SD card

[paco]

Just managed to put my i tunes onto a SD card. The sound reproduction on the bolero in my Yeti SE is amazing.

[beej]

Isn't it so !!??

I copied a selection of music onto a spare 4GB card when we went in to test drive the car. The salesperson was busy talking about all the features of the stereo and mentioned the SD card slot (which I knew it had in advance). I promptly pulled the card out of my pocket and stuck it in.

I was blown away by how good it sounded. Granted, I haven't had a car with a decent stereo for a while, but this Bolero unit (which I'm assuming is the same as the Columbus from a music-playing point of view) reminds me of when I used to work on cars as a lad and spent $$$ on aftermarket units/amps/drivers etc. For a stock unit, it's awesome.

I only ever play MP3's I've ripped myself (LAME, 320kbs) - I find downloaded stuff hit & miss (which is why I never pay for it - I just try it out and either buy the CD if I like it, or trash it if not). But my ripped copy of Futureworld by Com Truise in particular makes it sound incredible. 2 occupants have so far asked if it's the standard stereo & speakers.

[carnivorous]

Yup, very good stereo. Sounds even better in the Octavia - probably due to superior speaker selection and/or placement.

[bahnstormer vrs]

I agree the Bolero is good, certainly as good as an Alpine unit I had in my previous '07 reg Octavia; but its even better with the 12 speaker upgrade which includes extra 'equalizer' settings including a particularly useful 'driver' one.

PS> Like beej I always buy the CD and rip to mp3 @ 320kbs.

[BossFox]

I agree the Bolero is good, certainly as good as an Alpine unit I had in my previous '07 reg Octavia; but its even better with the 12 speaker upgrade which includes extra 'equalizer' settings including a particularly useful 'driver' one.

I'm impresed with my Columbus/Soundsystem combo. Impressive.

[graham2225]

compared to my old ford mondeo system its like changing from a clapped out folk singer to iron maiden rock concert at full blast.

the sound system in my yeti beats any other car manufactures radio units hand down

WELL DONE SKODA FOR A GREAT SOUND SYSTEM(plus the rest of the car)

[Llanigraham]

compared to my old ford mondeo system its like changing from a clapped out folk singer to iron maiden rock concert at full blast.

the sound system in my yeti beats any other car manufactures radio units hand down

WELL DONE SKODA FOR A GREAT SOUND SYSTEM(plus the rest of the car)

There's two of us here who might take exception to that!!

[Big Rich]

compared to my old ford mondeo system its like changing from a clapped out folk singer to iron maiden rock concert at full blast.

the sound system in my yeti beats any other car manufactures radio units hand down

WELL DONE SKODA FOR A GREAT SOUND SYSTEM(plus the rest of the car)

The only system that I think is as good is the Ford Sony system that is in their Titanium spec or higher models.

[The Hood]

Another bonus using an SD card is you don't have to remember where you left the six empty CD cases

[beej]

^^ Indeed. Other than as a means to get the full, best recording of tracks from the artist to your house (where you can rip it for some devices, but still retain the act of retrieving your favourite 'record' to play on your sound system), as well as to get a nice little artistic booklet inside the cover .... other than for these things, optical media is junk.

[Salea]

My Yeti Manual says the SDHC cards won't work, but I tried a 4GB SDHC and it worked OK.

I also found there is some annoying limit when copying mp3s to FAT-formatted card. I got a no-more-files-message, even the card still had plenty of room for new songs. NTSF format doesn't have this limitation, but it won't work in a car stereos.

[Big Rich]

I'm using a 32gb SDHC SanDisk card which works perfectly in the Bolero

I store files using folders

Artist

Album

Track

That way you don't get any issues

Oh and i have 1 single track on the root so i can use MIX across all the folders.

Edited 23 March, 2012 by Big Rich

[Nickel]

My Yeti Manual says the SDHC cards won't work, but I tried a 4GB SDHC and it worked OK.

I also found there is some annoying limit when copying mp3s to FAT-formatted card. I got a no-more-files-message, even the card still had plenty of room for new songs. NTSF format doesn't have this limitation, but it won't work in a car stereos.

You need to make sure you format as FAT32 and not standard FAT in order to avoid the limitations of FAT.

[Coops]

I'm using a 32gb SDHC SanDisk card which works perfectly in the Bolero

I store files using folders

Artist

Album

Track

That way you don't get any issues

Oh and i have 1 single track on the root so i can use MIX across all the folders.

Same here but without the single root track. Does that mean when you play that track then hit MIX it searches the entire card?

Mine only searches current folder at present.

[bahnstormer vrs]

Same here but without the single root track. Does that mean when you play that track then hit MIX it searches the entire card?

Mine only searches current folder at present.

Yes, that's correct

[Salea]

You need to make sure you format as FAT32 and not standard FAT in order to avoid the limitations of FAT.

Thanks, now it works! It's kind of funny when the standard FAT is a default format option.

Edited 24 March, 2012 by Salea

[Llanigraham]

I do wish people would type in english!! :think:

[Salea]

I do wish people would type in english!! :think:

associated with this (Sometimes I surprise myself when I realize that I can do something right in a computer world (with the instructions)):

Edited 24 March, 2012 by Salea

[Sandy.Rogers]

Now the following may, or may not, make sense. If it does, great, my work here is done. If it doesn't, then I'm sorry, it did make sense to me when it left my head - although I'm prone to 'senior moments!'

I have previously relied upon my iPhone to play my music via blue tooth while driving in the beast. Had the car since December and took the plunge this week to purchase (from advice in thisTopic) a couple of Sansdisk SDHC 4Gb Ultra cards from CPC - think about £7.00 (ish) each - selcted 4Gb because I don't have a massive amount of music I listen to (although I'm currently looking for a way to change the m4b audio book files to mp3). The result was great, played with it this morning before SWMBO took the car away for the day! However.......

I try to avoid iTunes like the plague so at the begiining I had to work out how to change m4a files to mp3 - a quick Google Search sorted that out as follows:

iTunes > Edit > Preferences > General

Click on The Import Settings button

Select MP3 Encoder using the Import Using drop down menu and also select the desired conversion Quality using the Setting drop down menu. Click the Okay button. Click the Okay button on the General Preferences pop up window and you should be returned to the iTunes screen.

Next, in iTunes, highlight the music files to be converted and choose Create MP3 Version from the Advanced option on the top menu. The rest, hopefully, will be obvious.

Transferring the files was easy enough (if you can be patient) - you can easy copy/paste via the ITunes Explorer which is probably the easier method, although the actual file copying/moving process was not obvious to me and I got in a pickle and ended up copy/pasting and copy/moving at the same time - patience is a virtue!! For those in the know I have a SSD Hard Drive and I have previously relied on listening to my Hard Drive to know what it was doing!!!!

Or, in the Windows Explorer (I use Windows 7):

C: > Users > ?????? > Music > iTunes > iTunes Media > Music

Note the ?????? is your own User Name (if there are several you may have to try each one). Be aware the above 'path' may be slightly different depending on how you installed iTunes.

You should now be able to find the m4a versions of your songs and the mp3 versions which you will be able to copy/paste or copy/move as normal.

Now there is there is a downside (at least I think so) to making mp3 versions - on doing so you will have two versions of the songs on iTunes (m4a & mp3).

1. Using copy/move (not copy/paste) via iTunes resolves this little issue. Using copy/paste will still leave two versions sitting on iTunes - if you want to get rid of the mp3 version you will need to delete it.

2. Using copy/move via the Windows Explorer still leaves duplicates in iTunes and the link for the mp3 version will no longer be valid so your back to deleting the redundant mp3 versions from iTunes.

Hope the above hasn't clouded the creating & copying/moving of mp3 files - maybe there is another way of getting rid of mp3 files from iTunes but I neither have the time nor inclination to find out - life can sometimes be too short!

Now a question from me to Big Rich, and Big Rich please excuse my ignorance.

I'm using a 32gb SDHC SanDisk card which works perfectly in the Bolero

I store files using folders

Artist

Album

Track

Are the above folders hierarchal or just three folders on the root? I have only just found out I can play specific Albums from my iPhone (rather than listening to random tracks) by setting my iPhone to play that specific Album. When using the above, will I be able to select specific Albums via the Bolero?

That way you don't get any issues

What kind of issues? :think:

Oh and i have 1 single track on the root so i can use MIX across all the folders.

I understand the first half of the sentence but I don't really understand the explanation why, i.e. MIX across all the folders, does that mean play random tracks? If not, can you expand please.

Now I should reiterate that I won't be able to experiment with any responses today because SWMBO has taking the M-I-L back home to Manchester via the M6 (give them a wave if you see them, they're in a White one) and I am home alone in plaster (no sympathy please - another three weeks and I'll be free of plaster to spend 9 months; according to the Consultant, building a completely snapped Achilles back up to full strength :'( ).

And, just to top it all, my daughter has taken the SD card with thembecause I put the Disco Fever album on it and she wants to listen to it - life can really sucks sometimes

I ordered my towbar and rear electrics this week, so at least I've got that to look forward to fitting.

[weasley]

The above is the exact process I went through last week (change import setting, convert m4a to mp3, drag/drop mp3s to new folder, delete duplicates from iTunes).

One of the benefits of doing it this way is that the file naming and folders (artist >> album) are retained so you can just drag the whole lot into the SD card. I created a new folder on my PC's music folder called "mp3"; my next move is to set up a synch between this folder and the SD card so I can do an update of the SD card easily as I modify the mp3 folder.

BTW, I used a 16GB SanDisk class 10 SDHC card which, although overkill, is very fast in the Bolero, with it reading 3GB of files in under 5s.

[mbrock]

We are in the process of ripping our CDs using dbpoweramp (paid for, but worth it IMO) which we have got set to save each track simultaneously in mp3, Apple lossless and FLAC (in case we ever get a media server to plug into the hi-fi). So far it has been quite painless, picking up the metadata (track titles and album art) off the internet even for some quite obscure stuff. When our 16GB SDHC card arrives from Jersey, we can then sort out the folder structure and see if it works!

We're a bit surprised by the level of enthusiasm for the Bolero though - although it sounds reasonable at low speed, it doesn't cope well at all on the motorway and sounds quite harsh and unbalanced - although my midrange speaker modification has helped a bit, I think. We are hoping the "Sound System" we have ordered on the new one will be an improvement. The XF system is much better, even though it is the "basic" fit, there is an upgraded setup even before the B&W kit on the top models. How much is due to speaker location vs. component quality vs. quietness at speed I don't know.

[Big Rich]

Sandy

Here are my answers

I store my music in albums as follows

Top level of SD card has folders for each artist labelled

Artist 1

Artist 2

Artist 3

etc, etc

Then each Artist has folders for each of the albums under that artist

Album name 1

Album name 2

etc etc

Then each Album folder has the individual tracks listed

track 1.mp3

track 2.mp3

track 3.mp3

etc, etc

This prevents issues with the limitations of the number of files you can have in 1 directory, and makes it very easy to navigate

On the top level where I have the artist folders I have a single track on the root eg track 34.mp3 When I select this track and then select mix, the bolero then random plays tracks from all the folders on the SD card.

If you just play a track from a album, and then select mix it will only randomly play the files in that album.

Hope this helps

[CFB]

Sandy

Here are my answers

I store my music in albums as follows

Top level of SD card has folders for each artist labelled

Artist 1

Artist 2

Artist 3

etc, etc

Then each Artist has folders for each of the albums under that artist

Album name 1

Album name 2

etc etc

Then each Album folder has the individual tracks listed

track 1.mp3

track 2.mp3

track 3.mp3

etc, etc

This prevents issues with the limitations of the number of files you can have in 1 directory, and makes it very easy to navigate

On the top level where I have the artist folders I have a single track on the root eg track 34.mp3 When I select this track and then select mix, the bolero then random plays tracks from all the folders on the SD card.

If you just play a track from a album, and then select mix it will only randomly play the files in that album.

The file layout you describe above is exactly the way I had it but MIX only worked on the single album.

I took a different route...

Copied all the tracks out of all my albums into one folder on the SD card.

I like a bit of classical very now and again but didn't want it being picked up by MIX so thought it would be safe in its own folder on the card.

My reasoning being that MIX won't play random songs from all albums on a card.

Imagine my surprise when one of my classical tracks started playing in the MIX !!

Having read all the posts in here I now know why, so I can now spend a couple of happy hours putting all the single tracks back into their respective albums again :sigh:

[Sandy.Rogers]

Sandy

Here are my answers

See Post #22 for content

Big Rich, many thanks for your response - I thought you were a late night visitor to the Forum until I saw the DTG of CFBs post,

Cheers

[CFB]

Big Rich, many thanks for your response - I thought you were a late night visitor to the Forum until I saw the DTG of CFBs post,

Cheers

I was waiting for my cheesecake to cool down so I could finish the topping.

I knew I should have started making it earlier

It never lasts long