DICE Silverline - First Impressions

Awesome...I have not searched the forum archives to set the audio to stay on permanently...and I also changed my screen color to orange! Thanks Danny!

Oh, and I love the Dice Silverline. I visited Dive headquarters with my unit DICE uint I bought in July that was not working properly...they swapped it out for the new Silverline and it works like a charm! I love being able to selevt one of my 30 playlsts on the fly...it really is an improvement over the old unit!

 

That has been my experience with the Silverline unit in my non-Prius car. I have been trying every possible combination of settings to get some display of what is playing on the iPod with no luck to date.

My experience with the original DICE iPod controller in the Prius (with a 1st generation iPod Nano with most current firmware - v. 1.3.1 on the Nano) was total frustration - the DICE unit would drop out after about 15 minutes of use. I took the car back to the stereo installer, they swapped out the unit. Running the second DICE iPod controller, I got something like 20 minutes and it too decided to go on permanent holiday. Back to the stereo installer and they said they would swap out the 1st gen DICE controller for the Silverline when they received their order of Silverline units for Prius. Based on my experience with the non-Prius Silverline, I am not optimistic.

 

The biggest issue I have run into since installing it on Saturday is that it will not random my playlists using an Ipod touch. The touch has no general shuffle setting like most other ipods, the 'shuffle' is selected in the playlist screen. I am assuming this is the reason it will not shuffle.

It does seem to shuffle, not extensively tested though, if I start the playlist on shuffle from the ipod and then plug it in. I still can not change tracks as it will simply start from the beginning and not shuffle if I do.

That all said, I do like the unit in general, its far better than trying to change songs from the ipod, but still this is an anoyance. I guess the solution is to pre-shuffle the playlist from time to time on the computer.

One other little annoyance. When I first went to set the dip switches on the DICE they were somewhat jammed against the top of the plastic cut out and I managed to immediatly snap off one of the levers. I was able to still set the dipswitch by using an exacto knife, and I should not need to change it again in the future, but this was still not a wonderful first experience.

 

I anticipated this exact problem, so I used an eyeglass screwdriver to flip the switches. I was still worried about snapping them (since I had already snapped the tab holding the bottom of the "big white box of wires" next to the stereo), but it appears all I managed to do was shave a little bit of plastic off of each one.

I have only used my iPod classic with the DICE so far, I will let you know if I have a similar experience w/ my iPod touch. (I'll have to put some music on it first - I just use it for movies.)

 

Snapped dip switch, like others
Frequently, the DICE does not recognize the ipod as being in Locked mode.
I Haven't been able to play anything or see any titles so far.
So far I am very unhappy with the interface. I understand the design constraints, but I don't like it. The DICE site should be more forthcoming about what to expect.

I have a 2nd generation nano and 2007 Prius with standard radio/cd player.
Dip switch is (car config): on, on (iPod config) off, off

I will continue to putz with the switches, recycling power, etc. But it is looking like this baby is going back.

One thing I did not do, was disconnect the car's battery before starting. Is this necessary? Do I disconnect the 12V battery or the 200V one?

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After having the DICE out for about an hour when I needed the serial number for registering, the iPod works.. kinda.

I have a lot of podcasts and several audio books on my iPod. It seems that Dice does not play well with these. 1) I don't see a way to list podCasts. You can sort of look for them based on the title of the show or author, but this does not get you every show. 2) It is hard to see all episodes of a show 3) It tends to get stuck on a podcast or book. You can't figure out how to navigate out of it. I just keep switching presets (play list, author, title, album) and seek/track, and other buttons, but no luck; usually. 4) I locked the iPod up on one book. I had to reboot my iPod.

Groan

 

I am hearing a few people say they snapped the switches in the DICE unit. I used a simple pin/needle to flip the switches and it seemed like the easiest way to do it. I tried with a small screw driver but it too difficult so I tried a pin for fear of breaking the switches. Give it a shot. And I've had great success with our 2008 Prius and my iPod. My wife had bugs with her iPod however. We'll update her iPod software to the most recent version and try again tomorrow.

 

I used a thumbtack as well. That worked really well.

 

I installed it tonight.

While I like being able to zip through songs, playlists I do miss how I was able to Fast Forward and see the time when it was in the CD2 mode. A plus is that I no longer have to hold down a button to speed through, just tap a button and it stays until I tap again.

It'll just take getting used to.

 

they are swapping mine out also, did you have to send the wiring harness back too, or just the DICE unit?

 

do not need to disconnect battery. not necessary, sounds like your unit is bad, when did you buy, if in December or January, you may qualify for a new unit free of charge. PM me, I just went through this process.

 

I have a 2005 and a 5th gen iPod. The Silverline is in SAT mode.

I found that the DICE wants to play the songs in order of the album title. After that it seems to be alphabetical by song title. As I have several playlists that need to be heard in order, I managed to cure it by putting a number (01-, 02- and so on) to the front of each album line by line. This means that if you have 30 songs on a playlist, and you want them to play in order, it's going to be entering numbers from 01- to 30-. It's a pain, but once it's done it works pretty well. I do notice that sometimes when I turn the iPod on after it's been disconnected all I see is the DICE logo. I have to reboot the iPod to clear it.

It does seem to sync much faster than the old DICE, though.

 

I am getting new one via DICE trade in policy, when I get the new one installed, i will update everyone.

 

How would these work with the basic radio with single CD on my 2008 Prius.

Thanks

Kelvin

 

It should work fine. I have a Package #2 2008 (which I believe has the same radio). You get full functionality from the Dice.

Installation takes about 1-2 hours.

-- Fweeper

 

I posted this yesterday on the "exchange info" thread and was wondering if anyone here knew?

Thanks for the information

Does anyone know if this Dice Silverline has corrected the apparent manufacturing/programming problem with the Dice units?

I have exchanged Dice units in the past and they all do the same thing. Which is play for a few minutes up to an hour or so then begin skipping songs and then drop out of SAT mode into AM.

The only way to get the Dice working again is to unplug the power and plug it back up, essentially "rebooting" it. Then it will do the same thing again and again and again. These old units are simply junk, in my opinion.

I am currently using mine as a charger only and actually play my iPod through the Aux input because I got tired of constantly popping my vent cover off to "reboot" mine. $150 or whatever is a heck of an expensive charger I know but exchanging the stupid things takes weeks and weeks and the new ones aren't any better. Besides I worry about wearing out the plastic clips on my vent cover, LOL.

It would be nice if Dice admitted they have a problem and start replacing the defective units with the "Silverlines" but then again that is assuming they are any better.

I will be waiting to hear if there is any positive feedback on these new units.

 

I recently installed a DICE Silverline on my 2008 Prius with Package #2. The DICE unit seems to function OK for a while and than it stops. I was not able to figure out what triggers the unit to stop. I get just the ATTACHED message on the display (instead of the song or album name) and the DICE screen disappears form the IPOD. If I disconnect (unplug the power) the DICE unit it starts working again. I tried several switches positions, using the SAT or MP3 output but the same problem occurs. I also disconnected the battery a few times. The DICE tech supoprt is lame, they suggested to reset my IPOD. I'm using the last model of the IPOD classic. Anybody have similar issues? Any advice before returning the unit?

 

I have a 2005 non-jbl, and just installed the DICE silverline last weekend. I'm using a new iPod 80gb classic. I haven't had any problems (although the user interface is a little hard to get used to).

My big issue has been that when I shut the car off, then come back, the ipod doesn't pick up where it left off. I did run in to the grocery store the other night, and was only gone about 5 minutes. When I came back and turned the car on, the ipod was still playing (it had continued playing while I was gone).

Hmmm...

 

I had the same problem; just remember to turn off the stereo before you get out of the car and it will pick up where it left off when you turn it back on.

 

Really? I have this same issue where the IPOD does not turn off when you turn off the car using a Silverline I received Monday in my 06 JBL system. The previous DICE unit I had worked fine with my old 30gb IPOD, but didn't work correctly with my new 160gb Classic, so I upgraded.

I am very disappointed that after 2 years these things still do not work correctly (my old one always had weird issue with it). It sounds like other people are having even worse issues, but still. I guess I will just have to get used to turning off the stereo before I turn off my car. We pay hundreds of dollars expecting these things to work, and they only "kinda" work. ::sigh::

If anyone figures out how to get the power of the IPOD to turn off when the car is turned off (without having to turn off the stereo first) please let us know.