[EDIT: See this post further down - I'm no longer unhappy ]

I just tried playing an MP3 CD for the first time, and am very disappointed. I was planning to load up a fresh CD-RW on weekly basis with random songs, and play them in a random order (not alphabetic). (Maybe I'm unusual, but random-play is really important to me - I just love pleasant surprises & interesting contrasts.)

Here are the issues I have so far:

1. Random mode is not remembered. It must be set every time I start the car.
2. Random is not truly random. It picks the same sequence every time.
3. Player does not remember last song playing when car was turned off. Combined with #1 and #2, this means I must cycle through all the songs I've heard so far to get to something I haven't heard yet.
4. Sometimes the player will stop play in the middle of a track and jump to the next song.
5. 'Next song' function is extremely slow (like 10-15seconds).

I used a quality TDK CD-RW, so I doubt #4 is a media issue, unless perhaps these players have issues with any CD-RW. I burned at the slowest speed possible (x2).

I'm hoping the other issues are only a deficiency of the 'random' function. MediaMonkey has a feature that allows one to insert a random 4-digit number in a file name, so that might solve my issues (although I'm having CD-burning issues with MediaMonkey that I'll have to solve first). I've been using Windows Media Player.

<sigh>

 

regarding the track skipping half-way through...

I would test a few different mp3 compression settings. I read somewhere that the head unit is built by Alpine, so it should be decent quality, even if it is OEM.

Your safest bet is 128Kb/sec 44.1 Stereo CBR (Constant Bit Rate)

That's slightly less than CD quality, but your average person won't even hear the very slight compression artifacts that come in at 128Kb/sec

Although some of the hi-hat in your music may sound "swishy"

then from there try the same configuration in:

192Kb/sec
256Kb/sec

Note that the file size will increase so you'll have to fit less on a single CD the higher quality you go.

One of the things I think it's lacking is a folder navigation button. It's a bit of a pain to have to go to the list, hit the "up arrow" and then cycle to the folder you want.

I'm really disappointed about how they built the dash. I don't really see why you would want to design a car for enthusiasts that you have to cut up your entire center dash just to install a head unit.

Maybe I'll find a solution to rig up a head unit somewhere with a hard drive and use a remote control for audio. heh

 

Thanks, but I have 8k songs ripped at 192kpbs (CBR), so re-ripping a 128kbps version of my library is not an option. And, I'm not sure I'm willing to accept the artifiacts I detect at 128kbps. If the player can't handle 192kbps-CBR, I'll skip it, and resort back to my MP3 player plugged into the Aux port. I hope that isn't the case - I was really looking forward to this feature (after coming to grips with NO usb port for 2007).

 

Sounds like you're doing the same thing I was planning on doing- I'd heard that navigating large playlists was somewhat slow and was hoping that would be for iPod stuff only. Looks like you've got Nav, have you tried playing the MP3 disk in the DVD drive to see if it's any quicker?

I've got a pretty large music collection in a variety of formats and bitrates, and was looking around at different ways to sync a random playlist to a CD-RW too. It looks like Winamp can transcode to CBR and burn randomized MP3 disks, but I wasn't figuring that random might be broken :(

Does the mp3 random work like the CD player? Where it remembers your play history for a few minutes, and then starts fresh after a period of time?

 

Do you have a 10-15 second delay when not playing them randomly? I haven't tried the random mode yet, but I am not seeing the 10-15 second delay you are. Are they CDR or CDRW discs? Might try a different brand/type to see if it reads them faster. I made 5 CDRs so far, all full and only get about 2-3 second delay between songs.

 

stop using rws. I burn mp3s on memorex media at 48x and it works fine. Just use nero for data, or windows, linux. I think its the rw. Oh and make SURE to finalize the disc. I use nero on mp3 cd mode usually, works fine.

My $.02,
Josh

 

I discovered that putting everything in a single directory solves the slow-seek problem. The default behavior of Windows Media Player is to put everything in subdirectores of artist-album. Since my selection was random, I had 124 MP3s scattered over 172 Folders. Note that with many folders, the seek-delay was equally bad on both CD-R and CD-RW, so it's simply a bad design of the player.

I found another reason why the random mode is useless. As soon as I hit the 'next' button, it seems to drop out of 'random all' mode (even though that's still the indicated mode). Instead, it goes to the next song alphabetically after the one playing. My guess is if I let it finish the next song, it would go random again, but that's not what I want 'next' to do in random mode - I want another random song, goddammit, the way every other CD & MP3 player I've ever owned would do it.

I guess I'll have to figure out what's wrong with MediaMonkey burning CDs, so I can take advantage of its random file naming feature, and simply let the player use alphabetic mode. Almost there!

Responses ...

I'm not sure. Given what I just discovered about the 'next' button in random mode, I'm also not sure about my original assertion that it isn't truly random. Useless, in any case.

It did not make a difference whether it was random or not.

I'll see how bad the skipping is without many folders on CD-RW. I suppose I can just toss the CD-Rs after I've listened to them. They're super cheap, but I'm not thrilled about generating more trash. Are CDs recyclable?

 

Or maybe they're trying to avoid some other design issue by not keeping a full track list in memory... It shouldn't really be that hard though. My $60 Sony portable unit does it. Maybe a complaint or two to an MA/MINI would be in order? I'll be sure to test that during my pick-up.

I rented an 07 Toyota Highlander recently, and it played CD's the same way. The Next button always advanced to the next track, regardless of the play mode.

 

Just an update on CD-RW, after driving to work today - no skips (dropping a song in the middle), after putting everything in a single directory. So CD-RWs seem ok now. I'm guessing the player was just going crazy with all the folders, increasing chance of a skip.

 

i love the feature. i drop all my songs into 1 directory and use 192 kbps just fine. I also have instant song skip.. no where near 10 secs. I use TDK brand cds.

 

I just want to make it clear that I'm now happy with the MP3 CD function. There is no problem with CD-RWs, and the seek-time/skipping issues go away if you put everything in a single directory. The random function is not what I would like it to be, but I've worked around it by forcing a random order when burning the CD. I love seeing the track info on the Nav.

Cheers,
Pasta

 

Cool- does it read the tracks back in the directory/burn order, or are you using MediaMonkey to randomize the filename?

 

I'm using MediaMonkey to automatically insert a random number at the beginning of the filename, under the assumption the player would use alpha-order when not in random mode. I'm not sure it is necessary though. It appears MM burned the files in alpha-order too, so maybe the player is using burn-order.

 

Cool, thanks- my delivery is Saturday, so I guess I'll give a couple different things a try then.

Also, thanks for the mention of MediaMonkey- I don't know how I never discovered it before, but it does the automatic bitrate and compression conversion that I was looking for too :D

 

Just as a tip, iTunes (which a lot of people don't like, I realize) will actually keep the order of a random disc when you burn from the program. Considering how cheap blank CDs are, I just build a playlist in ITunes, randomize it, and burn a few MP3 CDs from that. They play in the random order in which they're burned -- no folders.

 

Just as a quick update, I tried an MP3 disk for the first time today, including nested subfolders, using random and didn't get any between track delays. I'll try a few variations and see if I can make it trip up

 

Try it with a disk full of songs, each one from a different artist & album. It's academic though - with only 700MB to work with, there's not much point in organizing ~120 songs into folders. I find it easier to have one flat list I can quickly scroll through.

Have fun, and congrats on your new MINI.

Pasta

 

I did make a full disk- just under 700MB. It ended up being 168 songs, organized by /Album Artist/Album - Track # - Title. They were favorites from my collection, so just a few tracks in each folder. I didn't arrange with subfolders for albums though- maybe that's the trigger.

I'll give it a try with a new burn today.

 

Does anyone know if an '07 with HIFI option, no nav, will play a DVD disk with MP3's burned to it? I was looking for the 4.7 gB capacity on a single disk. Thanks

 

The regular CD drive isn't DVD compatible, only the cars with Nav will have the second DVD compatible slot.

But it will play MP3 CD's...

 

Will a dvd with mp3's work if you have the nav system?

Answer my own question... short answer yes but you lose navigation as you have to pop out the dvd... see here:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...50&postcount=2

 

Something that I haven't seen mentioned about this- it can take a couple minutes for the car to show that it recognizes the DVD. I'm sure it's just because it's taking a long time to read the directory structure or something, but while it's doing it, my Nav screen says something to the effect of 'Unrecognizable disc in drive, please insert a valid audio disc'.

It seems to be fine once it's been loaded, even after turning the car off and back on- but once you remove the DVD and put in another it happens again. It may be because I had all of the tracks in one directory though- I keep meaning to try it in different ways but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Also, once there's more than three digits in the track number, it starts to overwrite the song title. It gets you 1300 tracks in one disc though [:D]

 

well thats nice everything is working good and everyone is happy.
Go report to Mini. Tell them you have too many files scattered in too many places.


geez!

 

I tried to tell my MA, but he won't come help organize my filing cabinet...