02-01-2019, 12:30 PM | #1 |
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Playlists in iDrive
Hopefully this isn't old news...
I have the B&W system and keep my music library on a 256 GB USB stick. My library is encoded in Apple lossless and, despite the manual indicating otherwise, my BMW has no problem reading this encoding. I have never been able to get iDrive to work with iTunes playlists. And my Genius said I was SOL. Being the stubborn control freak that I am, I've developed a kludge/hack for getting iTunes playlists to work with my setup. It takes up quite a bit of space on the USB stick. But it does work. Here's what I do. (1) Copy the iTunes songs in the playlist to a scratch directory. This can be done by going to the playlist in iTunes, selecting all songs, and just drag/drop them to the scratch directory. (2) Open the contents of this scratch directory in a metadata editor. I use Metadatics.app which is available in the App Store for a few bucks. It's good. Im sure there are other apps available if you don't like Metadatics.app. (3) Select all the tracks and change the Artist and Album fields to, for example, "Playlist1". (4) Save the changes. (5) Create a directory called "Playlist1" where all the Artist directories are on the USB stick. (6a) If the playlist is fewer than 99 tracks I just create an album directory called "Playlist1." The contents from the scratch directory are then placed there. You're then good to go. (6b) If the playlist is 100 or more tracks the procedure is almost the same -- create an album directory called "Playlist1" and place the contents of the scratch directory in there. The iDrive will, however, "scavenge" the albums preceding the long playlist (e.g. if the playlist has 350 tracks, the three albums preceding the "Playlist1" album will vanish). I don't know about you all, but I like my Pink Floyd! . To deal with this issue I create empty album directories in the "Playlist1" artist directory. I call these "Pad1," "Pad2," "Pad3,".... you get the idea. Problem solved. There it is. Obviously, in terms of storage, this duplicates songs. But storage is cheap! I am able to get voice command to access the playlist as well. However, I have to say "Play Playlistone" instead of "Play Playlist One" as the latter makes iDrive try to play the BMW's Playlist 1 which accesses the internal hard drive. Thoughts? Remarks? |
02-01-2019, 01:25 PM | #2 |
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That's a lot of work...
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02-01-2019, 01:57 PM | #3 |
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02-01-2019, 03:26 PM | #4 | |
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As they say... Work smarter not harder
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02-01-2019, 03:30 PM | #5 | |
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Just click over eBay and get yourself a cheap iPod touch or Classic iPod with click wheel. Plug it in to the USB port and your are done.
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2017 BMW 530i, Sport Line,Alpine White, Canberra Beige Sensatec, 19 inch V-Spoke wheels, basic plain Jane build with no options whatsoever..... "Less is more".
Before: 2011 BMW 328i E90 sedan, Platinum Bronze Metallic, Dakota Brown leather, 17 inch wheels, 6-speed auto, N52 6 Cyl inline N/A goodness.... |
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02-01-2019, 03:32 PM | #6 | ||
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02-01-2019, 03:40 PM | #7 | |||
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2017 BMW 530i, Sport Line,Alpine White, Canberra Beige Sensatec, 19 inch V-Spoke wheels, basic plain Jane build with no options whatsoever..... "Less is more".
Before: 2011 BMW 328i E90 sedan, Platinum Bronze Metallic, Dakota Brown leather, 17 inch wheels, 6-speed auto, N52 6 Cyl inline N/A goodness.... |
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