rickhuizinga

Yes, the Dension Gateway 500 has a video out.

The pics of the electronics on Eric's group buy page (http://www.bumperplugs.com/DensionGroupBuy2.html) show a different circuit board than mine and shows the DICE logo on the connector. Also the menus photographed on the group buy page show different menu options than the Dension that I own. For example, the Dension Gateway 500 has its menu options organized as tracks on CD 6, whereas the picture in the group buy shows its menu options organized as CDs. Also, the number of menu options are different and are labelled differently and the track names are a concatenation of "Track name/Album name" vs. just showing the track name.

DICE is a sister company to Dension USA which has stopped distributing Dension products (see densionusa.com). Dension and Dension USA are different companies. It appears Dension USA wanted to develop their own line of products rather than distributing Dension's products and started DICE electronics as a result. For a period of time, Dension USA stopped selling Dension products and only sold DICE Electronics products and the phone lines for each company were answered by the same person. Despite ceasing to be a Dension distributer, it seemed as though they wanted to continue using the Dension name as it was known for its line of iceLink iPod adapters.

I think the group buy is for the Dension USA, or DICE unit rather than the Dension Gateway 500.

rickhuizinga

I've attached a bunch of photos of using the Gateway 500 from the PCM screen.

The first pic shows the CD list. CD's 1-4 correspond to the first four playlists on your iPod. To guarantee that a playlist will match CD's 1-4, just make the first character of the playlist name contain the character '1'-'4'. Selecting CD 5 plays the entire contents of the iPod. CD 5 is also displayed whenever a different playlist has been selected for playback using the menu options, as well as when your car is first started. Each time you start your car, it will continue playing whatever song and playlist were last played before you stopped your car (as your iPod would normally do when being turned off). CD 6 corresponds to the menu.

The next two photos show the menu options - note that they are organized as tracks. The operation of these have been previously discussed in this thread.

The next pic shows the main audio screen for the CD changer while playing the first playlist accessed by selecting CD 1.

The last 3 pictures show the track list in the first playlist and shows how the 300+ song playlist is seperated into pages (which were described earlier in this thread).

Rick

ChrisF

Rick:

Any hiccups of any kind with this unit and usability yet?

rickhuizinga

The only thing that I've seen is that track list was once stuck on "loading...". This seemed to happen when I sent a "randomize" command while a new track list was loading. It self cleared a few moments later. Normally loading a 50 song (or 1 page) track list takes about a second, and I think I selected "randomize playback" while it was displaying this message. In either case, playback of the track began immediately, but the track name did not appear until the "Loading..." message is cleared. I'm keeping my eye on this, but I would categorize it as a minor bug as it happened only once when forcing the track list to change, has no negative impact on playback, and seems to clear shortly thereafter.

One thing that is neat is that you can download new firmware from the Dension website, place it on the root of a USB mass storage drive and plug it into the Gateway 500's USB port to upgrade the firmware without removing and replacing the unit. Because they released the Gateway 500 for the Audi and Mercedes before the Porsche, upgrades are now available for those cars. The firmware shipped on my Gateway is the most recent, and is currently the only version released for the Porsche. So far, it seems very stable.

gravedgr

Rick - first, thanks for being so patient with everyone's questions. Do you know much about the video-out option? I am on the wait list for the group by with Eric @ Bumperplugs.com, but to be honest I'm more impressed by the Dension unit than the DICE version (and a little more comfortable).

One of the biggest features I was waiting for on the DICE unit was video (I have an 80 GB iPod), so if you have any information you could share I'd appreciate it.

W211

Rick, quick question for you. Does the Gateway 500 retain the Random track sequence after you shut off the car and restart?

The NavTV version does not, the Porsche PCM singler CD player doesn't either. Curious..

Eric - Plug Guy

Although our pictures from earlier testing do show dice products, the unit for the group buy underway IS the Dension Gateway 500 unit in question, not a Dice product.

Due to the CES going on, we may not have more updates for another week or so, but it IS coming and will be a full-featured unit.

Bob/Ft. Worth

good to hear, eric.
Rick's unit looks like a winner

NorthVan

I have received an email from www.maxxcount.de confirming that they will do a group buy. I been given pricing from them but I am currently trying to confirm that the price includes shipping to Canada and USA.

I don't want to setup a competing GB to yours, I am only looking to help myself and the other Rennlist people out.

Let me know ASAP.

Ed

mishref

Does anyone have a install manual? I would order one if it seems easy enough to install.

NorthVan

Looks fairly easy to do.

http://www.car-audiosystems.com/supp...5&pcid=0&nav=0

icruze

The information is on the www.maxxcount.de website. (The price is listed at 499 euros)

http://www.dension4u.de/shop/product...oducts_id=1725

Thanks Rick for all of the information.

Thanks Eric for the clarification on the group buy unit. I too was going off of the pictures of the units and the usability of the 6 disk changer. Will you also be selling the multi-media adaptor?

rebe1

The unit that Eric is arranging a group buy for is limited to cars with NAVI at the beginning, but I don't see such a limitation for the one the Rick has. I'm confused now. Don't really care to keep my cd changer or not, but I don't have NAVI.

brente2

Rick,

I've seen you reference a 300+ playlist and how it works. any idea if there is a physical limit on the size of the playlist supported? e.g., can it support a 1k or 1.5k+ sized playlist?

rickhuizinga

I don't know much about getting video on the PCM, but I did sse that maxcount.de had a product that works with the Denaion 500 to get video playback on the PCM. I haven't looked too much further into this as I had the impression that it would require more modifications than I am comfortable with.