Columbus audio formats?

[danoftheglen]

Just thought I'd make mention that M4a is the container that is used for the Apple Lossless codec (ALAC). I can confirm that ALAC files do work on the Columbus with the SD card. I haven't tested resolutions above 44Khz/16bit though, I might try this out over the weekend.

[freelunch]

I'm assuming that Apple Lossless audio files are not compatible as I can't find any reference in the manual.

Is that the case?

Apple Lossless files are incompatible. If you're ripping on a Mac via iTunes, I find that the WAV option is lossless and compatible. As a side note, I played a flac file in the Canton system: the young sales guys who drove my car had the bass turned way up and I could notice no distortion at volume. However, it would definitely give you a headache after 20 minutes of drum'n'bass!

[Q102]

What I did was to upload music from iTunes to Google play, then download and save on the SD card.

A bit of a faff but it does embed the album artwork into the mp3 file.

[philpix]

Apple Lossless files are incompatible. If you're ripping on a Mac via iTunes, I find that the WAV option is lossless and compatible. As a side note, I played a flac file in the Canton system: the young sales guys who drove my car had the bass turned way up and I could notice no distortion at volume. However, it would definitely give you a headache after 20 minutes of drum'n'bass!

 

VOX player will play all formats.

I've downloaded all my iTunes library and Spotify stuff into VOX and play it through AppleCarplay.

[freelunch]

VOX player will play all formats.

I've downloaded all my iTunes library and Spotify stuff into VOX and play it through AppleCarplay.

So, I assume you have an iPhone? I don't. I've got a 1st-gen Moto-G Android phone and I have to learn what the capabilities are. This Sportline (I pick it up on Monday) is the first new car I've owned and there's a real learning curve ahead of me. All my car music (2008 Brera) has been on CD. I never had DAB before, either. So far, I've spent hours converting my Apple lossless files into WAV or flac files and loading them on 16, 32 and 64 Gb SD cards just to see what works. I had to look up VOX player (seems useful software). 

 

I have to learn about bluetooth and my phone. Apparently, it's not new enough, but may work for Google maps via USB. I just downloaded Android Auto and an instruction manual. All this and more will be keeping me busy for many days after delivery! Can't wait...

[freelunch]

Since my last post here, I've had the car for three weeks. Nice car, lots to learn. Music:

 

My advice: don't buy a 256 Gb SD card for music applications in the Columbus system. It's too big. The computer reads the card, but will only load the first 1,000 files. I have been deleting files a bunch at a time to see at what level the computer will read all the files. So far, I'm at 198 Gb and there are still too many. I have a mix of WAV, flac and mp3 files. 

 

I also filled a 128 Gb card and it loaded all the files no problem. So, I would say your best bet is 128 Gb max. Two of those is a lot of music. I also put 8 Gb's in the Jukebox. It will take a very long trip to play all that!

 

In the process of installing all this music, I've found how much dross I've collected. It's the very rare album where all the songs are worth a listen. So, I've been making "mix tapes". Good thing I'm retired. 

 

Now, I just need to take a road trip...

[BillyJim]

The limit of the number of files for an external source is 1,000 per folder and 10,000 total.

[freelunch]

Thanks for that. I found an app that would count files for me. Turns out my 256 Gb SD card has been pared down to 10,351 files in 997 folders. Just 351 files to delete, then. I'll try to find that many mp3's and at least get some usage out of the space.

[BillyJim]

1 hour ago, freelunch said:

...pared down to 10,351 files in 997 folders. Just 351 files to delete, then.

That 10,000 is only a rough guide, as that's about how many files/folders Columbus could handle on my USB hard drive to generate its database before it started throwing up error messages.

The remaining folders were visible but it would show a message that they were either empty (not) or the files were unreadable.

IIRC folders count towards the database total too. So if you have one folder containing 10 files it counts as 11 entries, so you might not get any joy until you've reduced the total count by around 1,300.

Have fun! 

[danoftheglen]

Hey FreeLunch,

 

Just wondering what firmware your head unit is running? I have no issues at all playing ALAC files using the M4a container. I have my entire digital library stored in ALAC and haven't had to convert anything on the SD card.

 

WAV is a great format, but not so good for portability with hi-res audio due to the file size.

[freelunch]

@danoftheglen I'm going to feel pretty stupid if you're right. I know the ALAC files were rejected by the unit in a new Alfa Romeo Giulia that I drove. I'm pretty sure I checked when I brought the Sportline home, but I'll give it another try tomorrow. Oh, the hours I've spent converting ALAC to WAV!

 

FYI: Device part no: 3V0035020C; Hardware: H50; Software: 0702; Navigation database: VO3959801JL0153 ECE 2016/2017

[danoftheglen]

@freelunch I admit I would have an earlier Columbus system, being from a 2015 RS Octavia, however the platform should be same across the models. My Hardware: H41; Software: 0318. Clearly I need to do an update, but not if it won't play ALAC files.

 

The files will need to be MP4 with the M4a file extension.

 

My old Mk6 Golf R wouldn't play lossless codecs unless they were played through my phone, which drove me mad. I was rather happy that they worked in the Skoda.

[freelunch]

It is my sad duty to report that Apple's ALAC mp4a format does play on my Columbus infotainment system. Bugger! All that time spent for NOTHING!!!

I wonder if I can be bothered to reload my SD cards with the original ALAC files instead of the converted WAV files. I was wondering what I'd do with myself next week. Or, I'll go for a drive instead... 

[markmuddimer]

6 hours ago, freelunch said:

It is my sad duty to report that Apple's ALAC mp4a format does play on my Columbus infotainment system. Bugger! All that time spent for NOTHING!!!

I wonder if I can be bothered to reload my SD cards with the original ALAC files instead of the converted WAV files. I was wondering what I'd do with myself next week. Or, I'll go for a drive instead... 

Go for a drive... Ive been out and about this week. Loving my sportline.

[freelunch]

I went for a drive. I averaged 50 mph around the M25. The most excitement I had was shifting to manual and using the paddles to downshift to hold the speed down on a steep-ish hill. Oh, I got lost in the back roads of Croydon and used the sat nav to find my way out of the 'hood. I like sat nav. I even took an unexpected, hands-free call on my mobile. Got to adjust the volume up. Don't know if you can do that with the left scroll wheel on the steering, or you have to go into system prefs? I listened to an infinitesimal fraction of my 400 Gb's of WAV files that will be ALAC's by next week. 

 

I see that ALAC files are almost half the size of WAV files, yet still lossless. Confusing...

[psycholist]

Phone volume is adjusted with the scroll wheel or radio volume knob while you're on a phone call. Not sure about adjusting it separately. On my Superb II if you wait for the phone connection bong after you get in you have a couple of seconds where you can adjust the phone volume during/after the bong (Chances are the steering wheel controls won't be active at this point, as the car will have just been started, so you have to use the radio dial).

Also don't be fooled by the HD audio folks pushing higher sample rates for your music. The upper limit of human hearing (Apart from bone conduction) is 20 kHz. Most adults can hear nowhere near this, hence the use of high pitched noise makers to stop teenagers from collecting in front of certain businesses and the use of high pitched ring tones in schools because the teacher can't hear them. 

The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem shows that if the max frequency you need to encode is 20 kHz, then 40 000 samples per second is the minimum sample rate to do this. CDs (And wav files) run at 44.1 k samples/second. Anything beyond this contributes nothing to what you can hear, but wastes storage space.

[Shhhkoda]

FLAC files like WAV files i.e lossless, and generally more compatible with a variety of players.  Compared to MP3 they are about one tenth the size of WAV (even with a decent 320 bit rate) but they are lossy.  My player is the Amundsen on a 2016 Superb III and I use a 32gb SD card and a 32gb flash drive, between them they satisfy my audio needs. FLAC, MP3, WAV they all play fine even higher bit rate FLAC's. 

 

I remember reading a blind listening test report on various file formats using the same same track comparing high quality MP3, WAV etc. and the only perceived audio improvement came when a track was played at a slightly higher (around 10%) volume. The slight gain in volume was interpreted by the listeners as a higher source of audio file.   

[markmuddimer]

Ive just place a 64gb card in sd 1 on my columbus and Im already getting errors showing up on my FLAC files any idea what it might be?

[markmuddimer]

Think I may have answered my own question... my card is exfat formatted when it should perhaps be FAT32...

[freelunch]

According to the manual it can be either format, but I've used FAT32. I have uploaded .flac files successfully to the Jukebox, but when I tried to add two additional flacs from a SD card, they were grayed out and I could not select them. Dunno... The same flac files can be played from a usb stick. Are you performing the rain dance carefully? Raise one foot?

Edited 17 February, 2017 by freelunch

[markmuddimer]

I think you are right, I changed format and still had the same problem with one of my flac albums... think I need to to more testing tomorrow. I like the ipod style menu for choosing albums

 

[Xaime]

Not to get into the discussion about the relative worth/uselessness of hi-res audio, but I can confirm that the Columbus system plays higher than cd-quality FLAC's and ALAC's. I haven't done a systematic format test, but I'm pretty sure it plays 96 kHz / 24 bit material without any problems.

[philpix]

VOX app plays full res tracks through AppleCarplay via Loop for VOX.

[SwissRob]

Help! Batch conversion of WAV files in directory structure to FLAC maintaining source directory structure at destination?

 

Hello people

 

I think I'm slowly going crazy! 

 

I want to have my music collection (or a large subset of it) on a memory card (or several) to play in the car. And of course I have already bought SDXC cards and USB sticks etc for several hundred megabytes! 

 

I specified Columbus and Canton in my new S3 Estate Style and have read in multiple places that the Columbus reads and plays FLAC amongst other formats. 

FLAC being lossless and containing embedded metadata and cover picture but nevertheless being smaller than WAV, it seems a great choice for audiophiles on the road like me. 

 

However I have not yet found a Windows 10-compatible converter that I can direct to the root directory of my WAV music collection (about 500GB) and which will traverse the source directory structure, recreating the structure on some destination drive but containing FLACs. This way, the FLAC files stay nicely organised and if necessary are quickly accessible with a file manager. 

 

For example: 

 

/Music/Adele/21/.....

/Music/Bela Fleck/Flight of the Cosmic Hippo/....

/Music/Dire Straits/Brothers in Arms/....

/Music/Dire Straits/Love Over Gold/....

/Music/Dire Straits/Greatest Hits/....

/Music/Ludovico Einaudi/Eden Roc/...

etc.

 

We do not even need "/Music/", in my humble opinion. 

 

I would have thought that this was a basic need for people like me.

The only possibilities I found until now require you either to rip the source CD for conversion (perfect bit copies are VERY slow!) or to manually drag and drop the WAVs into an input window.

But it seems that the expectation is that they all go to the same destination directory. 

This seems rather simplistic and has limits to the number of files that can be in any directory. 

 

Am I missing something here?

 

Do all FLAC files HAVE TO BE in one directory for Columbus to read them? If so, this is a weakness of the source handling mechanism in my humble opinion. 

Can Columbus NOT traverse a directory structure like "dir /s" (Windows) or "ls -R" (Linux/Unix) does? 

 

I would be very grateful for any input on this topic. 

(And yes, I think I have read every entry where "FLAC" is mentioned! )

 

I'm really looking forward to someone knowledgeable correcting my assumptions! And especially if someone knows of a tool which can read a directory structure containing WAVs and send it to a similar or identical structure with converted FLACs! 

 

All the best

 

Rob

[Rifleman]

2 hours ago, SwissRob said:

Help! Batch conversion of WAV files in directory structure to FLAC maintaining source directory structure at destination?

 

Hello people

 

I think I'm slowly going crazy! 

 

I want to have my music collection (or a large subset of it) on a memory card (or several) to play in the car. And of course I have already bought SDXC cards and USB sticks etc for several hundred megabytes! 

 

I specified Columbus and Canton in my new S3 Estate Style and have read in multiple places that the Columbus reads and plays FLAC amongst other formats. 

FLAC being lossless and containing embedded metadata and cover picture but nevertheless being smaller than WAV, it seems a great choice for audiophiles on the road like me. 

 

However I have not yet found a Windows 10-compatible converter that I can direct to the root directory of my WAV music collection (about 500GB) and which will traverse the source directory structure, recreating the structure on some destination drive but containing FLACs. This way, the FLAC files stay nicely organised and if necessary are quickly accessible with a file manager. 

 

For example: 

 

/Music/Adele/21/.....

/Music/Bela Fleck/Flight of the Cosmic Hippo/....

/Music/Dire Straits/Brothers in Arms/....

/Music/Dire Straits/Love Over Gold/....

/Music/Dire Straits/Greatest Hits/....

/Music/Ludovico Einaudi/Eden Roc/...

etc.

 

We do not even need "/Music/", in my humble opinion. 

 

I would have thought that this was a basic need for people like me.

The only possibilities I found until now require you either to rip the source CD for conversion (perfect bit copies are VERY slow!) or to manually drag and drop the WAVs into an input window.

But it seems that the expectation is that they all go to the same destination directory. 

This seems rather simplistic and has limits to the number of files that can be in any directory. 

 

Am I missing something here?

 

Do all FLAC files HAVE TO BE in one directory for Columbus to read them? If so, this is a weakness of the source handling mechanism in my humble opinion. 

Can Columbus NOT traverse a directory structure like "dir /s" (Windows) or "ls -R" (Linux/Unix) does? 

 

I would be very grateful for any input on this topic. 

(And yes, I think I have read every entry where "FLAC" is mentioned! )

 

I'm really looking forward to someone knowledgeable correcting my assumptions! And especially if someone knows of a tool which can read a directory structure containing WAVs and send it to a similar or identical structure with converted FLACs! 

 

All the best

 

Rob

I've been using "MediaMonkey" on Windows 7/8/10 for many years. It will do exactly what you want. It's a media management tool and performs many different tasks. When you convert format you can give it an output location format string e.g.  C:/music/<album artist>/<album>/

Anything inside the <> is a token and is filled from the metadata in the source file. You can run a batch convert on individual albums or your entire collection. 

 

Give MediaMonkey a try, if you need help doing the conversion reply in this thread and I'll do my best to help