blissful

Hi! I just got my ES 350 delivered today and am very excited. So far I love the car but I had a few questions. First is what cable I need to hook up the ipod to the car? I've looked online but I wasn't able to find anything that actually is "plug n play" for lexus. Also, I purchased the Ultra Premium Package(not 100% sure) and I know the dvd function is available, but I can not play it. I know dvd play is prohibited during driving but even when the car is parked I was not able to play it. I looked at the Owner's Manual, but it seems to be a bit different that my screen. Can anyone clear these problems for me? Thank you.

psp

Okey dokey Mr. Blissful,

1. You can hook up the headphone output (3.5mm stereo mini) from a portable to the car. The jack is located in the center console. Go to radio shack or another electronics store and get a double male 3.5mm stereo interconnect. Don't get it too long as it can get tangled. If you are gonna use an i-Pod you might also want to consider a power connector as there is a tap in the center console for power as well and you know how bad iPod batteries are. If you really want to get serious PM me or do a search on iPod integration

2. To play a DVD on the Nav make sure you have that capability, your player will say DVD on it. Insert the DVD, have the car in park and the parking brake set. You should be able to watch by selecting the disc from the DVD player menu. It is useful when the wife goes in to pick up the dry cleaning and there is a long line.

edit: Sorry blissful, did not know you were 23 and had no wife. Make that GF. SO what color did you get? Make sure you have the DVD player which is part of the Mark Levinson package. It will clearly indicate that it is a DVD player and most of those cars are over 40K

blissful

Thanks so much for your insight psp. BTW, I'm a female. anyways, I think I'm going to stop by a local apple store to see if I they might have this auxiliary cable made by XtremeMac. If no luck with that, I'll check out radio shack.

As for the DVD, my package does not include the Mark Levinson sound system. I thought the DVD capability comes with the Navigation package. Oh well. Thanks again for your help. If the iPod does not work out, I'll make sure to PM you.

ckon

Chances are that the cable will be about 4 or 5 bucks at Radio Shack, but much more from Apple.

MR.FG

Congratulations on your new car, you will love it, on the subject of IPOD, I have a Nano which I bought the aforementioned cord for and it works great, BUT ripping MP3's is far better for me. You can get 125-150 songs on a cd and everything works through your nav, including song titles and artist names, I like that much better, you might too so have fun with the new toys.

amf1932

I agree about the MP3's. I burned in 1 CD which has about 180 tunes. I was very surprised after putting it in the car that all the information was displayed on the NAV screen. Great!!
I drove from New York City to Washington D.C. and I didn't even hear all the tunes on this 1 CD. Actually, it can play about 7-8 hours of music, so I don't need an IPOD now.

2thfixr

Put in 6 MP3 CDs like me and just put the ipod away.

psp

My most sincere apologies to you with regard to the misunderstanding of gender. The Radio Shack cable is probably cheaper and will probably sound no different than an expensive cable in my opinion. I like to keep my DVD player free for CD's and DVD's. Plus I have an iPod integration unit that allows me to control the iPod through the Nav system and other car controllers -- no fiddling around with the iPod while driving. I have my entire CD collection on my iPod (a 30G video unit) so I have not thought much about ripping MP3's to a disc. Sounds like a great alternative! MP3's sound great in a car and I am surprised how good some sound on the Levinson system (I know you don't).

Peter

blissful

Oh no, I stopped by an Apple store and already purchased a Belkin aux cable. Actually, I think I can return it within 14 days so maybe I should try returning it. Also I'm going to try out ripping the mp3s to the cd. That sounds a bit more convenient that messing around with the iPod.

psp, it's ok. I'm guessing majority of the members on this forum are male. As for the car color, I got a Tungston Pearl/Light Gray. Kind of regret getting the light gray.

PsychDoc

***Kind of regret getting the light gray.***

Why, if I might ask?

I have a ruby/black UL. I didn't have much of a choice as I had originally ordered the 'horific beyond what words can describe' moon shell mica, but after I saw it "in the flesh" at another dealership I called my salesperson and told him that there was no way I would take that color. I told him if I had to wait a few more weeks that would be OK and gave him four color choices I could live with. They were black, the dark grey color, ruby red and the copper color. Ruby was my first choice and he was able to get me that on the same shipment the moon shell mica had been on (yay!). I had no preference of interior color but I must say I'm very happy with the black. I could have lived with either the tan or light grey but I think I'm happy it came in black.

UL cars were and still are hard to come by from what I hear.

What is it about the grey interior you don't like?

yksork

I have ripped a playlist from my i-tunes onto a cd. When I play it the music sounds great but no info on the nav screen. Is this a restriction from i-tunes? I have the ML system with vaistech Sirius radio. Does anyone know why this is? Thank you yksork

Carbsumer

Yeah, if you rip it from iTunes, it doesn't write the song names to the CD. iTunes doesn't want you to easily take the DRM out of their songs by burning a CD and then re-ripping it, so they make life a little harder by not writing the song titles. At least, that's my guess at why they don't write song titles. Windows Media Player works the same way.

Third-party software, which might have come with your computer, allows you to burn CDs with titles. Better yet, burn MP3 CDs, because you can store more than 100 songs on an MP3 CD, and it works perfectly in the ES (and displays song titles). Roxio came with my computer for CD burning, but I've also used Nero. Of course, if your music isn't in MP3 format (like, if you bought it from iTunes) you're pretty much out of luck. There's lots of info about this on the Web, so visit Google for more info.

yksork

Carbsumer, Thank you for the explanation. Most of my songs are purchased from iTunes so I may be out of luck.
I will try the other methods though.

toneman

Not that I would condone such illegal methods, but assuming that the DRM-protection scheme on songs purchased from iTunes hasn't changed since introduction...there are ways to convert them to MP3 tracks...

blissful

It is just way too light. My parents told me that black interior can make you feel very stuffy and hot so I decided not to add black as one of my choices. So naturally, the only interior color left was the Light Grey. We weren't able to see an ES 350 that had a Light Grey interior due to the shortage of supply in almost every Lexus dealer around the area. My dad owns a Benz 2005 E320 with a grey interior and it doesn't really dirty fast so I didn't think much about it. But once I got my car delivered I noticed that my grey interior was a loooot lighter. Just after a day, there were already foot prints on the floor mats.