Pioneer CDIB100II Ipod Interface Adapter
Saturday, August 21st, 2010 at
7:59 pm
Product Description
Ipod Interface Adapter
Features:
- lets you control an iPod with a compatible Pioneer in-dash stereo
- compatible with all docking iPods, including video iPods, iPod photos, iPod nanos, and iPod minis
- sends song, artist, album, and time information to your Pioneer stereo’s display
- recharges iPod battery
- IP-Bus pass-through lets you connect a compatible satellite radio tuner or CD changer
Price: $40.00
Pioneer CDIB100II Ipod Interface Adapter
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- Pioneer CDI200 Direct Cable for iBus Headunits and iPod
- Pioneer CD-IU200V Usb Interface Cable For Ipod/Iphone
Tagged with: adapter • CDIB100II • Interface • iPod • Pioneer
Filed under: Pioneer
Basically, it’s like this: if you have a Pioneer head-unit and an iPod, you NEED to buy this. Now. Not only do you get full control over the iPod, but you get to see the artist, album, song title, time elapsed, time remaining, and progress bar if your HU supports it (my AVICZ1 does). Besides the basic ability to control your iPod through the HU, it looks cool, it feels cool, and it’s great being able to glance down and quickly see what’s playing.
My only complaint is it’s SLOW. No, it’s not the head unit that’s slow, it’s the cd-IB100ii box. Ya see, instead of mounting the iPod as a drive and accessing the database directly (like iTunes does), it connects over a unique serial/analog connection. This is done for a few reasons I’d expect, but mainly so that the iPod is still actually doing the playing (so you can play your protected, purchased music). The downside to this is it takes FOREVER to access, read, and display even a single page of the database. Granted, it’s faster than the original cd-IB100, but if you think you can just scroll down to Paul Oakenfold under Artists, you are horribly mistaken. Basically, as long as you only access playlists you’ve created on the computer, the lag is bearable (as you won’t be manually scanning through hours of pages to find your song).
Note, the iPod screen is “locked” while connected, so you cannot get around this by using the iPod to navigate. You *CAN* however undock the iPod, pull up a track, start it playing then doc it again, and it’ll continue playing from there.
I recently purchased and installed the Pioneer 4800MP head unit and the Pioneer CD IB100II iPod controller/adapter. These products are frequenly described as allowing you to control your iPod through your car stereo. To a large extent, that claim is false.
When used with the 4800MP (which is described by Pioneer as iPod compatible), only the first 8 characters of the artist or album name are visible. No track information is available. The display will ONLY display (a) the first 8 characters of the album name, OR (b) the first 8 characters of the artist name, or (c) a totally useless time counter in the format of “IPOD0000″ with the “0000″ showing minutes and seconds.
Just so we’re clear here, if you display the album name for Radiohead’s Hail To The Thief album, the deck will display “HAIL TO ” and THAT’S IT, FOLKS! No album name. No track number. I am not kidding you. When you scroll through the songs, you’ll have no idea what the track number is.
From there, it gets worse. Say you want to play “Hail To The Thief,” the Radiohead album. On an iPod, you’d go ARTISTS -> RADIOHEAD -> HAIL TO THE THIEF. On the Pioneer, if you go to ARTISTS -> RADIOHEAD, it will play the first Radiohead song it finds IN ANY ALBUM. And it won’t tell you what album it’s from. And when you scroll through the songs (blindly), it just goes from album to album, treating every Radiohead album on your iPod as one big album.
I find it hard to believe Pioneer expects its customers to tolerate a design this bad. Today I called Pioneer to ask if I was doing something wrong, and the rep actually agreed when I said, “This is worse than useless.” He recommended RETURNING the iPod controller and controlling the iPod directly, using only an auxilliary connection between the iPod and the Pioneer head unit, skipping the iPod controller altogether.
To put it mildly, I do not recommend this product.
I have the CD-IB100II connected to my Pioneer DEH-P7400MP head unit (circa 2002). I’m using a 5th generation 30GB video iPod.
I looked around in some internet forums and found some instructions to retain iPod’s clickwheel control while connected to this adapter.
1. Turn on the ignition while the iPod is not connected to the CD-IB100II.
2. Turn on / wake up the iPod and return it to the main menu. Stop playback if music is currently playing.
3. Press and hold the Play/Pause button on the clickwheel. Wait for a second*, and plug the dock connector cable into the iPod right before the screen backlight fades to black. Release the Play/Pause button.
If successful, the iPod’s screen will remain off**. Now press Menu button on the clickwheel to wake the iPod. You’ll see the “Safe to Disconnect” screen scroll away and returns iPod to the main menu. Now you can use the iPod’s clickwheel to select songs / playlists / videos (I wish you wouldn’t while driving) / EQ settings, while allowing the iPod be controlled by the headunit.
If the iPod is left connected to the CD-IB100II, you will not have to repeat the above steps at each ignition-on cycle: the clickwheel control will be retained until you unplug the iPod.
*The exact timing may be difficult to grasp, especially if the iPod has been sitting for a while and needs to load files off the internal hard drive. I find more success when plugging in the cable right before the backlight on the iPod begin to fade. If the iPod comes back on displaying the Pioneer logo, and the clickwheel is inactive, unplug the iPod and repeat step 2 & 3. There is no need to cycle the ignition.
** In some rare instances, the iPod comes back on automatically while retaining clickwheel control. However, if the Pioneer logo shows on the iPod screen, the attempt is unsuccessful.
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Pros:
1. Good audio quality
2. Charges iPod
3. Skipping songs using the Pioneer head unit control is quick and snappy
4. There is an additional IP-Bus connector for your Pioneer CD changer, or a line-in cable.
4. Installation is straight-forward
Cons:
1. Scrolling through artists/genre/playlists on my headunit is painfully slow. When scrolling, the iPod insists on loading and playing the songs immediately in that category. I suspect this is the primary reason for the sluggish scrolling performance. Stop the car and use the clickwheel on the iPod instead.
2. On my head unit, I can only have the Forward/Backward button perform track skip, or fast forward/rewind, not both. (This is controlled by a menu option on the head unit. If I choose the track skip option, pressing and holding the forward button on the head unit does not fast forward the track, only skipping to next track)
3. Only displays one line of song info, and only displays the first 8 characters. (On my head unit, I can only have one piece of information shown on the head unit such as artist name or song title. Scrolling can be done on demand only by going into the F3 menu and holding either the up or down button on the head unit for 3 seconds)
4. Most of the head unit controls I’m used to, such as the Pause button and Title Scroll button, will not work in the iPod mode. They have to be done in the function menu. Very inelegant.
3. The dock cable plug is huge. It will probably not clear the dock connector opening in the hard plastic iPod case you may be using. (I have the Showcase Video 30 by Contour Design. The plug does not go in unless I unlatch and open the case slightly.)
Most of my gripes about the unit may due to the fact that I have a head unit that is not iPod ready. I feel many of the features are poorly implemented. However, being able to concentrate on driving safely and not fumbling with the iPod to skip tracks made me keep this unit.
I bought this to accompany Pioneer’s DEHP6800MP car radio. It was easy to install and the ipod is easy to manage using it. You get the same menu of the ipod when you want to search for songs (playlists, songs, albums, etc)so you don’t have to be learning any new ways to get to your music. Once you get to your songs it’s not that of a hazzle to search for the one you’re looking if you have your ipod well organized. Summary: EXCELLENT PRODUCT
Order processing and shipping was very fast with DBRoth, I highly reccomend this vendor.
I am not sure what others have been complaining about with this product. I read tons of reviews before purchasing and was worried about some of the issues previous reviewers have noted; mainly the time it takes to scroll through songs. Alas, I decided that the benefits surely must outweigh the negatives; with that being said, I am glad that I ordered this product.
For the record, I have an older Pioneer DEH 3800MP that I have been using along with the Pioneer satellite tuner. I didn’t have an extra input left on my head unit and I wanted to keep satellite radio, which is why this product is great for people like me who want to have iPod control without losing the satellite function. Installation was simple and straight forward. The sound output is crystal clear and I am amazed at how much better the sound is from my iPod versus satellite.
Scrolling through songs isn’t near as troublesome as some have noted. USE PLAYLISTS (it is what the iPod is designed for, right?) and there is no problem. It might not be quite as fast as changing songs directly on the iPod itself, but I don’t perceive any significant delay and it certainly isn’t bothersome. I have an 80G iPod with about 8,000 songs; it would certainly be problematic to try and scroll through song after song to get to what you want to hear from the main music file, but if you create a playlist(s) for your car with a bunch of songs you like, then you can just let it play and advance past any song that you don’t care to hear.
I do understand the complaint about the unit only displaying 8 characters; my head unit can display 16 characters, so why Pioneer limited this, I don’t know? It is a minor inconvenience, however, and look at it this way, titles or artists that have 8 characters or less show up just fine!
All-in-all, I think it is a great product and well worth every bit of $50.