9.3 GB Music Box™
 

Anyone who has this feature utilized it yet? Is it easy to upload from cd's?

I tried it tonight. You can listen to the CD while uploading the CD onto the harddrive.

I used it once; not really my cup of tea. You can copy the songs while it plays, and it rips them faster, so you don't have to listen to the whole thing if you're just tyring to transfer it over. The problem is that you have to rip the entire CD and go into your list later to delete any songs you may not want, so it can take a long time to get it the way you want.

Yes, I had heard about that. Makes me think I should go ahead and burn my cd the way I want the tracks to turn out and then simply upload it from there. Uploading a bunch of cd's and then having to delete the tracks you don't want sure sounds like a time consuming task.

If you do that though, then you have to enter in the track info by hand, which is just as tedious. I thought the CF would be a better option, but just found out that its limited to 512 songs.

you cant upload off of your ipod?


DAN

No, only CDs, and it will only rip actualy tracks from them, not MP3s.

Oh, I had no idea! Glad I asked. Thanks! :tup:

Ripping CDs bitrate
 

Just a tip in case you missed it in the manual. There are two bitrate settings for ripping CDs to the HDD. The default is the highest bitrate. But if you have a HUGE amount of CDs you may want to consider ripping at the lower bitrate. You can change this in the SETTINGS.

Is there anyway to speed up ripping the CD? If I have to listen to the whole CD I doubt I will use this feature too often.

No way to speed it up, but once it starts to rip, you can do other things. You do not have to listen to the whole CD. You can listen to Music Box, SAT, iPOD, AUX, even use the NAV or make a phone call. The rip happens inthe background and most other screens will tell you if the CD is still ripping or is finished so you know when to put in another one. BTW - The rip speed is much faster than the playing of the CD itself. For example, on a 14 track CD, the ripping will be finished by the time the CD itself plays through track 3 or 4. So figure about 12-15 minutes per CD to rip.

Thats not too bad. Would be a lot more efficient if there was some way to transfer from an ipod or memory stick/some kind of usb device.

I ripped 2 full length cd's today (one 10 track & one 11 track) and both cd's were finished by the 4th song so Cypress is exactly right!

Even my wife's poxy little Hyundai i30 has not only an iPod connection, but also a usb port - I just plug in a 4gb memory stick, with 600+ tunes on it (separated into folders, mp3's included) and it just plays, with all the track info coming up on the screen. If I wanted more all I would need would be a bigger memory stick.

Why does Nissan always have to be behind the game with their audio? This car deserves much better.

Come on Nissan - give us a usb port before it's too late.

I wish I had read my manual sooner....

The following CDs can be recorded in the
“Music Box” hard-disk drive audio system:

. CDs without MP3/WMA files

. Hybrid Compact Disc Digital Audio (Hybrid
CD-DA) specification in Super Audio CDs

. Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) specification
in CD-Extras

. First session of multisession disc

And here I thought I could rip mp3's and/or CD-R's....I guess not, huh?

You can rip from audio CD-Rs, but not MP3. But you can use the iPod connector (i have an old mini I just leave inside - it charges it), or you can use the Compact Flash -- haven't tried it yet.

I tried it the other day it ripped the Songs fast...

but it didnt title the songs like I thought it would??


DAN

I think it will only title the songs if the disc has that information embedded. Very few CDs have this. I'm finding this music box to be a fairly worthless feature. I think Nissan only offers it because they can't put a changer in with the Nav system. It doesn't matter to me too much because I rip most of my music to my ipod.

512 Songs?
 

I have the music box and although I havent been able to actually sit down and mess with it yet. Why is the CF limited to 512 songs and what size of CF would that be. I wanted to get a 32GB CF but I wont if it cant hadle it. what page on the manual did you find this? Thanks

Wanna know what's really time consuming? When you put in a cd and Gracenote doesn't recognize it and you have to enter ALL the data yourself.....my fingers are numb from having to do it with 2 different cd's today! :icon14:

That is what I thought I will just use the Ipod interface then instead of wasting time copying CD's to the hard drive.....although it is still a cool feature!


DAN

I don't think it says it anywhere. Someone here just noticed that when he tried out the CF slot it only recognized the first 512 songs on the card. At about 4mb a song, you're looking at roughly s 2GB card, so a 4GB is all you need in most cases.

Anyone know if the MusicBox/Nav Hard Drive is traditional spinning platters or SSD technology?

I was one of the people who tried to load more than 512 songs onto a CF card. I bought an 8GB card and loaded it up only to find that the software doesn't see anything past the first 512. There are a number of other people on the forum that posted the same complaint. Pretty much useless, unfortunately. Since I lack the patience to systematically load one CD after another into the music box (and since most of my music is in an mp3 format), I just went back to sticking with an attached iTouch. The one nice thing about using the music box or CF card would be reclaiming my center console for odds and ends. The iTouch, along with the cabling, takes up most of that space.

According to Nissan's site, the 370 convertible boasts a new and improved nav system. They don't detail restrictions on the hard drive or CF interface, but perhaps that ridiculous limitation has been removed...

does anyone know if you can upgrade the hard drive? from the little 9.3gb to say something bigger? 32gb? or even what type of file system it is? can't seem to find any info on this at all.

The flash is only useful to transfer tracks back into the musicbox that have missing info. I transfered some cd's pretty quick but if gracenotes doesnt have the files you have to go online the get the details of that cd. How else will you interface with the musicbox. This is once youve already transfered the cd and found that you have missing info on it. Its a pain in the a$$ but you can try this. Transfer from your computer, your music files to your CF. Run the files through gracenote and then transfer to the musicbox. That way you will have all missing data if any taken care of and avoid put in each CD. But you got to have all the music stored on your computers hard drive. Im waiting for my CF to come in so I cant try this. I wish I could only use the CF but if i am able to load a 500 files at a time onto the musicbox without sticken in CD's. Ill be content. Now what I have to do is back up all my CD's to my computer to dop this. Thats a pain in the A@@ It sucks both ways but so does not being able to find your tracks. Ill keep you posted.

Ocfoilist-I'm new to downloading/ripping music. Don't have an Ipod (might go with an Iphone). What program do you use to load music on the CF? I tried using Windows Media Player today and it seems only to load to a CD. Would appreciate your and others guidance.

Thanks.

I still haven't used this yet. Embarrassed to say, I forgot about it until I saw this post, lol.

Ocfoilist-I'm new to downloading/ripping music. Don't have an Ipod (might go with an Iphone). What program do you use to load music on the CF? I tried using Windows Media Player today and it seems only to load to a CD. Would appreciate your and others guidance.

Thanks.

For all of those who are complaining about the names not showing up using Gracenote, there is a way you can load the titles via CF. Ive done it on my M35, and it was posted in M35 forums, it'll make it easier for those cds w/o names.

Ill try and find it, and hopefully if AK will let me link to M35 forums.

I think I read somewhere that it was a samsung HDD (sadly not a SSD).
I was thinking about doing the same thing to my NAV/Music Box but I figured that since everything is SO integrated (Radio/SAT/TEMP/NAV/M-BOX/TouchScreen) I'd be hard pressed.

I've read about ppl disabling the parking break safety and running a small computer (or of sorts) through the provided AUX composite inputs. Disabling is safefy feature is illegal to do though.

There is actually a product called CAMP2 that is made to work with an AUX input to provide engine information from a diagnostic panel under the passangers feet area.

As for more space, the Music Box can rip songs in two bit rates. It is factory set at the higher bit rate which you can change. Also, connecting an ipod/itouch/iphone is nicely setup on the touchscreen. It will not charge the itouch or iphone while plugged in without an adapter but work just the same. (you can buy one at Best Buy or many other electronic stores)

Regarding the 512 song limit, this is just a pure guess, but maybe this is a folder limit?? In other words maybe you can put the songs on the card and segregate them at 512 songs to a folder? Again this is just a guess because I haven't even looked at whether the CF reader handles subfolders. Sorry if this is a dumb idea...

Well check MYG37.COM - INFINITI G37 (SKYLINE) FORUMS, GALLERY, CHAT, AND MORE. and you will find a long thread like 17 pages of someone taking the hdd (same as in the Z) and hooking it up and trying to upgrade it or reading the files but they hit a dead end when they found that the files for the system are tied to the specific vin of the vehicle. Will probably be the same for the Z since it is the same exact system. Actually in the G the hdd has the nissan badging on it.