Is anyone using a VW/Skoda MDI lead - and how good are they ?

[Evening Star]

An MDI Ipod cable allows charging & limited control of the device, I don't see why it shouldn't do the same for an Iphone.

[Brimma]

If you ever get the chance to upgrade to a Columbus/MFD3, the MDI lead with ipod adapter gives you full touch-screen control of the ipod

[schmang]

I think the real point here is not to use a £160 ipod but a £40 hd and have full control over your music ( and not destroy the battery by continuously charging it).

[Evening Star]

Use a USB HDD with the MDI & get exactly the same problems with mixing etc as you do with an SD card...

Been there, done that & wasted £50.:evil:

[wardth]

I believe that they are essentially a waste of money. In my case it's a Aus$100 charing cable for my iPhone. The MDI interface gives no real control over an iPhone or iPod and it's far better to buy a 16 or 32GB SD card transfer your songs to that and just have that in the Bolero or Columbus the whole time.

??????

Works a treat on my MFD3.

One thing though - I bought mine from a member on here but didn't realise until too late that it didn't come with the moulding to affix the connector into the glovebox panel. I think its just a clip on section that holds the interface cable into the side of the glovebox. Anybody got any ideas? Part number perhaps??

[vectra1]

Old Thread resurrection.

I am buying a new vrs octy this year.

Also getting an iphone.

What benefit would I see if I ordered the mdi kit with the car?

thanks

[FUBAR]

Old Thread resurrection.

I am buying a new vrs octy this year.

Also getting an iphone.

What benefit would I see if I ordered the mdi kit with the car?

thanks

If you want to use it for music in the car and have full control of selecting the music by all genres then get MDI I have it first with the pikey Bolero and now with the Columbus fantastic one of best options I ticked (considering it was missed off my invoice MUWHAHAHAHA) Free MDI nothing is sweeter! Personally I would order MDI itself as an option then buy the cable to plug ipod into it on ebay or somewhere else like this proper Skoda one on Ebay save some money.

The only thing I do not understand is that as it will be in glove box you will have no access to the phone itself (you may like to have it in view in a mount or something) I also do not know if you use bluetooth will this be work at the same time etc. I just use mine for an 80gb ipod classic. Alternative is you just buy a 32gb SDHC card and put lots of music on that and just leave it in the radio all the time and save the money. €15 for a class 10 32gb if you shop around.

Alternative use for MDi if your big into your music is that you can get a MDI/USB cable so you can plug any USB storage device in like a 2.5" HDD could have 1TB of music on demand all via the touch screen.

http://www.ebay.co.u...5#ht_500wt_1287

[CanaryAndy]

Have mine running with a 320gb hard disc in the glove box - forget the iphone set up. Ensure you have the music in folders (I have mine "A/Ash/2004 Meltdown" as an example and allows quick access to what you are looking for). Quality needs to be 320kbps otherwise sound quality will be poor.

All in all £150 very well spent on the cable and £50.00 or so for the hard drive.

[Simon Cobb]

It's the one option on my Scout that I regret not selecting. Having recently purchased a new VW Polo, which came with the MDI and iPhone/iPod cable as standard, I'd recommend it. My dealer also threw in the USB cable for free, so most of the time, I hook the USB cable up to a USB 2.5" HDD I've secured discretely in the glovebox and I now have access to all my music quickly (unlike the painfully slow SD card on the Bolero). When I need to, I can quickly interchange the cable and charge/listen to my iPhone via the same system. Well worth the money in my opinion, to the extent I'm looking at retrofitting it to my Scout.

[Brimma]

I'd forgotten about this thread, it was so old, and I really should have updated it :S

I have the MDI lead retro-fitted in my Octavia, currently running a Western Digital 320Gb USB hard drive, and it really is worthwhile having - easy access to music, I've got all the artists in alphabetical folders which makes selection very straightforward

It also came as standard in the Monte Carlo

So, in answer to my original question, it is certainly worth the money

[vectra1]

What is the maximum size HD that can be used?

Is it a specific HD manufacturer or will any 2.5" do?

How fast does the head unit pick this up or is it slow to scour through folders?

Should be ordering new car next week so need info asap.

Thanks

[Simon Cobb]

I can only speak for the factory-fitted MDI in my VW Polo, attached to a VW RCD310 stereo (no doubt there's a Skoda equivalent to this model). I've got a 500GB USB HDD installed (about half full). Any brand of drive will do, but perhaps choose one with a 3 year warranty, as the drive will be subject to more stress than normal, being mounted in a car. I formatted it as FAT32, after the drive was not recognized when formatted as NTFS.

Performance is instant. I'd expect similar when attached to a Bolero.

[vectra1]

Excellent.

That's is what I was hoping to hear.

Now to scour for a 1tb HDD

Thanks

[Simon Cobb]

Now to scour for a 1tb HDD

Are you serious? I have a lot of music, all ripped at 256/320kbps, and my 30,000-plus tracks only occupy 170GB!

Mind you hard disk space is cheap these days, so who cares I guess...

[Brimma]

Excellent.

That's is what I was hoping to hear.

Now to scour for a 1tb HDD

Thanks

Have you got every album in the world, ever?

I've got a 320Gb drive, and bearing in mind you've got 20Gb available on the Columbus hard drive and, depending on firmware, the ability to run a 32Gb card in the SD card slot, how much space do you need?

[vectra1]

I will only have the Bolero.

But I currently have over 1tb of mp3's on my house network so need to transfer lots of that.

[Skoda Singh]

I have recently taken delivery of our new Superb Elegance, and unfortunately because it was a stock car it did not come fitted with MDI. To be honest, that in itself puzzles me as the SE Plus now gets MDI as standard! :think:

I also have an iPhone, which effortlessly connects via Bluetooth and while the functionality isn't amazing, it does still deliver good quality music and I can use the MaxiDot to control it. Admittedly I need to get an in-car charger as the Bluetooth does considerably drain battery life. Given this, is it really truly worth the time and money to retrofit MDI?

I'd really appreciate your opinions.

[Barracuda]

Hi All...

Being a gadget freak & wanting to have great sounding ICE, this was one of the things I looked into after previously having an Alpine HU setup in my old Mondeo. I have had my Octy since April, & still messing about with the ICE setup.

I've got both the the iPod/iPhone & USB connections for the Bolero & findings so far are as follows-

iPod Classic 160Gb: Can control & access playlists, genres, albums, artists, songs. The Bolero plays the iPod as soon as it's plugged in. I record all my music to MP3 (320). I find this more than adequate for sound quality in a good ICE system. My iPod currently has approx 17000 tracks in 1500 albums... Roughly 120Gb of music.

However, the Bolero is not a patch on my old Alpine HU, which was designed to enhance the sound quality of iPod digital content.

Hard drives/USB sticks (16-250Gb): Found quite a few ways of setting these up on this forum. The one that worked for me was to setup various folders as playlists. I left one MP3 file in the root of the hard drive, otherwise the Bolero can take up to 2mins to read the contents of the drive before playing music (really, really frustrating). Tried using the SD card, & just think that this is a complete waste of space. As you can appreciate, navigating through your music when in the car has to be quick (not that I'd do this whilst driving the car <lol>

iPods have solid state drives in them (no moving parts). They are specifically built & setup to do one thing... Play music!

Hard drives are discs put into a vacuumed sealed unit. The data is transferred to/from these discs magnetically. These are all moving parts. The data transfer rate is not nearly as fast as a sold state drive.

I don't want to get anal about hardware, but this is the reason why hard drives have come down in price over the last few years. Solid state drives are used in practically all multimedia players, tablets & some notebooks (just checkout the price per Mb).

In this setup (for me at least), cheap is definitely not cheerful...

Edited 27 October, 2012 by Barracuda

[FUBAR]

I've got both the the iPod/iPhone & USB connections for the Bolero & findings so far are as follows-

iPod Classic 160Gb: Can control & access playlists, genres, albums, artists, songs. The Bolero plays the iPod as soon as it's plugged in.

iPods have solid state drives in them (no moving parts). They are specifically built & setup to do one thing... Play music!

Your iPod classic has a 1.8" HDD not an SSD put it to your hear you will hear the moving parts 160gb SSD would be mega expensive.

I like the Columbus but its very basic and to me seems like the rest of the ranges stereos OAP friendly (by that I mean made to not need a degree in gadgets for all) I would rather have a good after market one but I like the OEM look and settle for that.

[little jack]

Strangely, as the thread title says

I'm contemplating getting the proper MDI lead to connect up to my MFD3, with either the ipod or USB connection.

Is anyone out there using one, and, if so, are they worth the money ?

[little jack]

Strangely, as the thread title says

I'm contemplating getting the proper MDI lead to connect up to my MFD3, with either the ipod or USB connection.

Is anyone out there using one, and, if so, are they worth the money ?

Hi

I've Been looking at changing the head unit but need the facia you have.

Do you have a part number & price?

[TDIum]

I have recently taken delivery of our new Superb Elegance, and unfortunately because it was a stock car it did not come fitted with MDI. To be honest, that in itself puzzles me as the SE Plus now gets MDI as standard! :think:

I also have an iPhone, which effortlessly connects via Bluetooth and while the functionality isn't amazing, it does still deliver good quality music and I can use the MaxiDot to control it. Admittedly I need to get an in-car charger as the Bluetooth does considerably drain battery life. Given this, is it really truly worth the time and money to retrofit MDI?

I'd really appreciate your opinions.

I have an SE+ so the Amundsen+ unit came with Bluetooth and MDI.

I don't use the MDI (but I may in the future for example if other half wants to plug her endless collection of rubbish music on an iPod into it).

I have all the music I want on a 32G SD card in the slot and I mainly use this. Sometimes when I get a new CD I use the CD slot.

I can also use the Bluetooth to play music from the iPhone I sometimes do this when going from pedestrian-with-headphones mode to driver-in-car mode but wanting to keep the same music going.

HTH

[sh4rpsh00ter]

My 2p on this. I previously had a 2010 Octy with MDI and Bolero, which when integrated with Maxidot was fab, even from the stalk. I previously didn't have Bluetooth which I didn't miss.

I now have a Blackline with the Bluetooth enabled which is spot on for the phone but is rubbish playing music from my iphone in my opinion as you cant navigate playlists and it very occasionally hangs up. I run a 64gb iphone 4S. Whilst the SD card is OK for a few tracks a 32gb won't hold all the music I have on the phone. I also personally found it slow to load tracks via the SD card in comparison to the MDI.

As such I'm in the process of getting an MDI fitted to my Blackline, so will report on the Amundsen functionality as soon as. The other positive is that it charges my iphone from the MDI as the Bluetooth destroys the battery, especially when streaming music!

So my recommendation is that if you have significant amounts of music and want good functionality then an MDI is for you. If you have less than 32gb, then an SD/BT Streaming is for you.

[Welsh_kai_boy]

@sh4rpsh00ter just put MDI in my Blackline, works perfect off my old IPOD.

[zacherynuk]

Coupled with a power socket and a wifi enabled device, parked in range of your house it's awesome to load stuff onto. I currently use an old android phone with the 3.5 jack. Roll on Mirror link at a better price though