Many thanks - found the light instructions.

Car went in today and general conclusion from garage is: "don't know". One of the tech's suggested that "stream MP3" meant that you could plug an MP3 player into it rather than being able to put an MP3 CD in it. Of course, this begs the question that, why does the instructions talk about MP3 CDs.

They tried one of their disks, which apparently worked, though when I quized them, they didn't actually know if what they had tried was an MP3 CD or just a normal audio CD. We then tried my disks in a car that apparently does play them (about 1 in 5 times), and it just spat it out........ though were we the 4 times not the 1?

I am going to email skoda because this really doesn't seem particularly thought through. The instructions make it out to be so simple, and yet it isn't. This either means there is something very wrong, something broken, or I am doing something completely stupid. I am happy to work with any of these if it makes it work

cheers

PSc

One of the tech's suggested that "stream MP3" meant that you could plug an MP3 player into it rather than being able to put an MP3 CD in it.

..What a load of rubbish! It's so disappointing that most dealers' knowledge seem to be extremely limited when it comes to non-mechanical components of their cars.

I had a similar challenge a while back (threads on here somewhere) and you find yourself in a very awkward position where they don't know enough about it but they also refuse to be told by someone who does know about it. You can't win!

Anyway, enough ranting from me! It sounds like you're doing everything right and it might be your head unit at fault. I was thinking, if you want me to post you an MP3 CD that definitely works fine in my MP3 Stream, just PM me your address.

I also had problems with MP3 CDs. I found by trial end error that using ITUNES was a waste of time. They invariably would not play no mater which way I tried to write them. The one sure way I found was to use Nero to write data folders containing each album I wanted & finalise the disc.

It also works for a list of tracks, as long as I finalise the disc. All my music is in MP3 format.

Many thanks to Guiness for the CD. Popped it in and head unit and it picked it up and played without a problem. It would suggest therefore that the problem is with me/how I am burning the disks/the disks themselves. I can accept this as fixing a problem at my end is generally quicker than trying to get Skoda to fix it. As you say, I think the engineer was out of his depth on this one.

I am pretty sure I have Nero at work somewhere and I can get some Morrison's CDs (worth a try at least!)

Many thanks for all the help at advice here - it has been most useful.

Psc

Hi Paul - glad it helped. It occurred to me that I never told you how it was burnt - that might help!

I burn my CDs using Windows' built-in burning software. That CD was done on Vista Home Premium but I have equally good results on XP as well. I just insert the blank disc, copy the MP3s to it and when it's all ready, click "Burn these files to the disc" (or similar). Make sure you tell it to make a Data CD, and close the disc (Vista calls it "Mastered" mode).

As I think someone else mentioned, it definitely pays to reduce the burning speed as well. I've had a few problems playing CDs written at 24x, but switch it down to 8x and it works fine.

I got the dreaded "CD error". Reason was that I was using a burner program that I'd set to UDF filesystem (normally used for DVDs), forgot to change it back to ISO9960+Joliet Once I did that (and my filnames were <60 chars) then everything worked fine!

Edited 4 August, 201015 yr by Indulis

i've burnt several mp3 data discs with itunes, using high quality Ridisk 80 CDRs from svp (but they don't seem to have much of that brand in stock at the moment).

all work in my Stream.