Supporting both RB & iPod DBs on The Same iPod

[Stringrazor]

RB is great except when an RB'd iPod is attached to remote device that can only deal with  the iPod DB, like the exceptionally dumb Bose unit in my 2010 Nissan Altima. I've tried compiling my own RB build and tweaking the USB ID. It worked in that the Bose saw the iPod as a generic usb HD but unfortunately its functionality in that mode was maddening: no navigation and it would basically crash after trying to play 2 or 3 unsupported files.

So, if I want to ever use my iPod in that car over USB (and song display & steering wheel controls make that desireable over a simple aux audio connection), I need tunes to be accessible through the iPod DB. I obviously don't want to duplicate everything.

From what I've read, the iPod OS will play MP3s without needing them to be transcoded. RB doesn't care about file structure and will index tunes into the RB DB from anywhere on the drive, including withing the iPod dir structure. iPod does care and requires a management utility (iTunes or substitute) to load and index files. RB can't access the iPod DB and vice versa.

I'm thinking, I could use a non-iTunes util to load/move existing MP3 on the drive to the iPod DB and file structure, leave files in formats that are supported by RB only where they are, and re-index in RB. That should give me access to everything from the RB side and all MP3s from the iPod side.


Must music files indexed in the iPod DB have cryptic 4.3 filenames or is there a iPod DB mgmt util that will let me have decently descriptive file names? There must be other RB users who have worked through these issues. What scheme and tools did you use?

[saratoga]

Add the files with iTunes, then you can play them in rockbox using the database. The file browser won't work though.