A2DP

Vista does not support A2DP out of the box. Vista provides some profiles and for the remaining provides a framework, such that 3rd party drivers can connect to and provide the missing services.

In the case of A2DP this is the case: You install the Bluetooth driver you can download at Dell. It's the Broadcom Widcomm v6.0.1.3100 last time I checked.

After installation, you can use A2DP.  I don't know whether Vista SP1 comes with A2DP from Microsoft out of the box.

However:

. Other bluetooth devices like wireless keyboard, mouse and even W-Lan may interfere and you may not be able to have continuous A2DP sound without stutter.

. in the M1330 the Bluetooth Module is not placed very good. The sending power is not that great, resulting in a limited A2DP range.

. Buy a good A2DP receiver. The cheap ones stutter. There is compromise such device has to do: Either provide goode audio/video synchronisation (in case you watch TV, DVD, ...) OR provided better robustness and no stutter using buffers and slightly delayed playback. It's hard to tell what you need, but the very cheapest A2DP receiver will probably fail.

Finally: I'm using A2DP with the M1300 

Thanks for your input 7oby.

I read somewhere that VISTA now supports A2DP with an update that came out awhile ago.  I will need to reseach this again.  However, I did know about the Widcomm Bluetooth stack so that was my fallback.

Not too concerned about the latency. Since I'm not using it to watch video at the same time.  I'm using a Bluetooth mouse, and thought that since A2DP uses a different channel and with Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR there wouldn't be any stutter.

Your comments about a good receiver is interesting, but it's hard to find specs on Bluetooth receiver devices and how much they buffer. 

I was at Circut City the other day and they had two different Sony models of Bluetooth stereo systems.  Both act as sources or sinks.  I wanted to pair the two systems in the store and see how it sounded with one playing a CD and sending by Bluetooth to the other system.  Alas, the. only salesperson that could do this was not working that day.  So will go back when he's around.  Also could possible tell the delay between the two systems by having the audio up on both systems at the same time.

Widcomm 5.x is designed for WinXP. It runs even within Windows Vista, but is not recommend to due.

Widcomm 6.x is designed for Vista. It runs perfectly in sync with Microsoft stuff. In fact if you install Widcomm 6.x it does not replace the entire Bluetooth stack, it more or less just provides the missing profiles. That's the intended use case.

Therefore: Just install the Widcomm 6.x from Dells webpage. In addition the dell Download contains firmware updates for your bluetooth module and it case yours is older it will be upgraded. Therefore: Dell BT software is the best try.

I'm not sure if BT can send on two channels simultanously. I doubt it. But I read of multiple people who had troubles having BT mouse + A2DP running at the same time. They had to turn off BT mouse.

@circuit city: Sounds great! Do the check! In fact I looked at the A2DP V1.2 specification. The amount of latency is NOT part of the Spec and is left open for choice to the implementing company. Those who implement greater latencies are more robust. Another issue is: The data is transmitted using a lossy compression. But only one compression format is mandatory. There are MPEG-2 compressions with are optional. The advantage of using MPEG is that you have more bandwidth free. The result is better link stability and no stutter e.g. when pairing two sony devices. Still it may happen that widcomm uses only the mandatory one.

You will figure out. Give this circuit city shop a try.

Just holding up my hand as one of many having hassle with a2dp on a dell laptop. Sometimes I can connect and stream without hassle, other times it will connect and disconnect instantly no matter what I do with it.

My spec is an m1330 running vista ultimate using the 355 bluetooth module, in terms of drivers I couldn't get the latest dell ones to work with a2dp (v.6.0.1.3100) and managed to update to widcomm 6.0.1.5100 via driveragent.com

Although a2dp works intermittently, intermittent is not good enough really. I suspect it works after a restart but not coming back from hibernate/sleep but can't verify this. Also I have an issue with the bluetooth installer running everytime I restart - probably not related to the driver but worth mentioning.

Come on dell/microsoft/broadcom/widcomm, this is not new technology, we shouldn't be having this hassle. And if we can't connect multiple devices what's the point of bluetooth - either we can wirelessly connect items to our laptops/pc's or we can't, let's not have this halfway house. The paying public really has been mis-sold bluetooth in my opinion. No more gimicks please - time to get serious.

And while I'm at it might as well have a pop at the hardware people as well (including dell) - you need to make it obvious what the range of your bluetooth device is, ie class 1 - 100m, class 2 - 10m or below. My 1330 aught to be class 1 as it's a foreseeable useage type, but it's definitely giving the performance of class 2 - not good enough. Almost all hardware brands in my opinion are mis-selling they're devices by making it difficult or impossible to find this information. The only exception to this is Bluetake; I've had a few of their devices and I'm impressed with the hardware/software and support, almost makes me consider giving up on dell inbuilt bluetooth in favour of my bluetake class 1 dongle despite it sticking out my laptop making it look unsightly.

I'll get off my soapbox now............

I have an XPS 1730, running Vista 32bit SP1, the device manager lists Dell Truemobile 355 Bluetooth +EDR and Microsoft Bluetooth Enumerator under Bluetooth radios.

The driver version says 6.0.6001.18064. I have no idea whether the driver found on the download site is newer since it says it 's a first release, and I don't know whether I should update or not.

I just bought a Sony Bluetooth headset (DR-BT21G), paired it and used it. Does that mean that A2DP is activated?

The problem is that I can initiate the connection from my headset, it connects, I see it connected under Bluetooth devices, but then I have to go to the Audio tab and manually connect either the Bluetooth stereo audio or the Hands-free audio service of my device to use it.

Is there a way to make the service connect automatically? or to create a shortcut or something so that i don't have to go through these steps every time i want to use my headset?