MDI niggles

[Wugaga]

Thanks guys for the help ! My dealer said that he'll give me one of those adapters for free but unfortunately I have to wait a while coz they're on backorder at the moment. I guess it'll be the good old USB stick for now !

[ajc]

just got my jetta 147 with factory MDI and I have been given the USB fitting as well. Feel free to move this post, cant find anywhere else to put it but if someone else can...

So you cant plug the white ipod cable into the usb, understood, but anyone have a simple answer why? has it been covered elsewhere? I would have thought the cable does nothing but connect everything? somewhat like an extension cord?

my old car has an aftermarket alpine with ipod integration, turns ipod off when cars off, NEVER had an issue with that system, also charged the ipod, worked on all sorts of different ipods, never tried iphone though. I could just plug it into the glove box and leave it there for months.

So from what everyones saying, i couldnt just plug in my old ipod to the MDI and forget about it, not have to touch it again, and have it all run off there, (if i get the ipod cable), ipod would run out of battery while car is off etc etc? Seems odd, is this the normal experience people have? With my alpine system, because the connection is similar to having it on a computer, the ipods not playing once the car is turned off, so it times out and turns off..

If that is the case I wont bother hassling the dealer to try and get the ipod cable off them, will just do as others say and buy a memory stick and sync it with windows media player, takes up less space that way too... but then ive kinda wasted my money as an sd card could have done it? Ipods all organised how i like it too, so would be a shame to have to redo my music library.

any thoughts?

[Maverick]

just got my jetta 147 with factory MDI and I have been given the USB fitting as well. Feel free to move this post, cant find anywhere else to put it but if someone else can...

So you cant plug the white ipod cable into the usb, understood, but anyone have a simple answer why? has it been covered elsewhere? I would have thought the cable does nothing but connect everything? somewhat like an extension cord?

It's been answered before but this is an APPLE restriction. You cannot control the ipod from the USB cable and you cannot output the sound digitally over the USB cable. The only way to get audio out of the ipod is via the headphone socket or via the connector on the bottom in an analog format.

my old car has an aftermarket alpine with ipod integration, turns ipod off when cars off, NEVER had an issue with that system, also charged the ipod, worked on all sorts of different ipods, never tried iphone though. I could just plug it into the glove box and leave it there for months.

That's good and that's what you can do with the ipod cable that plugs into the MDI.

So from what everyones saying, i couldnt just plug in my old ipod to the MDI and forget about it, not have to touch it again, and have it all run off there, (if i get the ipod cable), ipod would run out of battery while car is off etc etc? Seems odd, is this the normal experience people have? With my alpine system, because the connection is similar to having it on a computer, the ipods not playing once the car is turned off, so it times out and turns off..

? You can forget about it, some firmware versions on the ipods won't power off, again this is a APPLE limitation/restriction.

If that is the case I wont bother hassling the dealer to try and get the ipod cable off them, will just do as others say and buy a memory stick and sync it with windows media player, takes up less space that way too... but then ive kinda wasted my money as an sd card could have done it? Ipods all organised how i like it too, so would be a shame to have to redo my music library.

Best to use a large USB stick or hard drive, far less pain in the future, much cheaper, it will always work and won't be affected by APPLE deciding to change how the interface operates (has happened before especially the video interface).

[alebonau]

Re the iPod not switching off and draining itself to death after switching the car off. One thing I have found is that the iPod does automatically pause itself when you switch from media to say fm or am radio. So what am going to try is for the next week or so hit the fm button before switching the car off. See how the iPod goes and check whether it drains itself or not.

Otherwise been really happy with the iPod as media source and works a treat in the golf

[AdamD]

Otherwise been really happy with the iPod as media source and works a treat in the golf

I have to second this. I've been using my iPod Classic 6.5 gen in the car with my MDI + RNS-510, and have been really impressed overall with the performance of the MDI. It's integrated perfectly with the iCrud (despite the player's many faults) - something that could not be said of the equivalent interface in my Accord Euro (which also cost double what the MDI did). The iCrud always switches on/off as required, plays just as expected, and hasn't crashed or caused me to have to even look at it since I put it in the car four weeks ago.

The only minor hiccups are the small skip at the beginning of some songs - it seems fairly intermittent, and doesn't occur when I manually advance a track - and the inability to go back to previous tracks when in Mix (random) mode. These are seriously minor issues and I'm happy to live with them given the overall stability and performance of the VW unit.

So, VW - big thumbs up from me ref the MDI!

[ConR]

I was originally using my iPod non stop, but I find the interface response on the RNS to be way too slow. That and it keeps freezing on me.

I'm now using the SD slot. Bought a 16GB Class 6, have loaded it with music (past what VW says about the 2,000 song limitation...have at least double that) and it's blistering fast. Moves to next track with 0 delay.

Yes, it's a pain to convert my m4a's to mp3's, but not that big of a deal. Downloaded a free playlist creator as well, and load those on the SD. No issues (thanks to the previous info from coreying on how to make them work).

Will most likely not opt for the iPod integration in my next car (unless it's standard). Kind of getting tired of Apple and it's proprietary-ness.

[A12DO]

Same here.. have gave up with my Ipod MDI and switch to SD slot as well. One question tho, does your head unit take some time to initialize all the songs when you just turn it on? mine one takes 10 -15 secs and i only have load less then 1000 songs

[ConR]

Same here.. have gave up with my Ipod MDI and switch to SD slot as well. One question tho, does your head unit take some time to initialize all the songs when you just turn it on? mine one takes 10 -15 secs and i only have load less then 1000 songs

no, mine takes no time at all...maybe a second or two, although I haven't officially timed it.

what class is your SD card? it makes quite a bit difference in read/write speed.

[thelairster]

I'm giving up on my MDI, like many of you I am going to order a large SD card, which will work perfectly with my macbook pro. So long lag!

[ConR]

I`ve stopped using the MDI, but decided to use it today, as I bought some new music with my iTouch, and was in a hurry (didn`t have time to transfer the music off). Plugged it in....pops up with a "MDI: No audio source found"

Has anyone seen that before ?

Thanks!