ipod? sd cards? flash drives? hard drives?

[Michael112189]

I just put in my F90 in last night... I was wondering what kind of "memory" do you guys recommend using for music, videos, etc. ipod? sd cards? flash drives? hard drives? pros and cons would be nice too. Thanks.

[Newman]

i have limited experience with the others, but I would say the ipod is the best way to go. the interface is really setup for the ipod and the voice commands will only control the ipod. the benefits of the SD and USB inputs is that they are more affordable but you lost a little bit of functionality when compared to the ipod.

[Egz]

the interface is really setup for the ipod and the voice commands will only control the ipod.

 

I was really pissed off when I found that out after installing mine. I wish Pioneer made that known instead of making it sound like voice recognition worked on any input.

[BorisM]

the interface is really setup for the ipod and the voice commands will only control the ipod.

 

I was really pissed off when I found that out after installing mine. I wish Pioneer made that known instead of making it sound like voice recognition worked on any input.

It is in the manual and all...

[Egz]

It is in the manual and all...

 

Yea, but who reads the manual cover to cover before buying a product. Heck, most people don't read it after buying it.

 

And I've gotten over it. I just ignore that was option all the long.

[Newman]

the interface is really setup for the ipod and the voice commands will only control the ipod.

 

I was really pissed off when I found that out after installing mine. I wish Pioneer made that known instead of making it sound like voice recognition worked on any input.

 

from Pioneer's website:

 

"The AVIC-F700BT offers a new generation of voice recognition capability for controlling iPod* playback and making calls hands-free via connected Bluetooth-enabled cell phones."

[illuxion]

SD card - takes a long time to start playing when you turn the unit on, doesn't resume in the middle of the track when you turn it on, can make nav stutter a bit when it's playing. no VR or album art.

 

Flash drive - takes a little while to start playing , don't remember if it resumes correctly or not. No VR or album art.

 

Hard drive - takes a while to start playing , don't remember if it resumes correctly or not. No VR or album art.

 

Ipod, fastest of the external devices to start playing, resumes mid track when you turn the unit on, voice recognition, displays album art, nice UI.

 

Personally the ipod is the way to go. Even if you detest apple like I do, it's really hard to turn your back on Ipods.

[sti robot]

When you go to get an ipod remember that only a handful of them work with the f series.

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w ... k26NzmlHFw

[etnpnys]

I don't even HAVE an iPod and I would say that it HAS TO BE BETTER than the SD or USB options.

 

1. There's no VR control for SD/USB

2. Playing all stuff by just one artist/album/genre is hard to do (if not impossible) with SD/USB

3. I don't think there's any playlist support for SD/USB

4. The NAV voice volume is dependent upon the volume of the source if you are using SD/USB - with the iPod it will retain what you set the nav voice to be

 

In short, SD and USB work if you need them to, but you'll deal with shortcomings. I'm thinking about trying to find a 1g iPod Nano just to get the functionality that I want.

 

And regarding finding the VR stuff in the manual or from the website: you can't really think that everybody uses the term "iPod" properly. How many times have you talked to somebody and they said "I use my iPod to blah blah blah" only to find out that their "iPod" is made by SanDisk? I was just at a Lexus dealership the other day and the salesperson said "you can plug your iPod in to the jack in the console" - only to find that it is NOT an iPod connector, but an Aux connector. Whenever something becomes as ubiquitous as the term "Google" or "Photoshop" or "iPod" you need to do a little more research to find out the real deal. I had the same question when I read the features, but I posted a question here to find that VR only works for the iPod. All that to say that I understand where the OP was coming from. Bummer.

[whodat90]

The ipod is the most feature-rich, but arguably the worst sounding. CD is of course the best, since it's uncompressed, but has the least features/options. The USB/SD is a great storage medium, but is inherently limited in it's functionality. Here's the deal, at least as I see it: With the Ipod, all the work is done by the ipod; it just streams the music on demand. All the translation from digital to sound is done natively on the ipod. You can voice command it because track title, album title, artist, etc. is always the same place as determined by apple. With a SD or USB, it's playing on wince's windows media player; the work is being done on the head unit. Voice control can't be enabled because there is no standard for ripping songs; album, title, track, etc. could be anywhere or nowhere; the songs could be ripped as Song1.wma or Can_I_Get_A_What_What_By_Some_Rap_Guy_From_Some_Album.wma. Samantha's voice is probably a .wav file or something similar, so it's also being processed by the HU, hence her volume is linked to the stereo volume when media player is thrown into the mix. I've got my iphone, a 16GB SD card, an MP3 mix CD, and am/fm on mine. 90% of the time I listen to either the iphone or the FM. I have 90+ albums on the SD card, but without some native browsing software it just takes too long to find a specific song, since they're listed by artist, ablum, song. If I want the third song on the second album of the 90th artist, it takes a while to get to. Movies from the SD card seem a bit laggy compared to the ipod, although that could be a matter of my compression settings. That said, the Ipod plays at a lower resolution than the unit and therefore the SD card. The HU can play DVDs at native resolution, if you can get it to process them fast enough. gotta go, breffis is ready.