Alpine iDA-Xnnn : "blurry artwork" with latest iPods

[PJTX100]

Seems to be some noise about the later iPods displaying "blurry" (ie low res) artwork on the Alpine iDA's.

I can report that indeed I get blurry artwork on the iDA-X001 with the 80Gb Classic iPod, wheres my 5th gen 30Gb Video iPod is nice and crisp.

It's most noticable in the full screen view.

Anyone have any further info on this?

Haven't researched it yet but my hunch is it's using the coverflow thumbnails rather then higher res artwork embedded in the track itself.

If it's a case of waiting for a firmware update from Alpine we'll wait forever.

[PJTX100]

Did a bit more digging on this and can't add much, other than confirm it is a known issue. Someone even mentioned they had discussed it with Alpine who said they knew about the issue but it could only be resolved by an iPod firmware upgrade. That comment was 6 months or more old I seem to recall and clearly subsequent firmware upgrades have not fixed the issue.

Other comments echoed my hunch that it's an issue with the new thumbnails that come with coverflow on the newer iPods.

So, in a nutshell, if you have an iPod with coverflow and hook it to one of the Alpine iDA-Xnnn head units the artwork looks pants on the head unit. If you have a pre-coverflow iPod, the artwork looks fine and dandy.

This was a public service announcement.

[finkle]

I've got the same problem with my x305 unit with my iPhone. Can't seem to find any solution out there :/

[jaymz]

Found this in the latest Alpine spring 09 catalogue

[BertyUK]

Got the same issue with my new X305. tried it with the Ipod 3g, 30gb ipod, ipod touch... all blurry.

[finkle]

Link to another forum discussion about the blurry album artwork. Doesn't seem to offer up any new ideas..only more complaints.

ida-x100 vs. ida-x305 - NASIOC

[finkle]

A short Apple support discussion about this issue. Seems this guy fixed it using the black Alpine usb cable, provided with the deck. Maybe it works for the x100 series? I've always had that cable installed, so no luck for me and my x305.

Apple - Support - Discussions - alpine ida-x001 and 120gb classic = ...

[finkle]

Just spoke to Alpine customer support (non-technician). They have no answer as to why this is happening. A tech is supposed to follow up with me. The rep suggested experimenting with different sizes and resolutions for the time being. Apparently the artwork is tweaked twice before it hits the screen; Compressed as it gets pushed through the usb cable, and then upres'd to be displayed on the screen. Wish I had more details to report, or if there was a correlation to firmware versions, but I'll keep you guys posted when I hear back from them.

[Yandros]

Originally Posted by finkle

A short Apple support discussion about this issue. Seems this guy fixed it using the black Alpine usb cable, provided with the deck. Maybe it works for the x100 series? I've always had that cable installed, so no luck for me and my x305.

Apple - Support - Discussions - alpine ida-x001 and 120gb classic = ...

Interesting.

I'm using the black Alpine cable, and I can't say I'd noticed any fuzzyness. Yes it's faily low resolution though. (I'm using a 4th Gen Nano)

When I get a sec I'll take a proper macro photo of the screen so we can compare notes.

[PJTX100]

Originally Posted by finkle

A short Apple support discussion about this issue. Seems this guy fixed it using the black Alpine usb cable, provided with the deck. Maybe it works for the x100 series? I've always had that cable installed, so no luck for me and my x305.

Apple - Support - Discussions - alpine ida-x001 and 120gb classic = ...

Hi that link though it starts off discussing the blurry artwork actually is discussing using the lead with the HU to fix the device error message.

I need to take some pics of the artwork with the older and newer gen ipods because it is very noticable.

[lags72]

If any consolation........ it's not only Alpine owners who are affected

check out this recent Kenwood thread

kenwood ipod album art fuzzy

[PJTX100]

Here are some pics to demonstrate the issue.

This is the same mp3 file on both iPods.

Notice also the black border right and bottom of the pic, I can only assume this is some sort of attampt at a drop shadow?

Old Ipod - how the artwork looked:

New Ipod - now the artwork looks blurred:

Old Ipod - how the artwork looked:

New Ipod - now the artwork looks blurred:

[koush]

Hi,

I have a Kenwood and it suffers from the same problem. Yes I have tried different ipods and found the 5th gen work the best with the best album art. Kenwood have no fix to date. Have you tried a memory stick to see if the album art is better. On the Kenwood its alot better.

The reason behind the blurry artwork, from what I have found out on the internet, is that when the Ipod Classic came out, it was a surprise to most manufacturers and most had not designed their unit with the classic in mind.

Kenwood, in particular, when the classic came out, it would not even display album art. Kenwood within about 4 months had a firmware upgrade to solve this issue, but I don't thinks it 100%.

Surprising, Kenwoods 2009 models don't seem to suffer this problem, so this problem can be solved, nothing for older models yet. Alpine might have solved this with their newer models.

Koush

[PJTX100]

I'm pretty sure the coverflow implementation on the iPod classic is causing the issue. It's taking the coverflow thumbnails rather than the artwork embedded in the file.

I am sticking with the blurry artwork however because it's an 80Gb unit vs the 30Gb with the older iPod. I've never tried a memory stick, must do that one day however I only have an 8Gb stick so it sort of defeats the object.

I need to check around to see if there has ever been a firmware update for the X001 but I suspect not.

I think this is poor form from Alpine / Kenwood - this is fixable, they just can't be bothered from what I can see.

[dpg50000]

I have the IDA-X305 and have blurry artwork with an iPhone 3G, firmware 3.0. I queried this with Alpine, and this is their response verbatim (the English isn't great, but basically they are blaming Apple):

I have discussed this with our European hub and the have confirmed that the quality is based upon the compression used on the ipod, the iPhone apparently upscales this on the iPhone as we have tested this on a Itouch 1st 2nd and 3G iPhone which produce the same quality when using the 3.0 software. we have also tried the 30Gb and 160Gb classic which produce better quality of picture as these are compressed less due to non upscaling of the picture as this is not a functionality of the ipod and they how a large hard drive. Unless apple change their system then the quality will stay the same.

Bit of a sham that they can use the "Works with iPhone" label on the packaging and literature for this product.