[Oregon]

FAQ: Using the USB and Aux Ports
This is my first attempt at a FAQ. If people think it’s OK I will try and maintain it, leave me comments or suggestions and I will append them as appropriate.

The questions are as follows:
1. How do I connect my iPod to the car using USB and the “Y-Cable”?
2. How do I connect my Ipod to the car using a standard iPod USB Cable?
3. How do I connect my non-iPod Music Player or Memory Stick using USB?
4. How do I connect a Music player or other device using the Aux port?
5. What devices can I connect to the USB port?
6. How many songs can I store on my Music Device?
7. What are the “ART”, “ALB”, “GEN”, and “LIST” buttons on the HU
8. How does the “DIR” button work with USB devices
9. Why do the “LIST”, “ART”, “ALB”, and “GEN” buttons never appear on the HU?
10. How large can a “Removable Storage Device” be?
11. What USB Memory Stick should I buy?

First a couple of Acronyms I’ll be using
HU – Head Unit
MP3 – Standard, unprotected sound format used in most music players
AAC – Apple’s proprietary sound format, used in iPods, may include DRM
DRM – Digital Rights Management to protect music from being copied, used in AAC and other formats
FAT – File Allocation Table, used on Removal Storage Devices (FAT32 is the same but bigger)
NTFS – NT File System, not to be used for 1er Removable Storage Devices


1. How do I connect my iPod to the car using USB and the “Y-Cable”?


iPods are generally connected to the 1er with the BMW “Y-Cable”, which can be purchased from your dealer. Many people have negotiated this cable in with the purchase of their car, it may cost around $100 to buy it. The “Y-Cable” is an active cable (has electronic components in it) with an iPod connector at one end, and both a USB and 1/8” connector at the other. The USB connector plugs in to the USB port under the armrest (this option may not be installed in all cars), and the 1/8” connects to the Aux port under the armrest.

This option uses the USB connector to charge the iPod, control the iPod, and get track and songlist information to the HU. The iPod decodes the music and plays the music through the 1/8” connector to the HU. The active circuitry in the cable tells the 1er to enable both the USB and Aux port so sound and control work together.

This option MUST be used if you have AAC encoded music on the iPod. If you are not sure you have AAC encoded music, the easiest way to know is if you have purchased and downloaded any music online from iTunes or if you have “Ripped” any music from your CDs using iTunes.


2. How do I connect my Ipod to the car using a standard iPod USB Cable?


If you have a standard iPod USB cable you can connect you iPod to the car with it. The USB connector plugs in to the USB port under the armrest (this option may not be installed in all cars).

In this case the iPod is charged, controlled and delivers track information and the music data files over the USB cable. There is no requirement for a 1/8” connection to the Aux port of the 1er.

If you desire, the Aux port can still be used for another MP3 player, PC, Satellite radio reveiver, or any other music source with a standard Headphone out, as documented below.

This option CAN ONLY be used to play MP3 tracks on the iPod, if you have downloaded or “Ripped” any songs using iTunes, that are in AAC format, these songs WILL NOT play using a standard USB Cable. If you require to play AAC format tracks you MUST use the “Y-Cable” documented above.

If everything is working, select USB from the Audio options on the HU, the “DIR” soft button should appear immediately, and the first track found should start playing, within the next 1 to 60 minutes the “LIST”, “ART”, “GEN”, and “ALB” options should appear on the HU. Due to how music is stored on the iPod, the DIR button will not let you select any music, you will have to wait until the other option buttons are populated (unless you have copied music on the iPod into directories as a “Removable Storage Device).


3. How do I connect my non-iPod Music Player or Memory Stick using USB ?


If you have a digital music device, mobile telephone, or USB storage device, that connects to a computer as an “Removable Storage Device” you MAY be able to connect it to the 1er for playing music files.

To play music of the device, a number of prerequisites must be met ... it must appear as a standard storage device on a computer, it should be formatted using FAT or FAT32, music must be stored on the device in MP3 format, it must not exceed the maximum power draw supported by the 1er’s USB port, it should be USB 2.0 compatible.

Assuming these prerequisites are met, you need an appropriate connector from the device to with a standard USB connector to plug into the USB port under the armrest (this option may not be installed in all cars).

If everything is working, select USB from the Audio options on the HU, the “DIR” soft button should appear immediately, and the first track found should start playing, within the next 1 to 60 minutes the “LIST”, “ART”, “GEN”, and “ALB” options should appear on the HU. If this does not work, then any of the above prerequisites may not have been met.


4. How do I connect a Music player or other device using the Aux port?


Any device with a Headphone socket can be connected to the car using the Aux port, however there is no means of controlling the device using the 1er’s HU, except for volume. For this to work you will need a stereo cable with 1/8” connectors on both ends (the same connector you plug into the Headphone socket). Plug one end into the headphone socket, and the other into the Aux port of the car.

From the HU, select “Aux” as the source, now all sound output from the device should play through the Sound System. Be careful to set an appropriate sound level from the music device, as too lower volume will result in little or no sound from the Sound System, but too much volume may cause distortion or other sound quality issues.

This should work for Laptop Computers, GPS systems, MP3 players, Satellite Radio receivers, Portable DVD players, Game Systems (PSP, Nintendo, etc).

It is important to note that the Aux port will not charge or power devices, so it may be necessary to connect a charger or power supply to the “Cigarette Lighter” under the arm rest.


5. What devices can I connect to the USB port?


As stated above, any device that appears to be a “Removable Storage Device” on a computer may potentially work. Good experiences have been had with MP3 Players, iPods, USB Memory Sticks, USB External Hard Drives, Mobile Telephones.

The device must be formatted using FAT or FAT32, this can be checked from the “Properties” section in “My Computer” on a Windows computer. Larger external Hard Drives are often formatted using NTFS, and will not work without being formatted (or using a 3rd party tool to convert).

All music on the device must be stored in MP3 format. The music can be stored in Directories as desired by the user (hierarchical directory structures can be used to make scrolling through the DIR section more efficient). Music will also be scanned from the device over time, and then will be sorted by “artist”, “album”, “genre”, or “playlist” if appropriate Tags are on the original file.

The device must not exceed the power requirements of the USB port. This actually appears to differ in each car, but it is very common that 2.5” external Hard Drives will not work using the USB for power. In this case it may be possible to provide the power to the Hard Drive using a power adaptor plugged into the “Cigarette Lighter” under the arm rest”

The device should also use “USB 2.0”, this provides performance over 100 times faster than USB 1.1. Although the speed required to download music to the HU is quite low, it is best to get memory devices with the highest possible throughput speed to minimise any risk of “pauses” while playing music, and to minimise the time required to scan for music.


6. How many songs can I store on my Music Device?


While the number of songs supported is ridiculously high, the amount of time it takes to scan all the music and populate the “Artist”, “Album”, “Genre”, and “Playlist” soft buttons on the HU will increase based on the number of songs on the device. Many members of this forum have over 15000 songs, and 1000 Albums on their Memory Device.

You mileage may vary depending on the speed of the USB device, the number of songs, and the amount of “Meta Tag” data associated with the music files.


7. What are the “ART”, “ALB”, “GEN”, and “LIST” buttons on the HU?


Music files generally have information about the song appended to them, this information is commonly known as “Meta-Tags” or “Tags”. The information stored may include many details, but the common ones useful in music are the “Artist’s Name”, “Album Name”, and the “Genre”. In addition you can create lists of favourite or related music into “Playlists”, playlists are stored as separate files along with the music itself.

Once a USB device has been connected to the 1er, the Head Unit scans all of the directories of the device looking for Meta-Tags and Playlists, once these have been fully discovered the soft buttons on the HU display “LIST”, “ART”, “ALB”, and “GEN” which you can then use to browse you music by those categories.


8. How does the “DIR” button work with USB devices?


The “DIR” button allows you to brows the Directory structure of the USB connected device. With devices that appear as “Removal Storage Devices” on a computer, you can place music into folders of your choice, and then browse through them using the “DIR” button and scrolling through the directories on the Head Unit.

While the “LIST”, “ART”, “ALB”, and “GEN” buttons described above take time to populate the DIR button usually appears as soon as the device is connected to the USB port of the Car.

If you transfer music to an iPod using iTunes, the data is stored in a special structure only usable by iPods. The “DIR” button is all but useless in this case. Only music placed onto the iPod as a “Removable Storage Device” can be browsed with the “DIR” button, and music installed in this manor cannot be played by the iPod using the “Y-Cable” or when not connected to the car.


9. Why do the “LIST”, “ART”, “ALB”, and “GEN” buttons never appear on the HU?


Unfortunately this is not an easy question to answer. The most common scenario is you have not waited long enough. It is common for libraries over 11,000 songs to take 15, 20 or more minutes to scan, before the soft buttons appear on the HU. A simple test to try is to put a smaller number of MP3 tracks onto a USB memory stick, and make sure they appear.

Another issue for non-iPod devices is that music may not have the appropriate Meta-Tags, this can happen with certain “Ripping” applications who do not use Meta-Tags in the correct way.


10. How large can a “Removable Storage Device” be?


As the formatting of the device must be FAT or FAT32, the largest device size supported is 32GB (or thereabouts). In theory, you could use a larger device, but this would defeat the purpose as only 32Gb can be formatted for use.


11. What USB Memory Stick should I buy?

This is a rapidly moving target, USB Memory Stick models come and go from the market very quickly, you may need to “try” a few options. Earlier 32Gb Memory Sticks were found to be problematic, but this appears to be reducing. Ensure the device is Formatted as FAT32 before loading all your music on to it. Try a smaller number of songs before committing to loading all your music library on the device, and ensure you have a “return policy” in case the device doesn’t work. Also if you can choose between a 90X performance, or 166X performance or higher, take the higher performance, the quality should be better.
There are commonly up to date discussions in this forum regarding what works and does not