Hi I was wondering if I could flash the ROM on the thing to play MP3s? Does any G35 model come out with MP3 compatibility, if so, then shouldnt it be an easy upgrade?

Thanks

 

No.

I believe that MP3 compatiblity came standard on the 2005 head units. You could order a new head unit, but it won't be cheap or easy. If you're going to go to that much trouble and expense, I would go for the double-din conversion and buy a better head unit.

 

i was just wondering, why do you say no? I just bought the 06 vette and in the 05s the nav+cd system from bose didnt play MP3s and the 06s do. There is a provision where all the 05 guys could take in their nav systems , get them reflashed to play mp3, why wouldnt it work on G35s' bose?

curious?

 

Are we talking NAV systems here or CD changers?

 

cd changer, but should that really matter, I cant imagine the software would be different, what I was saying was that the system on 05 which came with nav didnt play mp3s but could later me flashed to play, it was a regular single cd player and its bose..so if that could be done should the basic reading components be same on all bose systems..i wouldnt make sense for them to make multiple to do the exact same thing?

 

Well, it would depend on how complicated the electronics are on the board. I'd find it hard to believe you have a microcontroller on the board capable of flashing software updates and fast enough to keep up with the data stream, or an FPGA capable of implementing a MP3/WMA decoder chip. Very often functionality like that is implemented in hardware, not software, since its generally cheaper to buy a special-purpose chip, than a general purpose chip.

Very often when you "flash" updates to a device, you're doing one of two things:

1. flashing a new application to a read-only (most of the time) memory of some sort. This is the type of flash you would do to the body control module, or your engine computer since those devices are most likely general-purpose processors.

2. changing a configuration datastream for a chip. This is the type of flash you would do to an MP3 player, or a DVD player to "unlock" hidden features. This sort of thing is what you read about when people discover that their cheapo camera has all the features of its $700 sibling, or that their DVD player can disable Macrovision, and region coding.

I'd guess that the audio head unit in the car is more along the lines of #2, so maybe you could flash in a different configuration and *enable* functionality, but I doubt you could add new functionality, especially since the physical devices are different (6-disc changer vs. 1 disc & tape deck).

In your 'vette example, the navigation system is a full embedded computer, running either a real-time OS, or an embedded OS. This would be #1 in my example above, so it would make sense that you could do things like flash in new software to add new features. For the audio head unit in a G35 however, it does not make sense that you could do this.

* I don't actually know what I'm talking about, but I'm making educated guesses.

~ Mike

 

But if I did order the 2005 head unit, does it fit in 2003 and 2004 G35s?

 

No it won't fit as a direct drop in replacement. The dashboards are different.

 

My Bose unit isn't smart enough to scroll an XM title...how the hell do you expect it to learn to read MP3s?

 

I believe the hardware is different. You may have to swap out more than the head unit to get it to work.

Take a look in the audio/video forums, you might be better off doing a double-din dash conversion and getting an aftermarket stereo.

 

HAHAHAHA!! lol true dat!