[cartaozinho]

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?

[clee1982]

That's a lot of work...

[VirtualGuitars]

Originally Posted by clee1982

That's a lot of work...

I agree. It was a lot of work just reading that post! I would much rather use my iPhone to manage my playlists instead of a using USB stick.

[530iDriver]

Originally Posted by VirtualGuitars

I agree. It was a lot of work just reading that post! I would much rather use my iPhone to manage my playlists instead of a using USB stick.

Or easier to carry the original CDs around. I am old school from that era, but it's hard to beat the CD sound quality vs streaming. Apple loss less is great but here is a suggestion.. you can get an old iPod touch or IPod classic with click wheel and store your music there. There you eliminate the overwhelming workarounds you now require to keep and maintain your playlist in that USB stick.

As they say... Work smarter not harder

[530iDriver]

Originally Posted by cartaozinho

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?

Believe it or not, this was what had to be done to maintain playlists and play music circa 2004-2005 BMW/MINI factory iPod integrations. That became a pain in the ass overtime. With far more seamless integrations of today, you don't need to do all that crap of manually creating playlist folders. Older factory stereo head units could only do so much.

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.

[VirtualGuitars]

Originally Posted by 530iDriver

Or easier to carry the original CDs around. I am old school from that era, but it's hard to beat the CD sound quality vs streaming. Apple loss less is great but here is a suggestion.. you can get an old iPod touch or IPod classic with click wheel and store your music there. There you eliminate the overwhelming workarounds you now require to keep and maintain your playlist in that USB stick.

As they say... Work smarter not harder

Amen to "0" compression!

[530iDriver]

Originally Posted by VirtualGuitars

Amen to "0" compression!

Agreed, compression ruins music sound quality and distorts the original source material. It's like modifying a Picasso or Salvador Dali painting. You are changing what the author/musician intended to convey through his works.