Today I was planning to burn a CD with some MP3's on it, and realized I only had blank DVD's left. I said what the heck, lets see what happens. Burned about 2 GB of songs on the DVD, and tried it on my 2004 E500 and it worked and sounds great. I can navigate the folders just like a CD. Now im planning to burn my entire music collection to DVD and play them in the car vs using the IPOD and AUX connection.

Now, my question is how the heck is this working. I have read tons of postings on this forum, and they all say DVD is only on Euro Command.

Bro, I'm stumped. Tried a dvd in my '07 W211, and got nuttin'.
Maybe it's the brand of disc???
What'd you use...mine was a Sony DVD+ ?

The MP3 slot is also a DVD reader;this does not mean it will play Video DVDs because it requires decoder software which the European versions have; it appears it can read MP3 data off the DVD. This is interesting since one DVD can hold around 4.5GB of data as opposed to 700MB on a CD. Higher density (45GB) DVDs are soon to be available if not already so. I agree, the MP3 interface is simpler to use than the IPOD; I use the 80GB Ipod with mine but like the idea of MP3 on DVD. I will try it out.

When I did it, I burned the DVD+ disc with MP3s. What am I missing here???
The audio DVD played all the MP3s on the home theater.

We need to ask Peter which DVD/MP3 burning software he used.

Have you guys tried a CDR with MP3s in this slot? (to test to see if the US cars have the MP3 decoder)?

I'm using the Nero Burning Software that was bundled with my HP dvd840 writer. The DVD's are the HP lightscribe discs.

I was shocked that it worked, but frankly am very pleased. I can basically burn one dvd, set the folder mix option (shuffle) and never need to listen to the radio again.

Great. I have Nero on my desktop but just noticed neither of the two drives is a DVD writer. I have DVD writers on my laptops but will get a HP DVD1040I from Bestbuy for the desktop tomorow and try it out.

Yes, MP3s burned onto CDRs will play in either drive in my W211.

Yeah, I have Nero also, but no luck with the discs I described above.

Copy the folders from your PC as data as an alternative to writing it as an MP3 DVD in Nero. That works great on my X5.

This is what I do with my W221. Don't know if it accepts differently built discs from that the W211 does but I've never had any issues with the format.

Sounds like it is just a matter of picking the right media.

I believe some lucky 03-04 owners have "command plus" commands... which have dvd drive built in... most others only have cd-rom drive...

I was wrong and you are right. I tried MP3 files with DVD+ R and DVD+ RW and neither are recognized in the MP3 disk slot in my 07 Bluetec thereby crushing my dreams of storing 4.7GB of MP3 on one DVD for playing in the MP3 slot. I tried Data Format & DVD Jukebox format; nada. The IPod stays.

Uh guys.....

I was completely skeptical about this so I just finished burning about 850 songs onto a DVD. I used Toast Titanium on my iMac to burn it. I popped it into my single slot and after about 15 seconds of reading the disk, it started playing. It works just like mp3's on a CD with folders and such, but now there are many more.

I wouldn't have even tried this if it weren't for the original poster. Kudos, man. Thanks.

It's also worth mentioning that I took the same disk and popped it in my 2006 R500 and it wouldn't read it. However my R500 can play MP3's on a CD in the single slot and 6 disk changer. So I can get the same amount of songs on 1 DVD in my E500 as I can with 7 CD's in my R500.

Here's my understanding of the situation:

Our '05 E320 CDI (7/04 build) will play MP3 DVDs in the single-disk slot. I've put about 80% of my 200-CD collection onto three DVDs, and use them in the car all the time. They don't quite work perfectly, but they work well enough to be a great pleasure.

Shortly after I made the DVDs, I mailed a copy of one to a forum member I'd become acquainted with. His car is the same as mine, except for a build date a few months later. His car would not play the DVD I sent which I'd tested in my car before mailing it to him.

This led us to conclude that M-B had removed the DVD MP3 capability sometime between my build date and his, as part of the "Great Decontenting" of W211s that took place in 2004 -2005. I've never heard of any later model W211 that can play MP3 DVDs. A pity, as it's a nice feature and its removal surely saved M-B very little money.

Sorry to rain on your parade.

Hey Cuz...what year is your W221?

Thanks, to everyone for chiming in on this one.

It should make no difference for a W221 (but the manufacture date is from 2006, I'd prefer not talking about MY as Europe and the US would name it differently).

Here's another option for someone to try. Put an MP3 laden DVD disk in the Nav Drive in the trunk. That's what works in the newer model BMWs.

Tried a newly burned DVD+ with MP3s last night. The drive just spits out the disc after about 10 seconds of trying to read it.

I have the same problem; in the bargain I acquired a new DVD writer and software for my desktop. and the only problem is I am not interested in recording video or movies; I have 99 spare DVD-R's now.

Do you think it may read DVD- ?

Nope. I didn't have DVD+ so I tried one of the DVD- I had. It didn't work.

I used Nero to burn about 500 songs onto a DVD+RW and it plays with no problems in my 04 E320. This works on the COMAND CD but will not work on the 6 disc changer located directly beneath. Tried doing folders and sub-folders (genre then artist) but it does not recognize the difference. Treats them all like separate folders. A little tedious scrolling through all those folders so I set it for "folder mix" mode to move around the DVD. Not the most elegant solution but it beats carting around all those CD's.