zaxxon

How can I copy music files(mp3) from either disc or memory card to music register(hard drive) in COMAND? I cannot find instruction from manual. Only ripping from audio CD by COMAND function can save music files to hard drive?

highroller550

u only can copy original cds. nothing else will work.

i tried mp3 cd
i tried even making a reg music cd.

both no go.

so no MP3 can be copied.

220S

Are you sure? I can copy MP3s and pull files from cards (but the cards cannot be larger than 2GB)

To the OP: try a smaller card. Once it's in, then go to the Music Register folder and copy the files.

Maybe it's something they decontented with the W212(?) That would suk.

zaxxon

I tried 1GB card and no luck. There is no menu item for "Copy" but "Delete" in Music Register. It looks like MB disabled the copy function in W212....

dariusf

yes, WTF? wife asked me to copy some MP3's to the registry and the option is nowhere to be found? What cind of moron designs a hard drive system for a car, and does not allow do copy MP3s from a CD or the memory card? This has to be some mistake, no way they would be so brain dead, are they? I popped in a PCMCIA CF card reader and can play fine but can;t fin any copy options.

BudC

I tried copying MP3's but when that didn't work, I read the manual which says only Audio CD's. When I burned an Audio CD with iTunes, the REC button showed up in COMAND and I was able to copy it.

Audio CD's are the default format for burning CD's in iTunes.

The problem is that you have to burn a lot of Audio CD's to equal the capacity of one MP3 CD. That's a lot of CD-R's.

I believe they have a good reason to require Audio CD's so I'm going to use as many of the original CD's as I have and then burn only music that I have no source for to Audio CD's.

listerone

This afternoon I burned a DVD-RW to contain about 4.3GB of MP3s.I tried to copy it onto the music register and failed.But later I checked the manual and think that I've figured it out so tomorrow I'm gonna try it again.I'll report back in case anyone's interested.

ImInPA

I am interested in what you find.

listerone

Damn...couldn't wait until tomorrow to experiment so I tried just now...MP3 disc doesn't work but the CD does.I'm getting a bit annoyed with the many little things (and yes,this is little to me) that my BMW did so much better than my Bluetec.

220S

Works fine with the 2009 W211 which has the same COMAND hard drive system as the W212. All I do is drop the files onto a SD card and transfer them to the music register partition of the HD. My guess would be that it has to do with some kind of DRM issue on the new cars(?) Otherwise it makes no sense why they would disable this.

Nonetheless, DVD-As sound so much better. Way, way better. It's the only way to really take advantage of Logic 7 and surround and full use of the rear speakers, etc.. Problem is that they are difficult to find and selection is slim. But the bit depth and sample rate is so superior over CDs and MP3s. And with 5.1 surround you get great separation in a small space like a car.

Otherwise take high sample FLAC files and convert them to lossless ALAC files at CD quality bit depth and kHz. You can then transfer them onto an iPod via iTunes with one more lossless step as AIFF for the iPod to recognize (although the sample rate will change due to playback limitations of the iPod, but still much better than MP3.) Then you can keep the FLAC files intact to stream to your home stereo.

p.s., Listerone: I think the partition is only 4 GB. So if you're trying to transfer 4.3 it probably just won't let you transfer at all. You can also try converting the MP3 files to AIFF and see if they'll transfer off a card or disc that way.....

dariusf

its 6gb free, at least that's what it shows in the car info screen with no music in there at all. This is completely asinine that they would drop ability to copy MP3s in to the cars hard drive. It makes the device practically useless. Who is going to sit there and load/unload CDs to populate the stupid thing. Is it MBs duty to support any DRM? wait they allow you to copy CDs in to it so the DRM is not on their priority list. So why no MP3s? This type of business/design decisions just blow my mind...

so I can get a 2GB SD card (assuming I can go that high or higher with the cars reader) put it in to PCMCIA adapter and load it up with MP3s and thats OK, but they will not let me or looks like stop me in 212 to copy these same MP3s in to the cars HD? Go MB with your innovation and logic...

Sorry I'm just venting but this is as brain dead is it can get...

dariusf

Thats another peculiar decision, guess it had to do something with the price of the drives? Yes, both DVD-A and SACD is practicably dead aside from the audiophile market but why go with DVD-A, out of the two, SACS is definitely the way to go if you look at the popularity and available material. I practically do not know any audiophile that went with DVD-A, everyone I know are SACD all the way, well as much as they can given the low material selection. Wondering what is the percentage of MB owners that actually have DVD-A material or even have an idea that it exists

hyperion667

mine plays the wav and mp3 files from any disc that they're on......
I think I accidently burned some on the hard drive too by tapping record or something.....

dariusf

play is fine, its the ability to copy to the internal HD that looks to be broken, intentionally I guess with the w212s

220S

I can't remember if it is 4 GB or 6 GB, but for some reason 4 GB stuck in my head. The idea about DRM is only a guess although I don't see why they would be involved in it, either. But locking CDs because of DRM is pretty much over now and if you own the CD, then you can make copies (providing you don't sell/give away the files, etc..) Whereas MP3 music been offered to vendors like Apple as DRM free providing you don't use them on more than X number of devices. So who knows....

But since mine takes files off of cards with no problem I don't see why the W212 can't, after all it's basically the same system. There must be some work around. What does the COMAND owner's manual say? Mine is pretty clear on the protocol for loading the music register.

I have DVD-As only because they'll play on this system, lol. Otherwise they wouldn't be a choice for me either. Although the 5.1 surround remixes do sound good in the car and the Logic 7 can take advantage of it. Otherwise I'd use SACDs as my media. I'm guessing MB didn't provide for SACDs since they didn't want to pay for the hardware and licensing fees. Since many DVD video players can also play DVD-A, it was easier to accommodate DVD audio I suppose.

I know that certain cars (e.g., Ferrari) can play DVD-A, SACDs and high bit rate lossless files on their systems. I think what auto mfgs like MB are forgetting is that no matter how good their hardware might be, without allowing for the right media playback then the systems are worthless. That said, I don't think the DACs are that good in most car systems anyway.

For now all I can do is listen to DVD-As, AIFFs off the iPod that I convert from higher sampled files, and a few CDs that are decently mixed. The rest of it blows. And especially Sat radio.

dariusf

Its 6 in my wifes 2011 w212. If you provide MP3 playback as an option then you are automatically ignoring any copy right issues unless you have it locked down to only play DRM infected files. As it is now I can copy any MP3s I have on to a CDR or media card and play them. If you will allow this much why on earth stop coping to the HD? It makes the HD pointless..

I guess the DVD-A was more of an afterthought when the hardware they used allowed to have it. If they did any analysis over this, including the user base, they should have went with SACD or do both. Yes, there are licensing issues but thats minimal cost when you consider the budget for the w212 design/development.

I think the 5.1 surround in this car is more of a marketing thing. Most people will never put a DVD-A in to this player and how much video action will it realistically see with the play only when in park limitation. I honestly do not see much of any situations where we sit in a car in park long enough to watch movie So that option while looking nice on paper is practically useless.

Higher bit rate/sound quality is nice and I'm all for it but honestly with this limitation to only DVD-A and the issues with the car space being a crappy space for audio anyway. The DAC I would guess is a standard consumer grade low quality DAC. I would be very (pleasantly) surprised if it did any upsampling of the CD (red book).

So if there is no hack for this, I guess I will just dump a bunch of CDs in to the HD or let it sit idle and not used and just get the highest capacity card I can use in the PCMCIA slot and fill it with MP3s.

By the way, while testing the card, it looks like they did not bother at all to read any ID tags from the MP3s and just used the file name for the display. It also did not scroll for me just cut it at some predefined character length. So the MP3 playback is as basic as it gets.

220S

There has to be a work around. After all it's called a "music register" not a "card reader-player." If mine can do it, for certain the W212 can do it. Makes no sense otherwise.


Although don't forget that you can play DVD video while in motion in the Euro cars. It's only here that it's disabled. But yeah, here in the US, having a DVD video player that can't play is silly. Ideally it would be great for the passenger on long trips, etc..

The DAC is pretty poor and so is the whole system for that matter. But DVD-As do sound pretty good and you can actually get all the speakers sounding like they are working individually (instead of a big single lump of sound.) The system lacks warmth, imho. And anyway besides the acoustical space, there's car/road noise which pretty much negates everything.

I do have to admit that I've "discovered" some music that I wouldn't normally have listened to because of the limited selection in DVD-A. The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" is actually a brilliant piece of Brian Wilson's work (and is ranked only second after Sgt Pepper in Rolling Stones all time best albums in the world.) It's a 1966 (or 65?) recording that's been remixed by Capitol/EMI and all in surround. It sounds extraordinarily good in the car. I was never a Beach Boy fan but it's pretty well done.

dariusf

I agree completely with you. The video in motion is distracting to the driver but for the passenger could be a nice option. I also have two 7 year old kids in the back most of the time and they could watch it. Granted that a rear dual screen setup would be more ideal for them but that option is quite expansive and the add on version is quite poorly designed form the aesthetic point of view. I might look in to mounting something on the ceiling in a central location.

As for audio quality, I'm happy its not Bose like in my CLK

The whole audiophile world in general exposed me to so much new music I would never hear as I searched for quality recording/mastering material. I never got much in to the SACD / DVD-Audio, as I prefer stereo imaging but a well done surround setup can definitely be great. Wile owning a $3k+ SACD player I maybe have 4 SACD disks in my collection I just use it for red book utilizing its great upsampling and the tube based output stage I had added to it while having it hot-rodded

mnje350

I bought a USB adapter for the media interface and dropped a whole bunch of songs on to a 32 GB memory stick. Works fine. Can't copy to the HDD though. Really no reason since I have the capacity on the memory stick

dariusf

Thats definitely another option. I just use the old CF card I no longer have a use for and the CF to PCMCIA adapter. Its only 1GB but for now wife does not need any more room. Its a shame that we have this hard drive in the car and no practical way to use it other then ripping the audio CDs. Perhaps there will be some hack in the future or they will allow it in some future software upgrade.

joev11

For what it's worth, I have used as big as a 16GB CF card and a PCMIA adapter in my 2010 550 E Class and it reads and plays it all. I know this is about recording to the hard drive in Comand but the PCMIA adapter can be loaded with thousands of songs, plugged in the COMAND and basically forgotten until you want to change the CF card and listen to a different set of a few thousand tracks.

While I agree it's a poor design by MB it is nonetheless easy to get around. Besides it takes literally FOREVER to copy 1 CD to the COMAND memory.

listerone

You're correct to point out that a large number of songs can be loaded onto a CF card with good results.I've loaded about 30GB of music onto a 32GB card and everything worked perfectly.However,I wonder if these cards can truly be forgotten about.For example,might the high temps and direct sunlight that the vehicle could experience in summer damage the card?

Ain't that the truth!

dariusf

You should be fine, its silicone and no deference then all the other memory/processors in the car.

Do you have your song titles displayed being the file names or is it read from the ID tag? Does it scroll for you when the name is long and off the screen? In my wifes 2011 ir just reads the file name and does not scroll, effectively cutting off song names. The few files we tried have artist-album-song_title format so it can get long.

joev11

[quote=listerone;4659167]You're correct to point out that a large number of songs can be loaded onto a CF card with good results.I've loaded about 30GB of music onto a 32GB card and everything worked perfectly.However,I wonder if these cards can truly be forgotten about.For example,might the high temps and direct sunlight that the vehicle could experience in summer damage the card?

keep in mind there is little difference save size between a flash drive and a HDD save the size. Both utilize basically the same method to save a store data. I believe temps which effect the COMAND HDD will also effect the CF card and vice versa. In fact if you believe there could be a problem just pop out the CF card and put it in your pocket rather then leave it in the car.

listerone

I'm surely no expert on computers but I think that although they do the same basic thing flash cards and hard drives are substantially different.A hard drive consists of a spinning metal disk and arm thingy that...through magnetism (IIRC)...holds data...whereas a flash drive holds data without moving parts.Given that the hard drive also holds navigation data one would think that high temps wouldn't affect it.Plastic,OTOH.....

I certainly could be entirely wrong here,however.

And yes,it's true that one can remove the flash card but having the music on the HD would be preferable for me.