Dension Gateway 500 Installed

Goodman Radio in Bryn Mawr, PA installed my Dension Gateway 500 yesterday. They did a superb job! Mounted the gateway behind the PCM, the AUX in/Reset switch box to the top left of the footwell area in the passenger side, and the iPOD and USB cables in the rear center console storage bin. Everything is tidy, looks like a factory install, and the Gateway is working as advertised, so far anyway. Have not had a lot of time to play with it yet, but the playlists work as they should. Still need to experiment with shuffle and the various browsing modes (artist, album, genre, etc.). I am quite pleased with the sound quality produced through the Bose system . Having the iPOD integration blows away the CD changer or dealing with MP3's on a single CD. Will post pix of the install later.

Did you get the system programmed by the dealer so the Dension is recognized by the MOST/etc?

PIWIS programming was not necessary. The PCM recognized the Dension as a CD changer without having to perform any other steps.

I had the same experience. However, I've noticed that the system isn't as "snappy" as I would have hoped it would be (i.e. bringing up a new list of tracks). I've been told that this happens when the PCM is not programmed. The explanation makes a certain amount of sense, if the specific spot in the chain isn't programmed in advance, then the system presumably falls back upon some sort of autonegotiation/detection which could include a performance penalty.

Although not strictly necessary it is advised to have PIWIS programming done because the devices on the ring recognized vs. registered will be different. Whether or not that causes a performance penalty I don't know, I didn't measure times before and after having the unit registered on the PIWIS .

how much? what do they charge ordinarily at your dealer to do this programming? i assume that it would be the same process for the navtv too? if it helps speed up searching the ipod it might be worth it otherwise i haven't heard anyone praise this process yet? any more details...? thanks.

My dealer knows me well so they typically will throw it in for free on top of something else I am in there doing, or if programming only they might charge me an hour of time to cover their tech's time. The last 2 times in they haven't charged anything. I am also fortunate in that Imagine Auto local to me now has a PIWIS and they let me program there for free any time.

Reeves does the same thing for me... they charged 30 minutes ($52) for programming my PCM when I first got it; when I take it back to get sport chrono codes done, the PCM\Center stack clock synced, and the Dension registered, the manager they will do it for free. Their service department is top notch. Something as simple as getting the Dension registered (cd changer set to on and prioritized in the MOST chain), should not render more than a half hour of labor charge. Also, midnight blue, I'm glad your install is working well. I think our install location, behind the headunit, is the best for a convenient, hideaway spot. - Suneet

As a quick follow-up I had been having problems with my Dension unit just randomly not working. Today my replacement silver box arrived and to my surprise it has changed, instead of the 2 fiber optic lines coming out it now has a standard fiber optic recepticle for the existing lines, no more custom splicing fiber lines together with connectors, etc. This made it much more plug-n-play and so far it is working flawlessly. The old unit will go back for examination.

Interesting. Which firmware revision is on the unit? I'm having some usability issues with the search feature. I find that I must go back to the Tracks menu and select the letter of the alphabet in order for the Dension to display all artists starting with that letter. If I select the letter from the main menu, only a small subset of artists starting with that letter are displayed. Also, do you find that the PCM will auto-select whatever is displayed if you linger on a highighted item for more than a few seconds? I know this is standard PCM behavior but makes navigating through the Dension menus quite cumbersome.

Midnight, you could turn off +select in the config menu, then the things won't select until you hit >> for 3 secs. Also, I'm pretty sure with all units you have to go to the tracks menu to get all the choices to display, I think this is just the PCM unable to display that number of choices on the main menu. - Suneet

Midnight, I'm using 1.0 since anything higher seems to have more bugs/issues. My issue wasn't with the firmware it was literally with the unit not working because it couldn't be found on the ring because it was not outputing a fiber optic signal at times. I believe something internal to the silver box went bad after awhile.

I'm also using 1.0. Was curious if the new hardware design came with updated firmware. My Dension has been rock solid, though the UI is quite quirky. With the auto-select behavior I described, it becomes difficult to navigate to a specific album or artist correctly and keep an eye on the road.

I think you doesn't have the latest iTunes on your PC. (It builds the song database and saves it to iPod) The GW assumes that the songs are ordered on the iPod like the leading "The "s were cut. So artist "The Beatles" is ordered to Bs and not to Ts! If you use a very old iTunes where this rule is not yet taken into account the GW's binary search will be confused and won't work correctly.

Not sure I follow. First of all, I don't use iTunes, I use Media Monkey. Secondly, I can find all of the artists that begin with "The" under "T" so long as I select from the Track menu. On a whim, I did check under "B" for "The Beatles", but they in fact were located in the "T"s. Surely the GW shouldn't care which software I use to load songs on to the iPOD? I will never use iTunes.

Installed my Dension unit today. I don't have a cd changer, nav, or pcm. I do have bose . It was a pain in the a$$. The fiber connections had to be disconnected from behind the master cylinder. I wound up breaking the clip that held the fiber adapters to the firewall. Once I got that loose (which took 30 minutes), I was able to connect all the wiring per the Dension instructions. I could not however follow the instructions for a Porsche because their instructions only show connecting the head unit to the Dension. In my case, the head unit ran to the bose amp . I split one of the fiber cons out, per the instructions for the Mercedes. I used the technique of disconnecting wires from the harness utilized in the remotekey install. I didn't have to cut or splice any wires. I simply pulled the pins out, and wrapped the Dension wires round it. It was very simple. I left everything in the front trunk for now, until the dealer reprograms it tomorrow. All in all, it took me 2 hours. I'm pretty happy with the results so far. The adapter doesn't show up yet, but my stereo + bose works, so I'm sure its all fine. If the "ring" was broken, it shouldn't work at all. If I had to do it again, it would take about an hour. I'll upload pictures of my specific implementation later.

My main beef with my Dension is that when I go through the Menu -> Albums -> Pick an Album -> List tracks ... All of the tracks appear with a . in front of them unless I hold down the right arrow on the Nav for a few seconds .. then it reloads and everything appears fine. If I don't do that... everything gets a little "wonky"... I never did get my PCM programmed...

Midnight Blue, that is the problem. Unfortunately, the GW doesn't know in what order the iTunes or Media Monkey indexed the songs on the iPod. It assumes that you used the latest iTunes. Plug your iPod to iTunes and it will rearrange the database. invader zog, the "." means that you are in browser and the playing song is not the one what is displayed (assume a 1-line display). When you select that song (with seekFW), it will start playing (and will be displayed without the "." of course).

Got the dealer to turn on the CDC in my CDR24 today. It works great. I recommend this to anyone that wants to hook up their ipod. The quality is good and it is very fast.

That does seem to resolve the issue. What confuses me is that I thought that I should be able to click in the knob that I use to scroll up and down and make selections. Is the Cayman PCM/NAV considered a 1-line display?? Thanks for taking all the time to answers these questions. Very appreciated!!

Hi smounic- I had my Dension unit installed today, and next Tuesday I go to the dealer to get my CDC on my CDR24 turned on. So tell me, what will I see? Anything at all on the radio display; I think not from what I've heard here? How do you change the radio mode to the CDC mode? thanks in advance....

You just push the CD button again. It will toggle between CDS and CDC. Jeff

So I can still use the in-dash CD! Great!! Thanks.

GW500: Feature request: It would be cool if the Dension wrote the config to a text, XML, or even just created a file for each option with a 1 or 0 that it would write to the USB drive (i.e. much like how it writes info about the firmware). You could then use that to make configuration changes much easier + it wouldn't require the Nav...

+100 .

GW500: Will the Bluetooth adapter be coming out soon?

I installed mine yesterday and dealer programmed CDC today. Everything works and sound quality is really good. Install was really easy

If I put a CD with CD text into my single CD player in the PCM head unit I will get the name of the band, the name of the album/cd and the name of the song playing. that is what I'd like to see for songs on the ipod as well. Next time I am in the car I will take a picture and post it here.

We talked about the same issue some weeks ago. The GW has access only to the MOST bus (as a CDC). So we cannot do the same as the integrated CD Player..

I'm stuck in my install trying to route the USB and IPOD cables through the firewall plug. If it wasn't so hard to access, I could just drill through the thing. Any good tips?

I drilled through mine to the lower right of the cables already passing through the boot using a long drillbit and a small handheld cordless drill.

The first ~thousand units are produced but as far as I know the User Manual is not yet finished. Also the 2.00 SW needs just documentation. To all, does the Porsches usually have a some kind of CAN display behind the wheel?

GW500, As long as I "have your ear", there is one thing that drives me crazy on occasion. If I am listening to a song and I want to go back to the beginning of it, I have to hit the left arrow which takes me to the previous track and then hit the front arrow to take me back to the track. Typically, the "use case" associated with this is: If at the beginning (i.e. first second or two) of a song and the back button is pressed: go to previous track If past the beginning of a song and the back button is pressed: go to beginning of track If anywhere in a track and the forward button is pressed: go to next track

That is how the CDC and the GW work, isn't it? Gil, With v2.00 FW of GW500 you can select sources from menu. It will be released this week most probably.

GW500, I'm still having trouble using SEARCH to find an artist. When I select T, the GW only displays a subset of the artists beginning with T about halfway through artists starting with "The". If I want to select "Tarbox Ramblers" for example, I need to select "S" and scroll down to the Ts in order to find it. You thought that my use of Media Monkey confused the GW in terms of finding artists that begin with "The". But I am having trouble with other artists as well.

Yes, there will be problems with other artists too. Let's assume a simple example, iTunes ignores the "The " when sorting these five artists: 1. Aerosmith 2. The Beatles 3. The Drifters 4. Tarbox Ramblers 5. U2 When you want to find the "T", the first iteration is (The)Drifters, so "D". The second is Tarbox Ramblers, "T" is found. The upper limit is checked, but U2 is not starting with T, so only the 4. artist fill be listed, correctly. Media Monkey sorts these five artists in the following way: 1. Aerosmith 2. Tarbox Ramblers 3. The Beatles 4. The Drifters 5. U2 The first iteration is (The)Beatles so "B", the second is (The)Drifters so "D". The last one is "U", so in the case an artist starting with "T" could not be found. Do you see, why I'm said that GW is totally confused?

Of course a note can be put to the documents easily, but I would like a more friendly solution, like a USB config parameter.

Perhaps a note saying that if you use something other than iTunes and things don't work as expected, a new config supporting <insert favorite SW here> can be downloaded via USB. Please contact Dension, etc.....

Speed of CAN I don't want to start a new topic for this question, does somebody know what is the speed of the comfort-CAN in Porsches? Also, is it different in Cayenne and 911/Boxster?

I know that Mods4Cars (member here) knows the answer to that one and as I recall it is still a low-speed bus, not high speed like in the new Mercedes. Send Mods4Cars a PM he can tell you I'm sure.