Hi All, after reading about this playlist thing and those creating with Linux/DOS, I just wanted to share an easy way to create the playlists. Use a freeware called Playlist Creator (http://www.oddgravity.de/). Worked well for me and easy to use. Just make sure in the settings you use "Absolute, without Drive" in the playlist details.

All the best!

greg

Edited 24 April, 201016 yr by greghwong

Hi All, after reading about this playlist thing and those creating with Linux/DOS, I just wanted to share an easy way to create the playlists. Use a freeware called Playlist Creator (http://www.oddgravity.de/). Worked well for me and easy to use. Just make sure in the settings you use "Absolute, without Drive" in the playlist details.

All the best!

greg

Cheers Greg, that will be useful for many people on here... Especially ChoasDarkNight with his 1400 or so playlists...

Won't help speed the fecking thing up or make mix work properly though, although maybe that will be sorted with these updates that are coming out on week 22 builds and upwards as I'm hoping the firmware update can be done at service time...

I've given up & bought a second Ipod.

A new 64Gb Ipod Touch for everyday use and the old (55% full) 30Gb one will go in the car.

A £300 workaround , but at least I've got what I want.

As I soon will be the owner of a Skoda Octavia with Bolero unit, I thought I'd just make a playlist script for windows.

Download zip-file from http://www.lfsv.dk/diverse/setup.zip . Unpack and run setup.exe.

You have to add at least one track in the root of the sd-card.

Please let me know if it works on the bolero.

Greetings from Denmark ... :yes:

Edited 27 April, 201016 yr by DanishViking

I created my own playlists for each of my albums, however the Bolero wont mix between albums, which I thought it would do!

It looks like this:

(Album Folders are in this folder called 1, which is at the root of the SD card)

They all look like this…

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/ROCK/BON JOVI/CROSSROADS/ALWAYS.mp3

/GREEN DAY/NIMROD/BLA BLAR.mp3

Etc.

(Then I have a short mp3 file to initiate the Bolero)

(And of course all my playlists) which inside notepad looks like this

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/ROCK/BON JOVI/CROSSROADS/ALWAYS.m3u

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/ROCK/BON JOVI/CROSSROADS/LIVING ON A PRAYER.m3u

Etc.

I mean if I select say Cross Roads by Bon Jovi, it will only mix the songs from that album and wont even move onto another playlists to play another album.

Have I missed something here!?

Edited 27 April, 201016 yr by Chaosdarkknight

I created my own playlists for each of my albums, however the Bolero wont mix between albums, which I thought it would do!

It looks like this:

(Album Folders are in this folder called 1, which is at the root of the SD card)

They all look like this…

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/ROCK/BON JOVI/CROSSROADS/ALWAYS.mp3

/GREEN DAY/NIMROD/BLA BLAR.mp3

Etc.

(Then I have a short mp3 file to initiate the Bolero)

(And of course all my playlists) which inside notepad looks like this

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/ROCK/BON JOVI/CROSSROADS/ALWAYS.mp3

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/ROCK/BON JOVI/CROSSROADS/LIVING ON A PRAYER.mp3

Etc.

I mean if I select say Cross Roads by Bon Jovi, it will only mix the songs from that album and wont even move onto another playlists to play another album.

Have I missed something here!?

Nope, does that for me too. I will probably head back to the tracks being readable by the initial Bolero scan and live with the sloth like progress as it reads everything and then start the mix from the short mp3 in the root directory. With any luck this Bolero upgrade mentioned in the Week 22 build thread will help solve our issues...

I created my own playlists for each of my albums, however the Bolero wont mix between albums, which I thought it would do!

(And of course all my playlists) which inside notepad looks like this

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/ROCK/BON JOVI/CROSSROADS/ALWAYS.m3u

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/ROCK/BON JOVI/CROSSROADS/LIVING ON A PRAYER.m3u

Have I missed something here!?

Right then Tim, it looks like all your hard work is able to be tested as you've now got the car - when did it arrive?

The problem with 'mixing' is well known and Skoda's version of mixing is different to the popular concept so I'm not going to recap on that!

What I am wondering is why you have nested the playlists so deep though? Surely they won't even be able to be read by the Bolero or did you mean to say 'mp3' when you wrote 'm3u'?

All the playlists should really go in the root directory; mainly for ease and speed of reading.

As I soon will be the owner of a Skoda Octavia with Bolero unit, I thought I'd just make a playlist script for windows.

Download zip-file from http://www.lfsv.dk/diverse/setup.zip . Unpack and run setup.exe.

You have to add at least one track in the root of the sd-card.

Please let me know if it works on the bolero.

Greetings from Denmark ... :yes:

I've just tried to run it on Vista X64 & the computer says NO.

I've just tried to run it on Vista X64 & the computer says NO.

It installed OK on XP X32 FYI

Can try W7 X32 if you like.

s/w might not have been built for 64 bit ?

A £300 workaround , but at least I've got what I want.

Yeah, sometimes you need to throw £money at a problem to solve it !

That's what I tell the company accountant just before he throws me out the window

I don't SKODA will ever bother solving this.

I've just tried to run it on Vista X64 & the computer says NO.

It won't run on 64bit, and on Vista/W7 you might have to run as administrator ...

I Use playlist creator. http://download.cnet.com/Playlist-Creator/3000-2141_4-67973.html a free program that creates a full 16gb cards playlist in a couple of minutes.

I Use playlist creator. http://download.cnet.com/Playlist-Creator/3000-2141_4-67973.html a free program that creates a full 16gb cards playlist in a couple of minutes.

Playlist Creator is fine, but for this particular bolero problem, my application is much easier and a lot faster ...

Playlist Creator is fine, but for this particular bolero problem, my application is much easier and a lot faster ...

What does your application do then? (In respect to the Bolero problem)

What does your application do then? (In respect to the Bolero problem)

Exactly what's described in post #1 ... but try it out ...

It's limitation is (by now) that your music folders must exist in the root of the SD card and be flat (e.g. no subfolders).

Moving the folders to /1/2/3/4... and writing the playlists takes few seconds, and after that you can structure the playlists in subfolders as much as you like ...

But remember to put at least one .mp3 or .wma in the root of the card.

When I get my own Octavia/Bolero, I'll probably refine the application a bit ...

Edited 28 April, 201016 yr by DanishViking

Exactly what's described in post #1 ...

OK, Will stick to my playlist script then... Was hoping you'd magically fixed the mix feature

OK, Will stick to my playlist script then... Was hoping you'd magically fixed the mix feature

A week into having my Excel-generated "pseudo-mix" playlist I can't recommend it enough - was getting sick of only hearing the same three or four artists on mix!

A week into having my Excel-generated "pseudo-mix" playlist I can't recommend it enough - was getting sick of only hearing the same three or four artists on mix!

Does it play past the first 100 or so tracks then?

I can't see the problem. On my 16gb card I have

Playlist 1 All songs.

Playlist 2 Joe Cocker.

Playlist 3 Tina Turner

Playlist 4 Jean Luc Ponty

Playlist 5 Joe Cocker Tina Turner mix.

Etc

Etc

If I select playlist 1 it mixes all of the music to the best of tbe Boleros abilities

play list 2 will give Joe Cocker either mixed or non mixed as required

play list 4 obviously gives either a mix of the 2 artists or 1 played after the other.

All playlists were created within 5 minutes.

The card took about a minute to be read the first time but providing I don’t change the card it is read within 30 seconds of switch on.

I can't see the problem. On my 16gb card I have

Playlist 1 All songs.

Playlist 2 Joe Cocker.

Playlist 3 Tina Turner

Playlist 4 Jean Luc Ponty

Playlist 5 Joe Cocker Tina Turner mix.

Etc

Etc

If I select playlist 1 it mixes all of the music to the best of tbe Boleros abilities

play list 2 will give Joe Cocker either mixed or non mixed as required

play list 4 obviously gives either a mix of the 2 artists or 1 played after the other.

All playlists were created within 5 minutes.

The card took about a minute to be read the first time but providing I don’t change the card it is read within 30 seconds of switch on.

On mine, if i create a playlist that has all songs in it then it doesn't mix properly, it only mixes from the first 100 lines or so of the playlist (I'm not sure exactly how far down the list it gets, but it's around that number). It takes me seconds to get the playlists (one for all songs and one pe album) as I've written a Unix shell script that reads the cards and produces the playlists in about 10 seconds so I know it's not the SD card that's slow as my PC can read the data in no time at all

My main beef is what the Bolero is slow (and I mean really slow) when scanning for tracks on the card... When I want to change from mix to an album I shouldn't have to wait a couple of minutes whilst the Bolero scans the card to display the music to come up with everything, especially as according to the Columbus users, they don't appear to have this problem...

I have the playlists in a playlists folder which the Bolero can access, with the music at least 9 folders deep at the moment, and swapping between Albums is now pretty quick, but I can't mix across the whole card...

I could even live with the first scan being slow, but if that card hasn't changed why can't it keep this list in some sort of cache area and only scan again if the card has changed?

Right, tried DanishVikings organiser program (got it to work in the end!) & it still doesn't work, in fact in now comes up with SD card read error on it.

I took the music folder out of the the 9 level & it finds the music, so it proves that the SD card is good.

Like I said the easiest (most expensive option) is to buy a second MP3/Ipod and install that & use the MP3/Ipod shuffle function, job done.

Edited 28 April, 201016 yr by Evening Star

Right, tried DanishVikings organiser program (got it to work in the end!) & it still doesn't work, in fact in now comes up with SD card read error on it.

I took the music folder out of the the 9 level & it finds the music, so it proves that the SD card is good.

Like I said the easiest (most expensive option) is to buy a second MP3/Ipod and install that & use the MP3/Ipod shuffle function, job done.

Too expensive as I don't have MDI... Didn't see the point when I had an SD card reader and a mix function on the HU. Oh well, live and learn

I can have mix or speed of browsing, just not both...

Edited 28 April, 201016 yr by Raglits

As I soon will be the owner of a Skoda Octavia with Bolero unit, I thought I'd just make a playlist script for windows.

Download zip-file from http://www.lfsv.dk/diverse/setup.zip . Unpack and run setup.exe.

You have to add at least one track in the root of the sd-card.

Please let me know if it works on the bolero.

Greetings from Denmark ... :yes:

It worked for me (with certain problems) but now it doesn't work at all!

I installed the program from DanishViking and tried it on a dedicated HD sub folder and on an SD card and it seemed to work but maybe needs some slight tinkering with. My problems were as follows:-

The playlists it created were exactly what was required by the Bolero - they were 'relative' and not 'absolute' so could be created on something other than the SD card and just copied across together with the music and thereby preserving the filing system.

In saying that, it sometimes created an additional sub filing system and appended it to the existing one. ie. I normally start with /1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/etc but it created /1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9 etc and MOVED the music folders there!:(

Unfortunately it has now stopped working altogether and installing/reinstalling doesn't bring it back to life - I feel a rollback to a restore point coming on!

So, DanishViking has tried, and partially managed to do what was initially asked. At least he's tried!

Obviously it needs some sort of update to make it work 100% though. I'm looking forward to the Mk2 version!

It installed OK on XP X32 FYI

Can try W7 X32 if you like.

s/w might not have been built for 64 bit ?

Installed okay on W7 x32 - however some of the W7 files are newer and I elected not to update them - could be why I had the problems above?

I Use playlist creator. http://download.cnet...41_4-67973.html a free program that creates a full 16gb cards playlist in a couple of minutes.

This is total rubbish and no use whatsoever for the Bolero

What does your application do then? (In respect to the Bolero problem)

It just creates playlists (or at least it did initially!) but doesn't seem to solve the Portuguese/Greek banking crisis!

A week into having my Excel-generated "pseudo-mix" playlist I can't recommend it enough - was getting sick of only hearing the same three or four artists on mix!

That's a perfect one way to get around the mix problem and if the random list is kept to 100 then Raglits should be happy (or happier )

Does it play past the first 100 or so tracks then?

Yes, I have ~2500 tracks in the playlist. But what I've done is taken the .m3u file, pasted it into Excel. Then I've added an extra column before the text (now the text is in Column , and inserted random numbers into Column A against all the tracks (type "=RAND" into cell A1, then copy and paste in the remaining cells). I then sorted on Column A, which mixes up the tracks, then deleted column A. Then just highlight all the rows with text in, then copy and paste back over the original .m3u. Then when the Bolero reads the playlist, the playlist is already jumbled, so no need to even touch the dreaded Mix button. Of course, it will always play the songs in the same order, but if you select a random track to start with from the .m3u it negates this, or it's a simple 2 minute job to re-randomise every month or so in Excel...

That's a perfect one way to get around the mix problem and if the random list is kept to 100 then Raglits should be happy (or happier )

As above, the random list contains way in excess of 100 tracks, I just avoid using the Bolero's mix function completely.

That's a perfect one way to get around the mix problem and if the random list is kept to 100 then Raglits should be happy (or happier )

John, I'll never be happy unless I have something to complain about

Yes, I have ~2500 tracks in the playlist. But what I've done is taken the .m3u file, pasted it into Excel. Then I've added an extra column before the text (now the text is in Column , and inserted random numbers into Column A against all the tracks (type "=RAND" into cell A1, then copy and paste in the remaining cells). I then sorted on Column A, which mixes up the tracks, then deleted column A. Then just highlight all the rows with text in, then copy and paste back over the original .m3u. Then when the Bolero reads the playlist, the playlist is already jumbled, so no need to even touch the dreaded Mix button. Of course, it will always play the songs in the same order, but if you select a random track to start with from the .m3u it negates this, or it's a simple 2 minute job to re-randomise every month or so in Excel...

As above, the random list contains way in excess of 100 tracks, I just avoid using the Bolero's mix function completely.

If it works it's way through a list and doesn't **** itself when it gets to line 101, then I'll add a "sort -R" to my shell script that generates the larger playlist which should do pretty much the same thing as the Excel trick...