OEM MP3/CD player, disk compatibility?

[X5LeMans]

Bit of a long shot here, Anyone tried any of the extended length CD's in the OEM changer. It works great with 700Mb / 80 Minute disks, but I want to get a few more songs in. Has anyone tried the 800Mb/90 minute CD-R's

Of course I could just get a second magazine.. I may even have one from the OEM changer I removed from my E39.

[Denis O]

Your other option is to buy an Alpine mp3 changer and Intravee. The Alpine unit fits exactly where the BMW changer is and the Intravee will give you all the track info of your mp3 discs.

[X5Sport]

Have you tried burning an MP3 CD?  By 2006 the drives were supposed to be capable of reading MP3 discs.

Richard

[X5LeMans]

I had already burned MP3 disks from my E39 which had a Sony changer + Ibus interface fitted. I've got 2006 changer which supports MP3 and even the ID3 tag firmware on the BM54 and its all running great.

I was just wondering if I would get away with 800Mb disk instead of 700 for a bit more music .

My disks are all burned as 192kbps VBR and it sounds pretty good. Bass is a bit woolly.. Perhaps one of those BM54 output mods is worth considering.. Either that, or just add a sub instead. The sound isn't "THAT" bad. My old Sony changer used to hate 128kbps bit rates, which is why my library is 192 with VBR

A lot better than the "Hifi" sound system I had in the E39.. that didn't have woolly bass... it had no bass at all.

[X5Sport]

All you can do is try it....

R

[X5LeMans]

I'll order a set, I've see both 90 minute (800Mb) and 99 minute (870Mb) disks... Worst that can happen is clunk hit the end stops on the CD player, and it wont read all the tracks.. Should be no problem though

If they work, I'll post back here for general info

G

[X5LeMans]

Well, interesting result. Verbatim 90 minute CD-R.
Computer detects disk as 80 minute

Using IMGBURN software I simply ignored it and prepared a disk with 790mb of mp3 files in 3 directories.
Software warned that disk was too small.
Ignored warning and hit burn. Selected 4x burn speed. Slowest my drive supports.

Burned with no errors. Content verified accurate.

Popped disk into OEM changer magazine.  Check disks. Ok
Skipped to last file on the disk to check the extreme limits.
Played song flawlessly.

ID3 tags for Title, artist and album correctly displayed on the monitor.
Dashboard displays  cd folder and song by number only but I'm ok with that

Pretty sweet. That's 10% more storage per disk. I'm going to try to push the disks right to their max. They should take up to around 800mb. Perhaps a little more .

This isn't an overturn, you need the 90 minute blanks or it won't work.

I've found blanks on Amazon and in Maplins.

Now if I can just get a sub. I'm pretty happy with the 10 speaker oem navigator system.

[X5Sport]

Remember that 'closing' a disk uses up to 20MB of the available capacity.  That might be why the error came up.

Richard

[X5LeMans]

Not bad for an OEM cd changer. Easily handles 90 minute media. I was able to reliably burn 92 minutes including the leadin and lead out.

806Mb of actual storage. And that's proper 1024 Megs not the fake 'Metric' Mb

Burned two magazines full of music 1700 songs, 117 hours of music!  With no repeats. Not to bad to switch magazine every 58.5 hours

Now I just need to find one of X555's custom subs on the second hand market. For full oem looks and kicking sound .