very difficult whilst apple are sueing people left right and centre to protect their empire and certainty not when so many sheep are willing to buy an overpriced, over-hyped, under-performing and knobbled piece of hardware.

It is a SAD state of affairs when the last digital portable music player which could actually output digititally was the iRiver iHP-140 back in 2004. Or that pretty much the only digital portable music players that can ACTUALLY play back gapless is by using aftermarket firmware like RockBox.

Hopefully google's android operating system will allow a portable music device to take over from the icrud(tm). Apple are so worried about Android taking market share away from the iturd(tm) that they're sueing Google via HTC on a heap of bulls*%$ patent violations so they can get Android products banned from sale in the US.

I know, it p1$$es me off. The f%#king arrogance of a company to not allow you to access the music and files that you OWN and have PAID for. And the stupidity of sheeple for putting up with Apple's crap! GRRRRR, don't get me STARTED!

But still people flock to buy them, it seems more for fashion than function.

lol - yeah, you're not telling me anything I don't know. I seriously don't understand why sheeple spend their money purchasing products from a company that has no respect for their customers, their customer's rights, or their well being.
I would normally say, hey, each to their own, but in this case, it has negatively affected so many other companies and the industry at large.

Until consumers start thinking for themselves it will never change. The amount of people with icruds(tm) and iturds(tm) who think the product is so great they force the products onto everyone they know shows the power of viral marketing.

Google are the only player in a position to take on the evil empire, hopefully they'll provide some good competition in the music player market. Heck maybe Android will power the RNS 520

Once this occurs we won't see the usual "why doesn't VW provide a iturd(tm)/icrud(tm) cable/interface, it's 2010 surely these should be standard" and "why do I have to pay more for a iturd(tm)/icrud(tm) cable, doesn't everyone have one?"

[Maverick]

And also, for all those "Apple Bashers"... If somebody said to me right now, who are your business idols in life, I would answer in order...

1. Michael O'Leary
2. Steve Jobs
3. Richard Branson

The correct answers here are of course

1. Ferdinand Piëch
2. Martin Winterkorn
3. Richard Branson

You'll never move ahead with Volkswagen if you can't get that right

(the last one isn't Volkswagen but damn what a life - watch the new reality show fly girls to see what I mean )

[G-rig]

Gapless playback is not something I think should be 'optinonal'. Sure, if all you do is listen to random songs you probably don't care. But I only listen to albums. I also only listen to bands who aren't concerned with 'radio playback' and 'MTV'. So many of the 800+ CDs that I own have songs without gaps. Listening to Pink Floyd's The Wall and having pauses between 'transitions' is frustrating. Listening to any live album or performance is frustrating. etc etc.

Agree, gapless playback isn't too much to ask in this day and age. It shouldn't be that hard to fix with software/firmware (works fine on PC media players and cd players).

However some people are more into gadgets than music and don't get it which is fair enough. They must listen to top 40's on shuffle all the time. It's good to listen to a live or mixed album without the 3 second pause all the time.

The iCrud can effectively play back gapless, although it does it in a rather lame way by having iTunes process the files and store the information on the iCrud, rather than perform it on the fly like any other competent music player.

Eitherway it still works and natively in itunes, you don't need to do anything special. I've tried other players and still have a Cowon/iAudio mp3 player which sounds good but doesn't have a lineout or support gapless. The iphone/ipad is a compentent player and you can even get digital line out docks to plug into portable amps and the result is much better than any other player anyway. In most cases people that knock the sound quality of the ipod are using the crappy stock earbuds and/or low quality bitrate mp3s (because they are only concerned about how many songs you can fit on).

As i said, once you got a player over 4Gb or so then a music manager is better than copying and deleting countless folders in explorer. It's easy and quick to sync to the device. I don't use itunes for anything other than transporting the songs to the device, never pay for songs or apps and dont use it as a music player. It works with the car & portable listening so that's all i care about.

As I said, no digital portable music players which can output digitally since 2004, and (almost?) no digital music player, including the iCrud, that can natively playback gapless music. Both of these things we could do since the original Sony DAT and CD walkmans in the 80's - until Apple killed the industry

Part of the issue is that mp3's have a tiny amount of silence coded into the songs as well, it's the nature of that format so you need a special player that can remove it. The other formats i use don't ie. FLAC & Apple lossless.

I also had a Sony MD, sounded fairly good but not that good by today's standards. Not sure if the line out was a true one, it just had the volumes all the way up. What i like about line out docks is that you don't have to stuff around with volumes on both players - the volume shouldn't do anything when you adjust it on the source device.

It is a shame there aren't more alternative players out there now and Apple has snatched a lot of the industry, same could be said for phones too but depends how much you hate Apple then your free to buy other devices. The alternative mp3 players werent quite good enough at the time anyway.

[G-rig]

God I love this thread...... It turns from a Volkswagen product to a "I hate Apple" thread in such a short space of time.

People. Maverick is right, your car is not a mobile cinema, it's a car, live with it. MDI is just about the best factory based media interface you can get, and yes, it is biased towards Apple a little, but that is based on market demand....

He's not right, it just a good excuse to bash apple (i used to hate apple products too because of clever marketing, but they are mostly solid products if you can look past the wanky cool factor).

To me the MDI doesn't seemed bias toward ipod, works equally as well with USB. Those who have an ipod/iphone just have to get the extra cable.. pretty easy really. The fact that most people have one warrants advertising features as ipod can basically be taken for 'mp3 player' these days.

It's a good addition to the sound system but personally wouldnt bother getting one if I werent using an ipod (and if I only listened to MP3 and would use the 32Gb SD card slot).

Still don't know why the MDI doesn't do video too though like the Alpine units do with a simple cable.

Anyway USB/ipod connection AND bluetooth should really come standard in VW's that your spending $40-50k+ on, just like they are standard on BMW's - plug it in and off you go.

[Corey_R]

God I love this thread...... It turns from a Volkswagen product to a "I hate Apple" thread in such a short space of time.

People. Maverick is right, your car is not a mobile cinema, it's a car, live with it. MDI is just about the best factory based media interface you can get, and yes, it is biased towards Apple a little, but that is based on market demand....

Hehe - well that's Apple's and VW's fault, not mine. As I said, we've been able to listen to music without gaps since the 1800's. Now it seems most companies don't see the importance in providing uninterrupted music. Why not start making the windscreen with multiple pieces and additional framework to interrupt the vision whilst we're at it!

(ok... silly example, but I'm passionate about my music. If you're going to do something, just do it properly! Don't just give up and leave out things that we've "always had").

I didn't think Apple allowed a digital interface for music????

Yeah - I've only seen it in high end DAC products, simply because the iCrud's internal DAC and analog output is realitively bad, so being able to bypass that and use a proper DAC obviously improves the sound quality substantially, especially when using Apple Lossless (although why you wouldn't just use some other device which already allows digital output and FLAC is beyond me.).

Thanks for the MDI information and link.

It would be nice to see clock radios without icrud(tm) interfaces and instead a usb or SD card slot. The problem is apple have created a situation where it's hard for anything else to be taken as a sort of standard for portable music. I'd like to see a micro usb connector the standard connector for all head units and some way for any device to control any portable hardware. It's not impossible but very difficult whilst apple are sueing people left right and centre to protect their empire and certainty not when so many sheep are willing to buy an overpriced, over-hyped, under-performing and knobbled piece of hardware.

Yeah - that is I guess what annoys me the most. If you're going to demolish the industry to become the 'industry standard', don't prevent other manufacturers from licensing your 'standard' interfaces to prevent consumer choice.

Until consumers start thinking for themselves it will never change. The amount of people with icruds(tm) and iturds(tm) who think the product is so great they force the products onto everyone they know shows the power of viral marketing.

Lol - yeah. Marketing is all powerful though. It can make bad products seem great, and great products seem terrible.

Agree, gapless playback isn't too much to ask in this day and age. It shouldn't be that hard to fix with software/firmware (works fine on PC media players and cd players).

Yeah - that's all I ask. It's not much to ask for! hehe

However some people are more into gadgets than music and don't get it which is fair enough. They must listen to top 40's on shuffle all the time.

This certianly is part of the problem. People at large don't listen to music anymore. They listen to songs. There's an important distinction there, which I think you understand, but is well beyond the topic of this thread

Eitherway it still works and natively in itunes, you don't need to do anything special. I've tried other players and still have a Cowon/iAudio mp3 player which sounds good but doesn't have a lineout or support gapless. The iphone/ipad is a compentent player and you can even get digital line out docks to plug into portable amps and the result is much better than any other player anyway. In most cases people that knock the sound quality of the ipod are using the crappy stock earbuds and/or low quality bitrate mp3s (because they are only concerned about how many songs you can fit on).

I have a Sansa Fuze. It doesn't have gapless either, which annoys me. I have the Sennheiser HD650's and Ultimate Ears UE-10 Pros. When I have compared both of these headphones in my friends Apple Nanos, or Classics, or iPhones, I swear to god that their Apple products are faulty, because the sound is so terrible. My friends also think that the Apple is terrible after listeing to my Fuze, but they think that I've some how 'rigged' the comparison after listening with my HD650's (they obviously can't listen with my UE-10 Pro, being custom IEM's). So whilst the lack of Gapless on the Fuze frustrates me, I couldn't possibly use an Apple because the sound is still so bad in comparision.

I haven't seen a portable digital line out dock for the iCrud, but saying that 'the result is much better than any other player' is a bit silly - because if it's a digital line out then the player isn't doing any work anymore! And besides - that would just mean that some third party has finally hacked the iCrud to allow it to do what we've always had with Digital music players since the 1980's until Apple came along and killed the competition and inbuilt digital outputs (like on my iRiver iHP-140) disappeared from the landscape.

[QUOTE=G-rig;488076]As i said, once you got a player over 4Gb or so then a music manager is better than copying and deleting countless folders in explorer. It's easy and quick to sync to the device. I don't use itunes for anything other than transporting the songs to the device, never pay for songs or apps and dont use it as a music player. It works with the car & portable listening so that's all i care about.[/QUOUTE]
iTunes is not a terrible great music manager. Even my handful of friends with Apple devices say they wish they could use something else. For what it's worth, my music collection of JUST the CDs that I own is now 65GB (real GB, not 'MP3 player "all 0's" GB) and I've been using the same sync function from way before iTunes was released. Originally Xcopy or Robocopy, and then later a proper graphical sync program (Syncback) which also allows me to backup all sorts of other things.

Part of the issue is that mp3's have a tiny amount of silence coded into the songs as well, it's the nature of that format so you need a special player that can remove it. The other formats i use don't ie. FLAC & Apple lossless.

Yeah - I understand the technical issue. But since, as you've stated, various software has been able to handle this for at least 8 years now. I would love to use FLAC, but I'd need an MP3 player with at least a 320GB storage capacity.

It is a shame there aren't more alternative players out there now and Apple has snatched a lot of the industry, same could be said for phones too but depends how much you hate Apple then your free to buy other devices. The alternative mp3 players werent quite good enough at the time anyway.

As I said above, there could be good alternatives, but there is no industry standard for dock connections. Apple continues to refuse to let other manufacturers license the dock for their players. This effectively locks any other manufacturer from competing.

Also, at the time the iCrud was originally released, there were many many more competent players out there. Unfortunately the companies have either folded, stopped making mp3 players, or gone in different directions so as to not compete with Apple's products.

Are people allowed to think for themselves or just listen to your rants. You are always right aren't you?

Don't get upset at Maverick. His comment is largely true. I used to spend lots of time around places like Harvey Norman and JB-Hifi. The number of times I overheard people coming in to purchase an MP3 player and they'd say "I'd like an iPod", and the assistant would say "We're out of stock on them at the moment, but we've got several specials running on MP3 players, would any of them interest you", and the customers response would be "What's an MP3 player".

The domination of Apple in the MP3 player market was purely down to fashion and marketing. Not capacity, battery life, sound quality, convenience, features, practicality, or any other factor.
Today, well, even I have to admit that, especially in Australia, its pretty hard to argue that there is any other more complete package than some of the iCruds! (eek, can't believe I just said that). But anyone who tries to sit here and argue that when the iCrud was released that it became popular because it was the best.... well, they're either ignorant or misinformed.


Anyway. I've done the topic to death now. I think I'll be on my way

[G-rig]

I haven't seen a portable digital line out dock for the iCrud, but saying that 'the result is much better than any other player' is a bit silly - because if it's a digital line out then the player isn't doing any work anymore!

I don't think it's that easy to bypass the Ipods DAC however there may be one or two audiophile type docks around that could do it.

The line out docks i was talking about bypass the headphone jack which is fairly low quality. That in combination with amping the source give good results and drive my headphones well. I have the ZY Dock from headphonic.

Agree that its a shame that the other players didn't take off at the time when everyone had to have an ipod because it was cool. The iAudio player i had could support FLAC and the DAC was better, and sounded nice and warm.

FLAC should be the standard in lossless not an apple format. My whole collection is FLAC and I just convert to whatever portable format using dBpowerAMP music converter. I'm smart enough not to change over to apple exclusively as i don't like using forced formats or itunes, and not that many other players can play AAC anyway.

Foobar also sounds much better than itunes on a PC, as the windows kmixer stuffs the sound when using itunes.

[pologti18t]

My Creative Zen has a line out in its docking toggle. Useful when connecting to the Connects2 AUX in for the Polo's stereo.

[Maverick]

He's not right, it just a good excuse to bash apple (i used to hate apple products too because of clever marketing, but they are mostly solid products if you can look past the wanky cool factor).

The car stereo will never sound as good as a reasonable dedicated system at home so why bother trying to achieve something that can never be attained?

To me the MDI doesn't seemed bias toward ipod, works equally as well with USB. Those who have an ipod/iphone just have to get the extra cable.. pretty easy really. The fact that most people have one warrants advertising features as ipod can basically be taken for 'mp3 player' these days.

Most people don't have one and it's only the sheep that do.

Still don't know why the MDI doesn't do video too though like the Alpine units do with a simple cable.

Why would it? It's illegal in every country to watch video when driving so what possible reason could there be to run video through the connector other than add on hundreds of dollars of costs? And it would only work with icruds anyway so maybe a fraction of one percent of the owners would actually use it.

Anyway USB/ipod connection AND bluetooth should really come standard in VW's that your spending $40-50k+ on, just like they are standard on BMW's - plug it in and off you go.

Name a BMW that they come standard on? They're an option on all BMW's (with the possible exception of high end models).

Why should an icrud cable come with the car? Most people won't use it so why would they bundle it? Same with bluetooth.

[G-rig]

The car stereo will never sound as good as a reasonable dedicated system at home so why bother trying to achieve something that can never be attained?

Never said it would but quite frankly the sound system is crap for a $45-50k car and most people expect better. A few upgrades don't hurt, but some people wouldn't 'get it' if they aren't into music or have wooden ears.

Why would it? It's illegal in every country to watch video when driving so what possible reason could there be to run video through the connector other than add on hundreds of dollars of costs? And it would only work with icruds anyway so maybe a fraction of one percent of the owners would actually use it.

Wouldnt be that different to the expensive kufatec crap like video in motion, and wouldn't allow you to use it while the car is moving. If you're adding a media interface anyway it may as well include video (for USB & ipod), but give it a few years.

Name a BMW that they come standard on? They're an option on all BMW's (with the possible exception of high end models).

Why should an icrud cable come with the car? Most people won't use it so why would they bundle it? Same with bluetooth.

The USB jack comes on all of them which also has an AUX jack like our VW's. The people who want to use an ipod can buy the extra cable. Those who don't don't.

http://www.bmw.com.au/com/en/owners/navigation/audio/usb_audio.html

How do you navigate through a library of 10,000 songs? Preferably on the road using the vehicle's control functions. Almost all common MP3 players, Apple iPods and USB sticks can be integrated effortlessly with the audio system. The title of the track being played is displayed either on the control or radio display. MP3 players and Apple iPhones can be operated directly from the central console. All common formats are supported (MP3, AAC, WAV and WMA) as well as M3U-format playlists. To integrate an Apple iPod or Apple iPhone, the BMW cable adapter for Apple iPod/iPhone equipment option is required.

Either way the dealers should be specing the cars from the factory to include the interface as most people want it and expect it on an expensive car.

[Guest1306]

Either way the dealers should be specing the cars from the factory to include the interface as most people want it and expect it on an expensive car.

We do....

[G-rig]

We do....

That's great, I think Phillip does too. Most buyers would be happy to pay that for the added functionality.

$270 from the factory is a pretty good deal, cost me about $425 to buy the parts last time which was a great price, but then add the time etc to fit it.

[Guest1306]

Re: MDI niggles

I think the majority of dealers do. I would estimate that 99% of our whole range in stock has it as a factory option. If someone does not want it and is adamant about not paying for it, then tuck in for a 6-9 month wait.