So I've come to find out Gracenote will populate the CD artwork...But a few questions..

Are there settings for this?
Is it only for hooking up an iPod?
Doe sit do anything else other than recognizing the song & adding artwork?

 

There are no settings. The art work does not come from Gracenote, but is transmitted by your Ipod. Gracenotes is updated with the map updates dvd.

 

So what does it do exactly then?

 

Don't quote me, but I believe Gracenote is a music database stored on the hard drive. When you insert a CD, each disc has a unique identifier that Gracenote uses to pull up data on the track listing, album name, etc. and probably also includes artwork.

I'll try to find a CD I've never fed my car before and see what happens. I know I've seen the Gracenote logo overlaid on the disc screen before when it was working its magic.

 

It's a index of albums and song titles. It identifies the albums, songs, artists and allows the voice commands to recognize this data. For example, you can say: Play Artist Bob Marley.

 

But how does it get the data? Does it need an Internet connection?

Is it pre-loaded? Damn that's a lot of data for every songs out there.

 

All I know is that the cover art is transferred from either your iPod or CD. One point of note... I had a standard iPod and it took quite a while for the cover art to download, and when Gracenote is downloading you can't switch to the next song. I traded for an iPod Nano and now it downloads really quickly.

 

Well I tried 2 CD's, not new releases by any means, and Gracenote did nothing. No artist or track names. I think it does that for the iPod only.

 

I tried the CD's & nothing as well. I think you are right & it's only for the iPod. But the iPod already has the song name, artist, album cover already listed.

 

Yeah so it seems kinda pointless. I really don't know what it's for if it can't do CD info.

 

You can transfer songs from your CDs to your iPod and the cover art will show up. I never play CDs anymore, so I wasn't aware they didn't show up. All mine are played through my iPod.

 

Gracenote is updated by Lexus every fall with the Map Navigation System so that maps are updated as well as data base for CDs, etc.

 

I listen to music via my iPhone and bluetooth. I've never seen any artwork. Is this normal?

 

Yes, no artwork with Bluetooth.

 

I notice when I switch to satellite radio it pops up a message "powered by Gracenote"... or something to that affect..

Not sure what they mean however it appears to be related to the XM radio.