Hi KiwiJochen, What company has done this? i would love one for my car

Not yet a public product so I've sent you a PM

sounds good..this will open a new world...;)

A few years ago purchased a Blaupunkt MP3 compact MP3 player for my E46. I never fitted it. It is still sitting in a box on a shelf here so decided to have a quick look at it. Actually never opened it. I also purchased a CD-Changer and kit for the E83. Never installed it because didn't want to use my center console space up. BUT if I could retrofit this little device near the center console I would have another source for music in the car. Looking at the wiring diagrams it appears to be basic - and would be an easy retrofit....

Sorry, but who cares...
;ot:

TheM@x - I was indicating as above that its been done with CD changer emulation so the steps discussed relating to NAV emulation should be relatively not too complex as the IBUS network command language has been well documented.

Personally I just purchased an ASUS Atom PC with an SSD. Works great and it is fast. On the same note purchased a mini PCI-E CF card holder device and that also works well.

I have been using a carpc now in the E83 running XP on an Atom. The newest modification to this PC (just recently installed it) is a bootable CF card for a Linux OS on it. It does work well.

The MK4 on an SSD would be less moving parts and less that could go wrong.

I understand, but it's not a replacement of the MK4, it's a modification within the MK4.

If BMW did not put so much intelligence in the DVD unit, it would be much easier. Or take a carputer as you say.

But we need to keep the MK4 functionality, except for the data source we would like to replace the DVD drive for a harddisk or Solid State Drive (SSD) or for a SD Card.

I don't believe there is that much intelligence in the NAV DVD/CD rom unit in relative terms. IE: 10 years ago yes but today no. The IBUS communications is well documented as its been around for quite a long time. It would actually be less work and less invasive to emulate a NAV unit than one part of it. As mentioned it would involve reverse engineering. IE: The NAV unit turns on and says I am here. It states what it is and is polled for information and responds to information. The communications is similar but not NMEA sentences. In the US typically a company will apply for a patent for technology and many times this patent well documents what the technology is / methodology used for said technology. As VDO was "multitasking" the same / similar use of the base standard that they created was utilized as a one for all. So somewhere there is a list that BMW provided its vendors for the base for IBUS communications devices. Its probably as easy as a predefined base of communications standards that any device can use. I remember once testing a MKI TV module on my E46 and noticed that the "intelligence" was in that device rather than the NAV CD device and it "took over" the intelligence on the display. I installed a "new" device on my E83 called a CIS-IBUS interface. This device actually has its own display on the 16:9 NAV display. Just like another device on the bus. (IE: hitting the mod button will bring up the CIS-IBUS interface).

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/5717/dsc0441q.jpg

You missunderstand the original posters question: can the CD/DVD drive be replaced with a hard disc?

The DVD drive low-level interface is internal to the nav computer.

Replacing the DVD drive with a hard drive is non-trivial.

KiwiJochen, I did misunderstand original post. I guess because there are references to the DVD drive and the NAV computer as one in the same. I was just stating that making a HD NAV computer replacement would be much easier replacing the DVD or CD rom drive with a HD.