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Technical Topics iDrive, Nav, Phone, Audio, Video, Cameras, Electronics Best way to listen to lossless music on G20

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      11-09-2019, 02:54 AM   #1
eddiehaug
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Best way to listen to lossless music on G20

What would be the best way to listen to lossless music on the G20? (To take full advantage of the HK sound system.)

- Would using lossless streaming (Tidal, other) be able to play lossless in the car? I doubt it, since I guess it'd have to connect via bluetooth, but I'm not sure. Does it even use AptX?

- What about playing FLAC from a usb-attached drive?

* 1st: Does it play FLAC?
* 2nd:Would the car recognize a 1TB drive formatted, probably, in NTFS?
* 3rd: How does it read the metadata? Does it use the tags or it uses the file names / folder structures?
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      11-09-2019, 05:31 AM   #2
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Yes FLAC is fine. I use a micro USB drive in the cup area so that the lid can close.
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      11-09-2019, 12:20 PM   #3
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I presume there's a list of supported formats somewhere.
Is it true the internal storage adds compression?
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      11-09-2019, 06:17 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eagle Creek View Post
I presume there's a list of supported formats somewhere.
Is it true the internal storage adds compression?
I looked at the list in the manual, and it doesn't include FLAC. Also, even if it supports it, would it support a large drive attached via USB?
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      11-10-2019, 03:51 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eagle Creek View Post
I presume there's a list of supported formats somewhere.
Is it true the internal storage adds compression?
https://www.bimmer-tech.net/blog/ite...cic-nbt-nbtevo

FLAC has been supportd since 2013 (NBT) according to the above site (nice history of iDrive).
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      11-10-2019, 09:43 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xsapper View Post
Yes FLAC is fine. I use a micro USB drive in the cup area so that the lid can close.
I have the same USB in 16gb
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      11-11-2019, 04:37 AM   #7
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Having FLAC support was one of my car requirements.

I've Samsung FIT Plus 256 GB with nothing but FLACs and it works OK. It reads meta data properly and picks album covers if present.

Few notes:
  • I didn't test a single FLAC file + CUE for storing multiple tracks (can BMW detect them as separated tracks?)
  • When browsing albums all tracks without meta data are mixed in a single Unknown Album (could be grouped by directory or sth)
  • BMW doesn't refresh meta data of files once indexed. I got few tracks without meta data, I took flash drive home, fixed up meta data, got it back, BMW still didn't see them. I had to rename directory and/or files.
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      11-11-2019, 02:34 PM   #8
eddiehaug
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Thanks guys for the responses. One thing: Are the files actually transferred to the car or are they read from the USB drive? The manual is confusing on this respect and it seems the files are actually transferred to the car.
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      11-11-2019, 03:37 PM   #9
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Files are read from the USB flash drive
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      11-12-2019, 03:38 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaug View Post
One thing: Are the files actually transferred to the car or are they read from the USB drive? The manual is confusing on this respect and it seems the files are actually transferred to the car.
There is an option for importing music to the BMW's internal storage that I didn't care to try.

As for a single big flac + cue - BMW cannot split such files into tracks.

Today I've also discovered it's possible to browse folders as they exist on a USB drive. In "Search" menu there is "Browse folder" option at the very bottom.
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      11-12-2019, 03:53 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigWagonFan View Post
There is an option for importing music to the BMW's internal storage that I didn't care to try.

As for a single big flac + cue - BMW cannot split such files into tracks.

Today I've also discovered it's possible to browse folders as they exist on a USB drive. In "Search" menu there is "Browse folder" option at the very bottom.
Thanks for the info. Do you have the chance to check whether the car would recognise a large drive connected to the car? I'm thinking something like 500GB-1TB drive full of Flac files
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