iPods, Artwork (not showing) etc..

[mykaitch]

I have been fighting MB since I bought my car in April. The result of that battle is that I now can see all the artwork from my iPod on my MB screen. This is a very shortened story of the problems that I faced along the way.



If you have bought a new Merc this year and you specified ‘Media Interface’ (MI) when you placed your order then it will come with Generation 2 MI (G2). Any other Merc that has an MI will be Generation 1 and that includes this year unless you ordered it fitted. Mad! They can wire for G2 now, but they don’t. At the moment there is no retro fit kit to upgrade G1 to G2.

With an iPod, MI-G2 WILL show iPod Artwork on an Audio 20 non-command system (you need the CD changer head to do this too because the standard fit Audio 20 cannot connect to any MI ; so say MB, in writing, to me. If you have MI-G1 it will not – to quote, ‘it does not work correctly’. Tough.

I upgraded to the CD changer head, that’s how I found out that it was crap and did not show artwork.


So I upgraded again to Command online for silly money. Some of the artwork did show, a lot did not, but I knew that would happen because the US version has the same defect. Following advice from the US...
1. Copy all the iTunes folder to a memory stick.
2. Unplug the iPod.
3. Plug in the stick.
4. Do ‘Search by cover’ and answer ‘YES’ to import data.
5. When done unplug and plug iPod back in.

Most (not all) of the artwork will be there now. For some mad reason (why, oh why, oh why, to quote Gilbert O’Sullivan) the MB software stores all the artwork on its hard disk, it is in the song file for god’s sake. If you use USB or iPod, it will then get the artwork from the HD and not by extracting it from the audio file. None of my MP3 ripped songs showed artwork. I store these outside of iTunes so all I had to do was copy (my) mp3 directory to the stick and repeat above.
Almost all the artwork. BUT, any protected files from Apple did not show artwork. This is how I fixed it. Yes, a tag editor would work, yes I could’ve written a bit of C++ to do it, but I only had 47 to do, so I didn’t. Alright ?

1. I picked an mp3 file, anything.
2. I made 47 copies which I called ART1....ART47
3. The album name was AAAA_ART
4. I added the files (folder) to iTunes.
5. Working through the protected songs I copied (copy/paste) the info from the actual protected file to ART1....47.
6. I copied the artwork also.
7. Then deleted all the ART files from iTunes
8. Outside of iTunes I put the ARTn files on the memory stick and repeated the steps above.

NOW, every song and album has a pretty picture!

So just who does write MB software ? I mean, MB claims the new S Class can drive itself in slow traffic – would you trust it when they can’t even get a simple music file right ? Not me. I just hope the ABS etc was not coded in house too. Me, I would expect better from work experience students.


Damn! Just hit a tree admiring my screen.......

 

[st13phil]

For some mad reason (why, oh why, oh why, to quote Gilbert O’Sullivan) the MB software stores all the artwork on its hard disk, it is in the song file for god’s sake.

First of all, I admire your commitment to getting cover art to display on the car's screen. However...

Your statement about artwork being in the audio file isn't true. It's sometimes in the audio file, but not always, and iTunes is one of the worst offenders for this because it stores artwork (and other song info) in a separate database. Many players will use the artwork stored in the individual audio file, while others expect it to be contained in a separate file (normally hidden and called folder.jpg) that's in the same folder as the audio files. Unfortunately, this is one of those areas where lack of standards causes the end user pain and, as I mentioned, Apple are one of the worst offenders.

MB may not be perfect, but the finger of blame points in many directions when it comes to cover art issues in my experience.

 

[mykaitch]

If you copy all of the itunes music files only to a usbstick you will see all the artwork that is embedded in the file. If you examine a file with a hex editor or any other similar tool you can find the image data. In itunes when images are added by the user they are indeed embedded. I agree that some may not be but not after I have spent many happy hours fixing this manually. MB firmware is crap. Hook up an ipod to an Alipne system - it just works. MB cannot do this. I am getting there with about 80% working now.I ended up paying 3k for my upgrade on a brand new car. The standard Audio20
is in my loft -3days old and MB won't take it back. Now,do you think I am impressed ?
(I think it is only protected files that use a sep folder for art because they were the hardest to fix)

 

[craig1912]

3k to see artwork?? Personally I don't look at music I listen

 

[mykaitch]

Me too, but as a matter of principle I said I wanted that when I ordered the car and anyway, I do like trawling for album images etc. As for lingutronic thingy...got as far as 'next track'. Currently battling MB on that 3k....will report what happens. BTW, the 3k was a quote for parts only and I already had a media int. I asked for a an invoice listing those rare metal parts and was told it was not available. From my experience in electronics and allowing for MB logo, I reckon head unit and screen, retail, absolute top price aruons £1500 (made in China for under £100)