Does anybody has any experience with the media possibilities of the X4 (or I guess the new X3)?

I know you can play music (with artwork) from your iPhone. Tested that during a test drive… Worked nicely!

I also know you can use the internal 20G disk and you have an USB port. Additional question: Can an external USB disk be used via the USB port (I have a 150G in my drawer)?

How do you put the media on your 20G disk or USB? You just copy your
iTunes Music library, or is there some formatting to be respected. Will it be able to show the artwork?

Still waiting for my car, so I can not test, but I can maybe already prepare my music to be played….



Bump would be interested to hear

Well, here is the situation, now that I have my car (2 days now), I can experience it myself! Have Sat Nav Prof, HK sound, iPhone 4.

Using Bluetooth, all works nice (artwork, playlists etc), EXCEPT that from time to time the BT seems to have some hick ups. Anybody any idea? Have tried re-pairing etc no difference, seems like something is disturbing it....

When putting all music on USB, internal disk or external disk, sound is perfect, artwork etc too, but I have no idea how to get my playlists to work... Who knows?

Got the playlists sorted out.

Anybody with a new X4 and an iPhone 4 has BT hick ups when playing media?

Jypsie wrote

Got the playlists sorted out.

Anybody with a new X4 and an iPhone 4 has BT hick ups when playing media?

Post in X3 forum sure to get experienced folk there, we are all new here

Jypsie wrote

Got the playlists sorted out.

Anybody with a new X4 and an iPhone 4 has BT hick ups when playing media?

How did you get the playlists to work?

Jypsie wrote  

Got the playlists sorted out.

Anybody with a new X4 and an iPhone 4 has BT hick ups when playing media?

I saw your question on the X3 forum about getting messages off your iPhone 4. Office function on the bmw is very limited. But I got messages to work on my iPhone 5. To do that in settings/notifications, enable alerts to show on lock screen. Then in Bluetooth settings, choose your car and press info and show notifications tab. This should work. Office will only show messages that come up when you are driving. It will not show older messages. Hope this helps. My Bluetooth music hiccups as well. I fixed that by getting the cradle for the iPhone and just plug it in.

Sarsippius3rd wrote

I saw your question on the X3 forum about getting messages off your iPhone 4. Office function on the bmw is very limited. But I got messages to work on my iPhone 5. To do that in settings/notifications, enable alerts to show on lock screen. Then in Bluetooth settings, choose your car and press info and show notifications tab. This should work. Office will only show messages that come up when you are driving. It will not show older messages. Hope this helps. My Bluetooth music hiccups as well. I fixed that by getting the cradle for the iPhone and just plug it in.

Thanks! Get the SMS's now in, be it limited as you mentioned but that is ok for me....works via BT and USB connection, but your phone has to be locked. If I play media via my phone, I also hear the SMS notification, not when on radio... I did not had "show notifications on" on BT.

Yes the hiccups are also solved if you use an Apple cable to USB as you don't use BT for music then (is similar to using the cradle).

YMB_M3_j2 wrote

How did you get the playlists to work?

If you play media from your iPhone (via BT or USB), playlists work, from your iPhone.

If you play your music from a USB stick or drive, you need to create the correct playlist files, and put them in the root of the disk or stick.

To do so make a TXT file with the correct path to your songs:

example: artist\album\song (no c:\\ or d:\\ or whatever). This path should correspond exactly to the music location you have to your music on the USB drive.

I have this in my playlist file (example, can be as log as you want):

Tina Turner\All The Best\02 Nutbush City Limits.mp3
AC-DC\Back in Black\01 Hells Bells.mp3
Bon Jovi\Crush\01 It 's My Life.mp3
Bap\Vun Drinne Noh Drusse\01 Kristallnaach.mp3
Bryan Adams\Reckless\06 Summer Of 69.mp3
Roxette\Joyride\01 Joyride.mp3
Bachman Turner Overdrive\Not Fragile\04 You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.mp3
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers\Anthology_ Through The Years\1-08 Refugee.mp3
Bruce Springsteen\Born To Run\05 Born To Run.mp3

Then save the file with extention m3u and select encoding ANSI (use "save s"). Save this playlists in the root of your USB drive. You now should have a playlist.m3u file, ANSI encoded on your USB device.

Et voila: working playlists. Depending on your music tagging, artwork will also be shown.

I use a 160G disk, next to the 20G I have in my X4, in the beginning it can take a while before the playlist become visible. hen you have all the music you want .....

Jypsie wrote

If you play media from your iPhone (via BT or USB), playlists work, from your iPhone.

If you play your music from a USB stick or drive, you need to create the correct playlist files, and put them in the root of the disk or stick.

To do so make a TXT file with the correct path to your songs:

example: artist\album\song (no c:\\ or d:\\ or whatever). This path should correspond exactly to the music location you have to your music on the USB drive.

I have this in my playlist file (example, can be as log as you want):

Tina Turner\All The Best\02 Nutbush City Limits.mp3
AC-DC\Back in Black\01 Hells Bells.mp3
Bon Jovi\Crush\01 It 's My Life.mp3
Bap\Vun Drinne Noh Drusse\01 Kristallnaach.mp3
Bryan Adams\Reckless\06 Summer Of 69.mp3
Roxette\Joyride\01 Joyride.mp3
Bachman Turner Overdrive\Not Fragile\04 You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.mp3
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers\Anthology_ Through The Years\1-08 Refugee.mp3
Bruce Springsteen\Born To Run\05 Born To Run.mp3

Then save the file with extention m3u and select encoding ANSI (use "save s"). Save this playlists in the root of your USB drive. You now should have a playlist.m3u file, ANSI encoded on your USB device.

Et voila: working playlists. Depending on your music tagging, artwork will also be shown.

I use a 160G disk, next to the 20G I have in my X4, in the beginning it can take a while before the playlist become visible. hen you have all the music you want .....

fricken awesome!! i couldnt find anyone that had got this to work yet! You are the man!

Tried a 500g disk could not read, is there a limit on the X4 as far as size?

you can also play full screen movies on the usb port with a thumb drive. usb drives that have the spinning drives will not work. must be flash memory.
you can pick up a 64 or 128 gig thumb drive from bestbuy for cheap.
the movie format can be avi, mkv, and mov. didn't have any problems and it will list them in order for you to select. no special formatting needed. you do, however need to copy them manually from itunes or other source.

drodnyc wrote

you can also play full screen movies on the usb port with a thumb drive. usb drives that have the spinning drives will not work. must be flash memory.
you can pick up a 64 or 128 gig thumb drive from bestbuy for cheap.
the movie format can be avi, mkv, and mov. didn't have any problems and it will list them in order for you to select. no special formatting needed. you do, however need to copy them manually from itunes or other source.

Aha a so flash drives are the ticket, good to know

inamik75 wrote

Tried a 500g disk could not read, is there a limit on the X4 as far as size?

I have no idea, but would not expect 500g to be an issue......Was it formatted correctly? Maybe try reformatting....

drodnyc wrote

you can also play full screen movies on the usb port with a thumb drive. usb drives that have the spinning drives will not work. must be flash memory.
you can pick up a 64 or 128 gig thumb drive from bestbuy for cheap.
the movie format can be avi, mkv, and mov. didn't have any problems and it will list them in order for you to select. no special formatting needed. you do, however need to copy them manually from itunes or other source.

works for me from a "spinning" 160g USB drive. and NOT all formats work........but a lot do work.....

I have X4 with Navi Professional and 16GB USB thumb drive with some video files (avi, mp4, m4v).
If only video files are stored in the root directory and "Multimedia" is selected NBT plays only sound and there is neither "Video" option in "More media" menu nor video files in "Browse directory".
If video files are stored in a dedicated folder among other folders with music (mp3) there is neither "Video" option in "More media" menu nor folder with video files in "Browse directory".

What wrong with HU? Is some coding needed?

sergopulo wrote

I have X4 with Navi Professional and 16GB USB thumb drive with some video files (avi, mp4, m4v).
If only video files are stored in the root directory and "Multimedia" is selected NBT plays only sound and there is neither "Video" option in "More media" menu nor video files in "Browse directory".
If video files are stored in a dedicated folder among other folders with music (mp3) there is neither "Video" option in "More media" menu nor folder with video files in "Browse directory".

What wrong with HU? Is some coding needed?

You have to enable video playback through coding.

I use up to 2TB drives without issue. I can browse folders and play all kinds of video & music media. All tracks are labeled with artwork.

Hi there folks,

Are you able to play the videos from USB drive in Full Screen?
The stick formatted as FAT32 , i added on it several .mp4 videos having different resolutions e.g 854*480; 1920*1080; 1280*720 (all with 25 frames/seconds) however these videos are getting displayed on half screen and not on full screen on my idrive7.

Can you please help with an advice on what i can try to have the videos played in full screen on the idrive7 (Live Cockpit Professional)?

X3LRG01 wrote

Hi there folks,

Are you able to play the videos from USB drive in Full Screen?
The stick formatted as FAT32 , i added on it several .mp4 videos having different resolutions e.g 854*480; 1920*1080; 1280*720 (all with 25 frames/seconds) however these videos are getting displayed on half screen and not on full screen on my idrive7.

Can you please help with an advice on what i can try to have the videos played in full screen on the idrive7 (Live Cockpit Professional)?

Video resolution should match IDrive center screen resolution. Then, it will work.

Almaretto wrote

Video resolution should match IDrive center screen resolution. Then, it will work.

hi, where do i find the video resoloution? im struggling to get things to play, audio only.

redz_uk wrote

hi, where do i find the video resoloution? im struggling to get things to play, audio only.

8.8" screen with 1280x480 resolution.

Almaretto wrote

8.8" screen with 1280x480 resolution.

Thank you a lot for your reply Almaretto - appreciate your time and help!

I tried to convert the video to 1280*480 on a FAT32 in .mp4 format using VLC , now the video doesn't play at all on Idrive.

Any advice plz?