Moto – GPS – BMW Navigator V - Music Player

Table of Contents

1. Moto - GPS - BMW Navigator V - Music Player - Introduction

2. Moto - GPS - BMW Navigator V - Music Player - Use a memory card to store your music on the GPS

3. Moto - GPS - BMW Navigator V - Music Player - Manage your music the right way

During synchronisation …

After synchronisation …

Setting MediaMonkey to synchronise Album Art and to use Relative Paths

1. Moto - GPS - BMW Navigator V - Music Player - Introduction

In this article I’ll explain how to get the most out of the Media Player of your BMW Navigator V.
This article is also useful for other GARMIN GPS devices like the GARMIN Zumo 350, 390, 660…

2. Moto - GPS - BMW Navigator V - Music Player - Use a memory card to store your music on the GPS

First things first. Don’t store your music on the internal memory of your Navigator V. Get yourself a seperate MicroSDHC memory card. It’s a good idea to buy a memory card with at least the same amount of memory as the internal memory of the GPS device, that is at least 8 GB. You can go up to 64 GB on the BMW Navigator V. Always format the MicroSD card as FAT32. Please buy a high speed memory card. In my case I got an 8 GB SANDISK ULTRA, it came with a handy SD adapter so it fits into your computer easely.

3. Moto - GPS - BMW Navigator V - Music Player - Manage your music the right way

There are a lot of free tools on the internet to manage your music collection. I’d advice taking a look at MediaMonkey. It’s a great tool, easy to use and capable of managing very large media libraries at high speed. Try it. You’ll love it as I already do for so many years.

One way to send music files to your GPS is to copy them to the memory card using a filebrowser like Windows Explorer. But that’s not the best way to do things because:

you’ll have to organize the files on the memory card yourself (never put all your files in one folder!)
you’ll end up having different filestypes on the SD card
you’ll end up having different bitrates on the SD card
it’s hard to get an overview of what’s on the SD card, compared to the music on your computer
you’ll have to use the GPS Media Player to create playlists (not an easy way to do things)
and so on…

It’s much easier to manage your music on your computer using MediaMonkey. It allows you to create playlists.

Then you can synchronise these playlists with the GPS device. Always synchronise with the GPS memory card, never with the GPS internal memory.

After synchronisation you can inspect the Navigators content. You’ll notice two folders: Music and Playlists.

The Playlists folder contains all your playlists.

The Music folder contains your music files (and some images like album art) organized in logical subfolders.
It’s important to have the files in subfolders. The GPS can handle them faster if they are in several subfolders and not all in one folder.

During synchronisation …

all files will be converted to MP3 with a constant 128 kbps bitrate
all audio levels will be leveled (if this setting is activated in the MediaMonkey synchronisation profile)
all data on the GPS will be synchronised with the changes you made in the playlists in MediaMonkey
music files you deleted from the playlists in MediaMonkey will also be deleted from the GPS (if this setting is activated in the MediaMonkey synchronisation profile)
the playlists on the GPS will be updated

After synchronisation …

don’t alter the content of your GPS directly
allways alter the playlists in MediaMonkey, then synchronise the altered playlists again
the content on the GPS will be updated automatically

The result in the Media Player on the GPS.

Press the Apps button.

Press the Media Player button..

Press Browse.

Press Playlists.

Select a playlist and press the Back button.

You’ll see the first track in the playlist and also the album cover (if this was setup correctly in MediaMonkey).

Setting MediaMonkey to synchronise Album Art and to use Relative Paths

By default MediaMonkey is not automaticaly synchronising album art to mobile devices.
This setting can be configured differently for each mobile device you use.
You’ll have to activate this feature first.

By default MediaMonkey is not using relative paths in its playlists.
This is the reason why playlists won’t work on the GPS when you connected the GPS to the computer in Mass Storage Mode.
In this case, you’ll have to adjust the appropriate setting first.

Open MediaMonkey.

Select Tools – Options – Portable Device Sync.

Doubleclick the Memory Card.

Click Configure.

Select Options – Tagging.

Set the Sync all Artwork to file folders option.

Press OK.

Select Options – Playlists.

Set the Force relative paths option.

Press OK.

Remark 1 : BMW Navigator V can’t find any music on internal memory card. In case you are using an internal memory card to store your music files, it is possible the Media Player App won’t find any music at all. This was not an issue at the time I purchased the GPS, so I think it’s an issue introduced since the latest firmware upgrade (3.0). There’s a very simple workaround to solve the problem:

Put (at least) 1 music file in the MP3 folder located at the devices internal storage.
Put all other music files in the Music folder located on your memory card as described above.

It seems like the Media Player App sometimes stops searching for music files when it doesn’t find at least one music file in the internal memory. Note: This issue was fixed by firmware update 3.30.

Remark 2 : Problems Sync’ing music from your computer to your BMW Navigator V device.

At the moment I bought my BMW Navigator V, it was no problem at all to sync music files from my computer to the GPS while the GPS was in “MTP Auto Detect Mode“.

Since the latest firmware upgrade (3.0) I have to put the GPS in “Mass Storage Mode” to be able to synchronize the files.