I have a 32 GB SD on my hands and I want to fill it with music for using it with the Bolero system. 

 

Is it possible to have all the songs on the card without folders, or does the infotainment need artist folders to keep the songs organized?

 

Cheers! 

There's a file limit as to how many tracks you can have in the root directory and a 32gb card will easily surpass that.

Folders make for easier access anyway.

I am just filling up a 32Gb card - the way I have gone is artist/cd folders so I can play individual albums if I wish but I have created a folder called playlists - in this I will create playlists (simple text files) which I can select to play various selections from different CDs.

 

The playlists are text files named title.M3U  (the filename cannot be somethin.txt as the system will not realise it is a playlist) and each file is just a simple text file listing the tracks to play in order - something like

 

 

example.m3u

 

\\artist 1\track 1.mp3

\\artist 3\track 4.mp3

\\artist 7\track 1.mps

 

etc

 

the \\   tells the system to go from the root directory of the card to the appropriate artist directory and the track file name.

 

The only downside is that unless you have the album art saved to each track (something I did with tagscanner software - a freebie tag editor, still took ages though but once done..) then you will not get the album art showing when using a playlist.

Out of interest does anyone know the max size of sd card that's realistically supported.  I know the manual says SDXC so I've been looking at 128gb cards however in previous experiance stereos may be able to support large cards/usb keys but are so slow reading them (even high speed media) that it's not worth trying anything over about 32gb.

 

This is with aftermarket heads though, I've no experiance with Bolero/Admunsen etc.

 

Cheers

Iain

Great tip, thanks hawkster!

Found in the new Seat Leon 3 Radio Manual, which is pretty much the same as the Octavia's:

(translated from french)

Memory cards type :

- SD and MMC formatted in FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, xFAT or VFAT file system (up to 2 Go (gigaoctets)

- SDHC and SDXC Cards.

 

– Digital audio Specifications: 

– Bitrate 160 kbit/s (recommended) up to a maximum of 320 kbit/s, with 48 kHz sampling frequency.

– Formats : MPEG-1 et -2 Layer-3 (.mp3), Windows Media 8 et 9 (.wma, .asf).

– Playlists formats : M3U, PLS, ASX, B4S y WPL.

 

– For Memory Cards : maximum of 4 000 files per media, and 1 000 file per folder.

 

Some Leon users claim to have exceeded these limits, but this possibly slow down the system as it will take more time to scan the content of the card and display it. You have to test and see whether your user experience is affected or not...

Edited 29 August, 201312 yr by mailme

What about if you use a hdd? Can it support more then 4000 files or is that maximum for hdd as well? Feels Kinda stupid to buy a big one and don't use all the space.

What about if you use a hdd? Can it support more then 4000 files or is that maximum for hdd as well? Feels Kinda stupid to buy a big one and don't use all the space.

 

The HDD will use the same filing system so just organise the tracks effectively

But if I get the manual right you can have a maximum of 4000 files on one media ( with media, I take it as if they mean a memory card, or usb stick or a hdd) and a maximum of a 1000 files per folder. Is my assumption wrong? That would mean that I'm better off buying a memory card or usb stick. Otherwise I don't get what they mean with media. I got a lot more mp3s then 4000 :-S

Edited 29 August, 201312 yr by sonnythesaint

Personally, I'd just go for an SD card as, even though you've got 4000+ mp3's, you don't really need access to them all, all the time do you? ;-)

Plus, look how cheap the cards are!

Personally, I'd just go for an SD card as, even though you've got 4000+ mp3's, you don't really need access to them all, all the time do you? ;-)

Plus, look how cheap the cards are!

Yeah that's true. I'm just a sucker for shuffle :-), thought it would be nice to be able to have my whole collection at the same place. Guess I'll just have to settle with a par of Sd cards. Beats having the glove compartment full of cds :-D

If you are going to use MIX (shuffle) you need to put just one track directly on the SD card and select it first each time you want to use MIX.

Bolero will then play all tracks from all albums in mix mode.

MIX does work in an album without doing this though.

How random is it? I've not been impressed with most system's randomnessivity. (Is that a word or have I just made a new one up?  )

 

I'm going to try copying the tracks into album folders and use playlists to randomise the tracks.

Edited 29 August, 201312 yr by spacenase

theres quite a good method on here thats for golfs but I think it should work on the skoda too.

 

http://www.haydnwilliams.com/blog/vw-golf-mk7-sd-cards-and-album-art

How random is it? I've not been impressed with most system's randomnessivity. (Is that a word or have I just made a new one up?  )

 

I'm going to try copying the tracks into album folders and use playlists to randomise the tracks.

Not sure, but if you skip a track, it seems to have this thing where it will try to play the track a short while later for a couple of try's.

All I need is another stubborn thing next to me in the car

For those of you who drive around in the new MkIII, is it possible to shuffle all the songs, irrespective of their folders?

But if I get the manual right you can have a maximum of 4000 files on one media ( with media, I take it as if they mean a memory card, or usb stick or a hdd) and a maximum of a 1000 files per folder. Is my assumption wrong? That would mean that I'm better off buying a memory card or usb stick. Otherwise I don't get what they mean with media. I got a lot more mp3s then 4000 :-S

 

 

The 4000/1000 will be a limitation of the head unit to scan the MBR file on the card, so you can add more than 4000/1000 music tracks/files, but it will ONLY "see" and play the first 4000/1000.

 

This is a STUPID file limitation that has been around on mp3 players since before 2Gb cards were common, it is about time someone addressed it!!!

For those of you who drive around in the new MkIII, is it possible to shuffle all the songs, irrespective of their folders?

Daniel, see my post at #11 above.

That should see you right

Better still just switch on Bluetooth on your phone (preferably Android) and have all of your music on the memory card and then use the music player function or app such as Poweramp press play & then enable the shuffle function, no memory card problems or hassle involved.

Edited 3 September, 201312 yr by TheWanderer

On 8/29/2013 at 14:48, hawkster said:

I am just filling up a 32Gb card - the way I have gone is artist/cd folders so I can play individual albums if I wish but I have created a folder called playlists - in this I will create playlists (simple text files) which I can select to play various selections from different CDs.

 

The playlists are text files named title.M3U  (the filename cannot be somethin.txt as the system will not realise it is a playlist) and each file is just a simple text file listing the tracks to play in order - something like

 

 

example.m3u

 

\\artist 1\track 1.mp3

\\artist 3\track 4.mp3

\\artist 7\track 1.mps

 

etc

 

the \\   tells the system to go from the root directory of the card to the appropriate artist directory and the track file name.

 

The only downside is that unless you have the album art saved to each track (something I did with tagscanner software - a freebie tag editor, still took ages though but once done..) then you will not get the album art showing when using a playlist.

Hi, thank you,  your expalanation helped me and i made playlists in my sdcard.  What i realised is it doesn't play the first songs in the playlists,  does this also happen to you?

I have a 200gb sd card and just opened iTunes where i have all my music ripped, copied the folder structure for all the songs [160gb] and then copied the *.m3u files [about 20 playlists] created in itunes and it works perfectly.

if your using OSX 10.10 Yosemite or higher you can export the playlists to .m3u and place them in a folder on the SD card, name it '_playlists' the underscore will put these first in the tree. You can export one at a time or if you have dozens like me heres the script to do the job... you still have to manually edit or create a script to format the entries as below

 

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=batchexportplaylists

 

your raw .m3u files will look like

Quote

 

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:208,Highway To Hell - AC/DC /Users/Johnny/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/AC_DC/Highway to Hell/01 Highway To Hell.mp3
#EXTINF:203,Girls Got Rhythm - AC/DC /Users/Johnny/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/AC_DC/Highway to Hell/02 Girls Got Rhythm.mp3
#EXTINF:310,Walk All Over You - AC/DC /Users/Johnny/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/AC_DC/Highway to Hell/03 Walk All Over You.mp3

 

 

 

 

 

you need to clean these to look like

Quote

\\AC_DC\Highway to Hell\01 Highway To Hell.mp3
\\AC_DC\Highway to Hell\02 Girls Got Rhythm.mp3
\\AC_DC\Highway to Hell\03 Walk All Over You.mp3

 

MAC Metadata

i use blueharvest to clean the SD card of the MAC metadata files .ds_store *._.

http://www.zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest/  [30 day free trial]

 

 

for the artwork to display on the Balero you need to resize the embedded images using Sanse MP3 artwork resizer, the link in someone previous old post was broken

 

I transferred the SD card to a PC to resize the artwork using Sanse MP3 Art Sizer.exe

hcware.x10host.com/mp3art/   [you can use Parallels on the mac if you don't have a PC.]

 

I've successfully done this on 25K songs in near Flac quality Mp3. It takes a while but just let it sit and churn.

Edited 29 December, 20178 yr by JohnnyType2

Hi,

 

sorry for necrobumping. But this thread helped me a lot.

I bought Skoda Rapid with Skoda Swing audio. And I was surprised that support for USB MP3 is even worse than on my 15years old Sony car radio I have in old car...

 

Anyway. I read many threads about this. But this is most complete one. Based on information you posted I was able to modify my script for that old Sony radio. Now I am able to have full Artist/Album structure and also able to shuffle (using playlist and MIX mode) on entire flashdrive/sdcard content using Skoda audio. Maybe it helps someone, or someone will make that tool much better.

 

Script is available here: https://github.com/Kisuke-CZE/playlist_transfer

It works on Linux and MacOS. Basically it should work anywhere where ruby, flac and lame is available.But I am not sure how ruby works on Windows.

 

I also made very clumsy GUI that works in Linux. It's available here: https://github.com/Kisuke-CZE/playlist_transfer-gtk

 

On 28/08/2013 at 21:21, john999boy said:

There's a file limit as to how many tracks you can have in the root directory and a 32gb card will easily surpass that.

Folders make for easier access anyway.

 

Damnit. Should have done my research. Bought a 64GB card on Amazon last night in anticipation of the Octy.

Wow - a 6 year old quote!

Your 64Gb card will be fine - just make sure that you have folder names for artistes/albums in the root instead of just tracks.