aznevoviii

Let me clean this thread up a little bit for other users.

This is for 2010+ w221 with MB iPod cable + AUX cable combo in the glove box.

you need,

(1) 3.5mm MALE to 3 RCA FEMALE.




plug this into the AUX and you have a full video + audio using conventional RCA cables. (you can convert it to HDMI but I can not speak for its video quality).

I went ahead and bought ,
(2) multimedia player, that accepts SD card and reads all kinds of video files (AVI/MP4/MPEG etc), tried it on my car and it works!!
(its AC/DC powered with 5v 2amp, so you can even find universal car charger at walmart!)
( )

OPTIONAL (3) Video in motion.

Here is the end result!








(Mike.. so by theory this should work.. haha tomorrow i will know for sure!)

Mike5215

Man. i had one of cables those in my 2012 A5 and it went with the car. I bet I could do a media PC...12v glove box outlet to a small AC inverter for power, a Lenovo Ideacenter mini PC (about 1" thick and 6" square). Tiny wireless mouse and keyboard remote comes with it. A 1TB USB hard drive with my BluRay movie rips and music running XBMC as a front end.

The Lenovo only outputs HDMI so I'd need an adapter for the RCA video out. Hmmmm. Ordered me up a cable, the little media player, and an upscaling HD HDMI to RCA converter. I have a spare Lenovo I can play with. The issue will be how badly the video is degraded by going to an analog out. XBMC is a gorgeous front end and very customizable so I'd like to get that going if possible. Thanks for the tip!

aznevoviii

you got it dude!!

Mike5215

Ideally, running XBMC as a front end (media interface) would give you the most flexibility in terms of skins and customization. XBMC is extremely refined graphically, and it populates all of the media info...cover art, fan art, artists bio, release date, lyrics etc etc automatically.

It recognizes your media and then goes online and grabs all the metadate. It can handle pretty much any known media format you can throw at it. Running on a Windows7 machine with hardware acceleration on it can play full HD Blu Ray rips flawlessly.

Here are some quick 'shops of what XBMC might look like on COMAND. The big issue will be the limited resolution available via the composite video input, and how it will translate to the COMAND screen.

The hardware is enroute. Stay tuned.



Typical XBMC coverflow music library presentation. Each element can be customized.


Typical XBMC music "Now Playing" presentation.



Movie presentation in "Wall" mode.



Movie presentation in "Cover Flow" mode

1) Obviously this mod would require the Video In Motion adapter in order to have the display available while driving.
2) There will never be COMAND integration as far as controls go. Control will have to be via either a physical remote, or a Smartphone App. (XBMC has control apps for IPhone and Android. The only connection between the media system and the car is one lowly composite video cable.
3)XBMC may prove not to be the optimal choice as a front end. I'm also looking at the WD TV Live player. which is tiny and also controllable via a smartphone app.
4)The video resolution may not be clean enough.

Jason B

Ok, super cool. Can't wait for pics. Do you have VIM yet?

Mike5215

Not yet. That's the priciest piece so once I'm satisfied with the results I'll take that step. I'm leaning toward using the WD TV media player vs. a PC. It has built-in composite video (the yellow jack) vs having to run HDMI through a down converter. Hate to give up the XBMC interface but I may be able to get a decent looking GUI from the WD box. Solves a few problems...no manual boot up like you'd get with a micro PC, runs off DC power, very small footprint. All solid state (and no fans)

aznevoviii

my media player arrived today,
so i tested on my 70" HDTV with RCA (yellow/red/white).
the picture is pretty clear, so i have ZERO doubt that it will look crystal clear on our 10" or lesser screen!!

Mike5215

Great. How about a pic of the player on the COMAND when you get a chance? That's the real test, but I'm optimistic. The COMAND is very sharp and bright. Should look good. I ordered the same media player and should have it tomorrow, but the cable isn't due until Saturday. Meanwhile I researched several "small box" hardware media players and decided against the WD boxes. I was looking for something highly rated with XBMC preloaded, small footprint, low power draw, wireless remote (no IR since it'll be in the glove box)

This seems to be the best bet:


I should have it by Thursday.

aznevoviii

thats a nice on.
dual core cpu? lol

i will update with some pictures as well.
my VIM is on its way from England, so soon as I have everything, and have time to play around with the car, I will update with pictures and possibly videos.

Thanks for the interest and have fun! drive safe!

Mike5215

Some XBMC screen grabs with background customization. Any images including your own car can be used.Backgrounds can animate (pan and zoom effect) and also have a cool animated wispy smoke so there's always something moving versus a static display.





Can't tell in the grab but the little CD spins during playback.





The background can be a default image like this or fanart related to the artist or album.

RalphSmithIII

This looks pretty awesome. Subbing to get more info as it all develops =)

Mike5215

Thanks. I was hoping since you have the player and the cable maybe you could just do a quick test for image quality. How did it look when you did that first connection to the COMAND and your digital camera? Also, do you access the video from Video>Aux when the cable is in place?

aznevoviii

yup, video -> aux

the picture looked great, i forgot to grab photos of it.

the car is currently at the dealer, soon as i get it back, i will take some photos!

PS: BTW i will be doing V1 hardwire as well, where did you get the 12v from? fuse box or mirror?

Mike5215

I grabbed it from the right side dash panel, but that was before I realized MB had built a little 3x4" "window" into the infrared windshield coating that's to the left of the mirror. It's very hard to see, just a faint pattern of dots, but if you mount the V1 there you'll get better signal.You could use the mirror, or the left side fuse box. Mirror would be cleaner.

Jason B

This thread is awesome. Super cool. Sent you an email Mike.

aznevoviii

Mike, I am not a stalker, but i spy your license plate frame saying "Daytona Beach".

I live in Daytona Beach, if you are still local, we can meet up and tackle this together! hahaha

Surprise!
(in fact, my car is at their dealership right now for service, Scottie is my service writer).

Mike5215

Yeah, I'm actually just up the road a bit in Gainesville. Was that your white Gallardo with green calipers parked at Starbucks in Town Of Tioga this morning?

I bought my previous W220 from Mo over there at MB Daytona and still have the frame.

I'm pretty jazzed about the potential here for a COMAND MediaCenter. I've been a user of XBMC since its inception waaay back when it was coded to be a media player for the original XBox. It's a very simple thing to set up and customize, and it's open source so it's totally free.

If the device has access to WiFi, XBMC automatically finds and downloads cover art (DVD Cover, BR Cover, CD Album Cover, music lyrics, movie plots, trailers, fanart, etc.)

So basically by using XBMC as the front end, owners could view the following on the COMAND Media Center:

MOVIES>DVD Rips (.vob, etc). HD Bluray rips (in .mvk format)
TV SHOWS>(DVD/BR rips of episodic TV shows)
MUSIC>MP3, AAC, WMV, ALAC, etc (not sure how much bit depth on lossless)
PHOTOS> JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG etc
VIDEOS> MOV, MPEG, etc.

The only limitation would be the amount of storage on an attached USB external hard drive. A 1TB would do the trick unless you went nuts on full HD Blu Ray rips, which run around 25GB each. (I have 12TB for the home system) Everything else is small. A DVD in full resolution is around 4GB. You could pack days worth of stuff on a 1TB.

With dedicated in-car WiFi, add:

STREAMING>YouTube, Hulu, Pandora, Spotify, Movie Trailers
WEATHER>Live local weather

I'll let you know how that dual core media player performs since that's going to be the heart of the system. The last major hurdle is control. Normally you'd use a wireless USB keyboard/mouse but nobody wants that in the car. Probably a very compact keyboard/mouse combo is where I'll end up.

Mike5215

Thanks. I used one of your pics from the pic thread as that backdrop. We need lots more of those, in the best resolution and in wide screen format. Dark background works best.

Which email address did you use? (Haven't seen it.)

Jason B

I saw that pic! One of my fav's. I used the email feature when you click your name and it says "send email to Mike5215"

Voice control would be cool. Is there a plugin for that? Not as the only option, but great for when you can't grab keyboard, etc.

Mike5215

<<<@!1!@>>>

Damn. Great add! You're officially on the dev team. Apparently there is an add on called Vox Commando that gives XBMC speech recognition but it's Windows based (uses Window's VR engine). Not sure about that for Android (which is what that dual core player runs) but things happen fast development wise so it's very possible we can or will add voice command.

Here's one VR option: http://yatse.leetzone.org/redmine/pr.../VoiceCommands

This is what we're looking for:

Mike5215

Okay, I got VR to work on my PC based version of XBMC. On the PC it's an open mic that's always listening, so if music is playing in the background it may not get the voice command. It might be necessary to hit the "Mute" button on the steering wheel before speaking a command. No idea how the install and set up will go on the Android OS.

Jason B

That video is awesome! Just what I was thinking.

Mike5215

Well, I got the first, low budget media player (Speck) as well as the HDMI to Composite converter. The media player couldn't handle any of the media on either my portable drive or my 12TB drive so all I can evaluate is the interface itself. It's not horrible, but it's obviously a lower res.

I tried it on my 52" and a smaller TV and there are clear artifacts around all of the icons and text, not the sharp, clean look I think the project requires. I did try the SPECK via HDMI and it looked fine, so it appears to be related to the composite video. I also ran my Lenovo HTPC through the HDMI to Composite converter and got a passable result. Small text broke up a bit but the larger fonts weren't terrible. Here's a photo of the image. Look closely at the edges of the large text and note the break up of some of the smaller text.





Meanwhile, the little XBMC media box is due to arrive tomorrow. Output should be similar but again we're stuck with the limitations of the input. The true test will be to see it on the COMAND but I think any resolution that is much visibly lower than what the screen typically displays would be a deal killer.Shrinking it down generally helps resolution so I'm 50/50 so far.

aznevoviii

OK... im stuck. Tell me what you guys think.

So, i went ahead and tried the media player on the car to show you guys,
for now, i m running the power off 110v from the rear seat,
plugged everything up, the video shows nice, remote works perfect,
BUT... NO SOUND!!!!
i did full volume on the car, and on the unit, no luck.
I payer around with audio setting, but still no luck.

but there is a shine in the dark. with full volume, with car in extremely quite stage (no AV inside garage), I can BARELY hear something playing but it is not enough to be able to listen.
i mean very very very tiny volume. so it means there is audio, there is video.

SO i took the unit inside the house, played on the TV, the audio works perfect. loud and clear.

what do you guys think????

Mike5215

Hard to tell as far as the image quality goes but it seems okay in the pics. On the audio side, it's possible the problem lies with the Audi cable. It may not pin out in the same way that COMAND looks for the two audio channels, but is the same on the video channel. Just enough to get our hopes up. I guess I need to figure out how MB normally gets Video Aux In. It may be a feature only on cars with a rear seat video system.

I did a little research and it seems the 07-09 cars have the three RCA video jacks in the glovebox. The 2010+ without the rear seat video system do not appear to have the RCA jacks. Per the Owners Manual, cars with the Media Interface didn't get the Aux Video jacks. It looks like unless we can get that Audi cable to work we're stuck.

There is an aftermarket video interface available for the 221 that goes into the CAN bus, at around $300 but i don't want to have to go that deep into the car's innards.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Video-Multim...-/251051593967