Advent Oem-style Navigation Installed!

NCSierra · November 29, 2011

Several questions for anyone that owns this unit... I am very interested in the advent and really appreciate all the info shared here. These same questions have been asked previously but I have been unable to find a complete response. My truck is a 2011 Sierra SLE without Nav but with USB in the dash + the rearview camera in the mirror.

1) I would like to retain the factory look as much as possible. Would it be possible to attach a USB cable to the ogm1's medialink hidden under the dash and extend to the factory USB port? I realize a special or even custom type USB cable may be required.

2) Building off the first question... will the medialink connection on the advent support a usb hub? I would like to run one connection to the dash and add a secondary usb connection in the glovebox.

3) Has anyone successfully wired the factory bluetooth mic to the advent system? If so, I assume this would result in severing the onstar connection?

4) With the OEM rearview camera for the mirror display split to the advent nav as demonstrated by Walt, will there be decent video quality? I ask this because I read on another forum that the OEM camera for the mirror display may not be as high of resolution as the OEM camera for the stock nav models (not sure if this is true?).

One additional question...

- Will the ogm1 support auto speed control volume? I had this feature on my 2004 Sierra and I miss it on my new truck!

Thanks

wottenad · November 30, 2011

Several questions for anyone that owns this unit... I am very interested in the advent and really appreciate all the info shared here. These same questions have been asked previously but I have been unable to find a complete response. My truck is a 2011 Sierra SLE without Nav but with USB in the dash + the rearview camera in the mirror.

1) I would like to retain the factory look as much as possible. Would it be possible to attach a USB cable to the ogm1's medialink hidden under the dash and extend to the factory USB port? I realize a special or even custom type USB cable may be required.

2) Building off the first question... will the medialink connection on the advent support a usb hub? I would like to run one connection to the dash and add a secondary usb connection in the glovebox.

3) Has anyone successfully wired the factory bluetooth mic to the advent system? If so, I assume this would result in severing the onstar connection?

4) With the OEM rearview camera for the mirror display split to the advent nav as demonstrated by Walt, will there be decent video quality? I ask this because I read on another forum that the OEM camera for the mirror display may not be as high of resolution as the OEM camera for the stock nav models (not sure if this is true?).

I think I can speak to most of these pretty easily:

1: You could use the factory USB connector, but depending on your truck, you may need an adaptor to go from mini usb female to full-size USB male (Bose trucks have a full-size male USB connector under the drink tray in the console, while LT style trucks have a mini male USB that plugs into the back of the factory deck - on this, you'd need a female mini to male adaptor). Having said this, the USB alone doesn't transmit video from an iPod - the JLINKUSB cable has USB and AUX connectors that plug into the MediaLink pod, which allows you to do video, as the video travels on the AUX plug. If you ONLY went with the factory USB plug, you'd have to make other arrangements to access the AUX port to allow video input.

2. Don't know about this. I'll ask the engineers to see if the unit supports any type of hub - I would guess that you'd run into issues with multiple devices not being able to be read, as well as potential power issues.

3. Don't know if this has been done, but since the Parrot mic is so small, and works so well, it might be much more hassle than it's worth.

4. I just did an OGM-1 two hours ago on a 2011 Silverado, and hooked the factory camera to it. It looked "OK" at first glance, but when you really look at it closely, the image was NOTICEABLY lower quality (a much more blocky, pixelated image) than any of our aftermarket cameras. Having said that, would I swap out the factory one for an aftermarket? Probably not, unless I wanted parking lines or was just dissatisfied with the low quality of the OEM.

Updated 12/1: Just added pictures of the factory camera display on the Advent navi: http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=138758

NCSierra · December 2, 2011

Walt,

Thanks for your response and for posting the pictures for comparison, both are extremely helpful. I also had a chance to watch your install video and I had never thought to install the mic above the mirror, your method seems very unobtrusive.

I'm still debating how I could install the medialink to maintain the OEM usb connection and yet hide a secondary ipod connection in the glovebox or ashtray. Please let me know if you hear anything back from advent on the usb hub. If the usb connection cannot be split, I may remove the existing usb port from the dash and reinstall it in the glovebox, then buy an adaptor to make the connection to the medialink. The video/aux connection is not a top priority for me since my phone is a droid and my ipod touch doesn't have much content to stream.

Also, my other question... do you know if this headunit auto-adjusts the volume for speed?

Thanks

wottenad · December 3, 2011

Walt,

Thanks for your response and for posting the pictures for comparison, both are extremely helpful. I also had a chance to watch your install video and I had never thought to install the mic above the mirror, your method seems very unobtrusive.

I'm still debating how I could install the medialink to maintain the OEM usb connection and yet hide a secondary ipod connection in the glovebox or ashtray. Please let me know if you hear anything back from advent on the usb hub. If the usb connection cannot be split, I may remove the existing usb port from the dash and reinstall it in the glovebox, then buy an adaptor to make the connection to the medialink. The video/aux connection is not a top priority for me since my phone is a droid and my ipod touch doesn't have much content to stream.

Also, my other question... do you know if this headunit auto-adjusts the volume for speed?

Thanks

Here's the response I got from the Advent engineer I posed the question to on the USB hub (and other issues that we've asked about):

Walt:

The trailer button (camera in motion access) has turned out to be a harder issue than first thought to be. It effects multiple functions in the radio and so far has not been able to be done without causing other issues in the code that we did not think about. It is not forgotten, just being worked through.

As for a USB hub, no we never designed this to be a mobile PC. It does not have the structure to handle multiple drives or sticks at one time. We may consider something like this if we get to a more high powered platform someday but for now they can plug in a portable hard drive and run that for mass storage.

RP will check the other 2 issues you listed, the noise floor on the XM is set to meet XM specifications. We actually lowered it more than they recommended. Because the GM XM tuner is used and there are multiple tuners it is set to a mid line. If we reduce it more, then some GM tuner audio levels are too low. We can not do anything to adjust the GM tuner output. The newest GM XM tuners are about 5db lower in audio level then last years. If we reduce the radio audio level by 5db you will have complaints that the XM is not as loud as the other sources.

I have never seen anything regarding auto-volume, and doubt we'll ever see it on this platform.

As for the MediaLink pod: based on the response above, I don't think a hub is in the cards. When we mount the MediaLink pod, it really becomes pretty invisible, since we mount it in the center console glovebox mounted vertically on the front wall - we drill a 3/4" hole to run the cabling forward to the deck, then screw the pod to the front wall. This photo shows the hole, but in the car, without a flash, you can't see it at all - it's pretty dark in there...

This accomplishes a couple things - it keeps your USB sticks from getting broken off in the factory port (or breaking the port itself - we've seen both happen) when you toss something in there without thinking about the USB stick that's sticking out into the glovebox from the factory USB port. Since the USB stick is now vertical at the far forward edge, it's VERY unobtrusive. Second, if you tend to leave the iPod cable plugged in, you can go ahead and fill the box with stuff without having to worry that anything will interfere with your USB/AUX plugs.

vhmike73 · December 3, 2011

Walt,

Been lurking on this thread for a while, and PM'd you about pricing. I do have a couple questions about the USB functionality.

Basically, I run 'Droid products, and rarely use my iPod outside the house. As for tunes, my preference is to run my music off a thumb drive (16GB stick) that I can just plug into the dash and call good...am I correct in assuming that it's a mini-usb female to male B connector that's needed to make that dash-plug work? OR, is there any way to get the medialink port to mount in that location (probably not)? And if I choose to reconvert that dash mount to a plain power port (if that can even be done, it'd be like the setup was in my '09 LT dash), where do you mount the medialink port? I'm not following- it's IN the glovebox? I am not really "seeing" how you've done this. I don't want to try to run wiring under the carpets up into the seat area for either of the console boxes to have the port; but I can't really visualize on your picture where you mounted the medialink port.

Also, can you show a pic of what you did with the RCA cable to tap into the factory back-up cam wiring location? I'm COMPLETELY not visualizing that, but then again, I've never pulled apart an RCA cable. I would think you mean a single-line cable (with the yellow ends which is the standard for a video connection)- but I'm not sure what you mean by the wire for the sheathing and the one for the core? Is it two separate twists of wire in there? Don't want to cut one up just yet, but I'd prefer to know what I'm going to need to do to port the existing cam images to the OGM-1.

Thanks, and I hope you could follow my convoluted questions!

wottenad · December 3, 2011

Walt, Been lurking on this thread for a while, and PM'd you about pricing. I do have a couple questions about the USB functionality. Basically, I run 'Droid products, and rarely use my iPod outside the house. As for tunes, my preference is to run my music off a thumb drive (16GB stick) that I can just plug into the dash and call good...am I correct in assuming that it's a mini-usb female to male B connector that's needed to make that dash-plug work? OR, is there any way to get the medialink port to mount in that location (probably not)? And if I choose to reconvert that dash mount to a plain power port (if that can even be done, it'd be like the setup was in my '09 LT dash), where do you mount the medialink port? I'm not following- it's IN the glovebox? I am not really "seeing" how you've done this. I don't want to try to run wiring under the carpets up into the seat area for either of the console boxes to have the port; but I can't really visualize on your picture where you mounted the medialink port. Also, can you show a pic of what you did with the RCA cable to tap into the factory back-up cam wiring location? I'm COMPLETELY not visualizing that, but then again, I've never pulled apart an RCA cable. I would think you mean a single-line cable (with the yellow ends which is the standard for a video connection)- but I'm not sure what you mean by the wire for the sheathing and the one for the core? Is it two separate twists of wire in there? Don't want to cut one up just yet, but I'd prefer to know what I'm going to need to do to port the existing cam images to the OGM-1. Thanks, and I hope you could follow my convoluted questions!

I should have mentioned that the shot I took in the post above was in a Bose-equipped truck with the center console box. In an LT style dash, the only thing we've done is go in the glovebox, but other guys have mounted the pod in the little cubby, for instance.

To get the MediaLink pod to work with the factory LT USB jack, remember that when you pull out the factory radio, you will have unplugged a MALE mini-USB cable from the FEMALE port of the radio, so now you have a MALE mini-USB plug with no place to go.

So, to convert this for use with the MediaLink cable, you will need to source a FEMALE mini-USB to MALE standard USB adaptor. This adapts the male mini-USB of the factory cable to the MediaLink pod's FEMALE USB port. If you wanted to extend the AUX portion of the MediaLink pod (the female 1/8" mini-headphone jack), you could wire an 1/8 mini 4-pole male to 4-pole female jack and mount it someplace else which allows you to plug anything into the female plug that you like, or you can use an 1/8" mini to RCA adaptor like this if you wanted to go to an A/V source with RCA outputs. if video isn't critical for you, you can use standard stereo cables and adaptors instead of A/V cables and adaptors.

As far as the RCA connection, you need to take a single line RCA, like a standard video cable (yellow ends), cut the male RCA plug off one end, and on this end, strip off the outer jacket - this will leave a braid of copper (the shield) - this is the video negative. Twist the shield together to form a single strand. You will also have a center conductor (inside the shield) with a plastic jacket on it. Strip a bit of the plastic jacket off the end of the center conductor and you have the copper conductor of the video positive. If you then take a look at the post regarding factory camera wiring, the video positive goes to the white lead in the plug and the shield connects to the blue lead in this plug. It's best to make these connections by soldering, but you can make a decent connection with good quality T-Taps or butt connectors, or just strip the insulation on the factory wires and wrap the RCA cable conductors to them and wrap tightly with electrical tape. The other end of the RCA cable plugs into the camera input of the Advent navi.

As of the latest firmware update, all the camera switching is done via the LAN, so there's no external triggers you need to connect to make the camera work - just enable it in the menu and you're good to go.

Exavior · December 8, 2011

When connected to an iPod/iPhone, and skipping tracks rapidly, is there any noticeable delay?

I had a Kenwood DDX 512 that was absolutely horrible when it came to skipping tracks. It would lock up until the album artwork transferred over (2-5 seconds) before responding to play/skip commands.

I normally like to listen to music on shuffle and skip forward until I find a song I like... on the DDX it was a total nightmare due to the lag.

Thanks!

/Chris

wottenad · December 9, 2011

When connected to an iPod/iPhone, and skipping tracks rapidly, is there any noticeable delay?

I had a Kenwood DDX 512 that was absolutely horrible when it came to skipping tracks. It would lock up until the album artwork transferred over (2-5 seconds) before responding to play/skip commands.

I normally like to listen to music on shuffle and skip forward until I find a song I like... on the DDX it was a total nightmare due to the lag.

Thanks!

/Chris

Other users might want to chime in here, but I don't see anything unusual or laggy about the Advent interface - in fact, since it is USB 2.0, it's about as snappy as any deck I've played with.

Album art takes a few seconds to appear, but that's pretty much the same across the board. In any case, music is playing pretty much immediately - you don't have to wait for album art to load before you hear the track.

aesalazar · December 10, 2011

Pretty much the same observations as walt. It is fast enough that I never though about it if that helps. Nothing like 2-5 seconds to actually start playing the track but probably about that to load the album art - sometimes the art never comes up at all but this seems to be at random and not very often. The programmers at advent were smart enough to make sure they gave the playing of the music the priority as far as hitting the CPU.

That kenwood would drive me bonkers!

Ernie

vhmike73 · December 12, 2011

One last question for anyone who's done this install- do I need to run a lead off the parking brake for the installation? If so, why? And where does the parking brake lead reside in a 2011 Silverado LT? The deck will be getting here this afternoon on the big brown parts van, and I've already tapped the rear-view camera wires to feed the deck with an RCA video cable, but I'm not seeing a lot of info regarding that parking brake lead. What is it for? And will the unit work if it is NOT connected?

Thanks in advance.

Coma_Nomad · December 12, 2011

No need to worry about the parking brake wire. It does nothing for this head unit.

vhmike73 · December 12, 2011

Awesome...thanks Smooney! Now if only UPS would get here in daylight!!

Duramax.1 · December 12, 2011

Come from New Brunswick Canada looking for navigation radio oem or after market for the last 2 1/2 month and i read this forum, call Walt at adc mobile and give it a try ,Walt was a so good guy you could'nt go wrong ( and he knows is stuff ) honest and when he says something he does it. The ogm1 is way better than oem,very very happy with it,easy to use. Thanks again Walt.(sorry for my writing I'm french).

mc7719 · December 15, 2011

Just about to pull the trigger on this... a couple questions for those that have installed it:

1) Can you answer BT calls using a button on the steering wheel? Or do you have to press a button on the unit itself (Assuming I dont have factory-BT)

2) Where have you installed the external mic? Do you need to since the unit has one built-in to the face? If you have installed it, any luck installing it in the headliner console where the onstar mic is? Picture ? I REALLY wanted to avoid any external mic being visible.

Thanks!

Duramax.1 · December 15, 2011

Just about to pull the trigger on this... a couple questions for those that have installed it:

1) Can you answer BT calls using a button on the steering wheel? Or do you have to press a button on the unit itself (Assuming I dont have factory-BT)

2) Where have you installed the external mic? Do you need to since the unit has one built-in to the face? If you have installed it, any luck installing it in the headliner console where the onstar mic is? Picture ? I REALLY wanted to avoid any external mic being visible.

Thanks!

# 1 yes

#2 i put it on top of my center rear view miroir close to the roof and you can't even see it.,after 2-3 days you didn;t notice it.