[Atari Boy]

Apologies if this has been covered before, I had a look and could not find the answers I needed.

I have an E91 on order(non hard drive version), with pro nav, L7 and 6FL options. I am new to iPods and am about to buy one with the sole use of getting ALL my music in the car.
I have read on the main BMW UK site that the car can only handle 255 ‘folders’ or ‘artists’.

The maximum number of folders that can be displayed is 255 and 1 folder equates to 1 artist or 1 album (non SA6FL).

From my maths I will have about 250 or 260 albums, some are doubles but are grouped together. Some are also compilations so I will have many more artists.
My question is how do people organise their music if they have such quantities of music? Also what happens if you have more than 255 folders?
The reason that I went for the 6FL option was that I wanted all of my music not some or most of it available.

Any tips or recommendations would be appreciated so that I can get the most from the setup.

Thanks

Jonny

[SoYank]

DOS BW (Before Windows) was limited to 255 entries in the root directory because it used a single byte to keep track of the files (2^^8=256). Each subdirectory was considered a file. To get around this limit one would put only the fewest files needed to start up the computer in the root directory and use the subdirectories for separating things into categories.

Sounds like the iPod interface software is expecting something similar. So, you'd have your iPod with all of one artist in a root folder with albums in subfolders thus giving you close to 255 separate artists. Or, in the root folder have the genres with the artists as subfolders and albums as subfolders from there.

This all lends credence to my contention that BMW is using surplus 8086 processors for the iDrive.

Then again, I could be completely wrong and you can only have 255 artists with only 255 songs for each. Never underestimate the absurdity that BMW will come up with in their new technology.

[networkguy]

Originally Posted by Atari Boy

I have an E91 on order(non hard drive version), with pro nav, L7 and 6FL options. I am new to iPods and am about to buy one with the sole use of getting ALL my music in the car.

Why buy an iPod at all?

With 6FL you can also use a USB memory stick or even an portable hard disk drive (within limits).

Doing this you will get better sound quality (the car will do the DA decoding where as the 6FL iPod connection is analogue into the car) and not have the limits on size in the same way. You can also run WMV (including lossless) as well as MP3 format.

The BMWLand forums have a large section on what hard disks work and so far it looks like 250GB is the limit!!!

Would that be big enough?

[xenon]

Originally Posted by SoYank

This all lends credence to my contention that BMW is using surplus 8086 processors for the iDrive.

The 8086 is a sixteen bit processor so even if it were used this would not be the limiting factor, although one register of an eight-bit processor would only allow 255 entries.

I suspect there is another reason, e.g. an eight-bit file allocation system as you suggested.

The iDrive computer uses a 32-bit processor running embedded Windows CE Automotive.

[SoYank]

Originally Posted by xenon

The iDrive computer uses a 32-bit processor running embedded Windows CE Automotive.

Yet my windows on my automobile won't go up when I press the lock button.

Actually, my 8086 comment was more towards the slowness of the iDrive.

[dxb335d]

Soyank, are you coming to UK6 mate?

[SoYank]

Originally Posted by dxb335d

Soyank, are you coming to UK6 mate?

Don't know if I'll still have my car then.

[steve-p]

I've got around 500 albums on my iPod and I can't say I've noticed any limits whatsoever. I suspect the 255 limit may refer to using the USB interface in disk mode, i.e. just a memory stick.