[BOTUS]

With the post about dodgy sound on 6FL (USB audio) via 3.5mm jack from an iPhone and that fact my 32 gig phone is full, thought I try a bigger memory stick instead...

So added more songs to my windows PC using proper .WAV format created using Exact Audio Copy software, (my set up is win7 ultimate 64 bit and iTunes 11.1.55).

Now by some magic iTunes has worked out I don't want to waste space duplicating gigabytes of data in a Win directory and inside the iTunes folder (a bit weird, coz that's how life started out, but when I deleted it within iTunes it got over itself and just remembers the music is where I want it but with the folder structure / playlists / what its called inside iTunes working as if it was the only location on PC. So as far as the a iphone is concerned it sync's and displays what I see on PC in iTunes on the phone OK.

Now in my car (with idrive) with iPhone plugged in using Y cable, I see Albums as the separate folders as I want so that I can navigate by artist, by album etc. But I don't see any playlists.

Wanting at least this functionality on the USB stick, I had a quick look round the internet and saw a few posts saying on the PC just drag music from within ITunes window and drop to root of the USB stick and it "just works".

Now some of the magic. I drag a bunch of artist named square boxes in iTunes (that's is only a reference/link to a folder outside iTunes in the root of C drive) and yet it actually copies the .WAV file from C on to the USB stick !!! 4hrs later and 45gig in .WAV music transferred.

I took a look in explorer to see what file structure this magic creates. Sadly unless the ULF knows something I can't see in windows, I don't see this going to give any way to see or play other than a giant list of 50 track 1's followed by 50 track 2's etc. So another quick scan of the internet got me this http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451 so I added 3 files to the mix and plugged it in the car. No folder structure at all. No genres, No Artists, No Albums. Just the massive mess that Apple put on the stick over 4 hrs.

So I was wondering anyone got any good ideas?
Oh and the sandisc 64gig USB stick is slow as hell.
Sound at the moment I'd say might be mild degrade over the phone. Last stick I used when first got the car was lower quality than CD.

[cdgatti]

Good story... Tell it at parties.

Just make one level of folders on your usb drive. The dir function on the stereo will then show you these folders and the contents.

[BOTUS]

thanks for the advice

can you explain what you mean please?

put everything inside a folder ? Called what?

what about the apple .xlm .itl .itdb files etc.

[jsunma]

I may be missing something in the OP's explanation, but I think the problem might be that iTunes does not seem (in my experience anyway) to create playlist files that the standard stereo can understand. You need to create those if you're going to get playlists working from the USB stick. (that's some of what the Apple technical bulletin is trying to tell you)

I believe that playlist files are in fact just standard text files and so you should be able to do this in a standard text editor, but it also may be easier to use a media player program that can create and export playlists. I have used VLC with success (although I do this on the Mac, there's a Windows version of VLC that should have the same functionality). VLC is free open source software. Just google for it.

The idea though is that you have one folder on the USB for each playlist, and then within each folder you have the actual media files plus the single playlist file. The stereo will look for that file and display your playlist when you navigate into each folder on the USB.

Good luck!

[BOTUS]

http://www.e90post.com/forums/attach...70&d...‎

SI B 65 08 07
Sound System, Cruise, Alarms, Monitors
May 2007
Technical Service

page 5

4. Time period differs until playlists, genres, artists, albums and tracks on USB devices are displayed:

The time period until playlists, genres, artists, albums and tracks on USB devices are displayed,
depends upon the number of audio files on the final device. In the case of a device with 80GB
storage and 15,000 audio files, for example, this could take several hours.

I found a later PDF Dec 2009 but has less info.

I do see 6FL only supports M3U playlists. So if you use iTune you need to be able to convert them.
Found this http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/itunesexport/

[NEFARIOUS]

I may be missing the point, but if you're talking about from your computer to USB... If your computer is USB 3.0, get a 3.0 drive; my average file transfer is about 130MB/s (with peak of 245MB/s, versus the previous standard of up to 35MB/s, for which I have a Sandisk Extreme 32GB. If you're talking about from USB to car, then good luck; USB 3.0 hasn't really caught on in the automotive stereo market.

http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/drives/extreme/

[rcurley55]

The OP is a little tough to follow, but let me see if I can help...

Originally Posted by BOTUS

Now by some magic iTunes has worked out I don't want to waste space duplicating gigabytes of data in a Win directory and inside the iTunes folder (a bit weird, coz that's how life started out, but when I deleted it within iTunes it got over itself and just remembers the music is where I want it but with the folder structure / playlists / what its called inside iTunes working as if it was the only location on PC. So as far as the a iphone is concerned it sync's and displays what I see on PC in iTunes on the phone OK.

You have two options in iTunes - 1) iTunes will make a copy of your files when added to the library and store it in a certain location or 2) leave the file where its at. It seems your preferences set to option 2.

Wanting at least this functionality on the USB stick, I had a quick look round the internet and saw a few posts saying on the PC just drag music from within ITunes window and drop to root of the USB stick and it "just works".

Playlists should work when stored in the root directory of your USB stick. To export your play list from iTunes, try this:

http://www.ehow.com/how_8369183_crea...es-itunes.html

Now some of the magic. I drag a bunch of artist named square boxes in iTunes (that's is only a reference/link to a folder outside iTunes in the root of C drive) and yet it actually copies the .WAV file from C on to the USB stick !!! 4hrs later and 45gig in .WAV music transferred.

I would recommend dragging and dropping without using iTunes so the folder structure is preserved on the USB stick (this assumes you are storing your music on your PC with some type of folder structure)

I took a look in explorer to see what file structure this magic creates. Sadly unless the ULF knows something I can't see in windows, I don't see this going to give any way to see or play other than a giant list of 50 track 1's followed by 50 track 2's etc. So another quick scan of the internet got me this http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451 so I added 3 files to the mix and plugged it in the car. No folder structure at all. No genres, No Artists, No Albums. Just the massive mess that Apple put on the stick over 4 hrs.

I'm not certain that the iDrive system will recognize the tags within WAV files - I know it will for WMA files. I'd open the WAV files in a tag editor to see if the tags are actually there when dragged/dropped.

So I was wondering anyone got any good ideas?
Oh and the sandisc 64gig USB stick is slow as hell.
Sound at the moment I'd say might be mild degrade over the phone. Last stick I used when first got the car was lower quality than CD.

I'd start by testing the iDrive's ability to read tags from WAV files. If it can't read tags from there, and you want to preserve the quality of the files, perhaps convert them to ACC files which iTunes and iDrive can read and tag.

Take a look at the walkthrough I posted here as well:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=643348

It talks about getting your iTunes library to play nice with iDrive.

[BOTUS]

thanks for the help, the 4hrs bit just an observation to transfer from reasonably fast dual core desktop with 4 gig of ram to USB 2 stick. The car works at its own pace. may be if it can get structure from a M3U list it doesn't need to work it out itself?

Originally Posted by rcurley55

The OP is a little tough to follow, but let me see if I can help...

You have two options in iTunes - 1) iTunes will make a copy of your files when added to the library and store it in a certain location or 2) leave the file where its at. It seems your preferences set to option 2.

YES option 2

Playlists should work when stored in the root directory of your USB stick. To export your play list from iTunes, try this:

http://www.ehow.com/how_8369183_crea...es-itunes.html

When I try the export function in iTunes I get:

1) in Windows No option to change file type at all. Only export a copy of XML, the other tool I posted link to reads and converts it OK

2) Genuis playlist grey'd out.

What I have never done is see if it adds the genius info to the std apple .XML playlist info if you play them. Using third party convert tool you can see all the info buried within the Apple playlist and select which parts you want.

e.g. I see it gave 6 different playlists inside the one XML something like

Library
Music
Recently added
Recently played
Top 25 most Played

According to the BMW PDF, it only supports M3U not any apple playlist format, which is clearly why on my car it has always said "no supported playlists" when using iPhone in the car"

I would recommend dragging and dropping without using iTunes so the folder structure is preserved on the USB stick (this assumes you are storing your music on your PC with some type of folder structure)


According to the BMW PDF
1) files should not be in folders (but I think they are wrong)
2) it will sort itself out given enough time. I only drove 20 mins with 45 gig to sort (which it clearly says is not long enough ... more than 8 gig can take hours)



I'm not certain that the iDrive system will recognize the tags within WAV files - I know it will for WMA files. I'd open the WAV files in a tag editor to see if the tags are actually there when dragged/dropped.

Works OK on iPhone and the files it "syncs" to the device are only .WAV files to start with, Unless iTunes converts them (in iTunes preferences its set to WAV encoder)... storage used is about same as the .WAV files take up in windows.

I wish I knew how they look (folder structure) and what file extension they are on the the phone as I'd have half an idea



I'd start by testing the iDrive's ability to read tags from WAV files. If it can't read tags from there, and you want to preserve the quality of the files, perhaps convert them to ACC files which iTunes and iDrive can read and tag.

In BMW PDF it states it supports M3U

Take a look at the walkthrough I posted here as well:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=643348

It talks about getting your iTunes library to play nice with iDrive.

[BOTUS]

Progress of sorts

You can have playlists of .WAV files with MULF2 / 6FL on a USB stick

iTunes is garbage, the exported libraries / playlists are almost pointless
of the 6 I spoke about in post above

1) Music, is just the same list you get if all files sit on the drive anyway
2) Library, is sort of useful. Its all the Album's one after the other, but missing the Album name, just displaying a gigantic list with each album track's in track order as saved one after the other.

I found a tool that creates M3U album and content listing, that gets me back to how an iPhone displayed stuff under artist or album. But now only on the car listed under the different style USB menus in the one called PLAYLISTS

How I did it:

In Windows, I have one Music folder containing multiple individual Albums each saved as its own Artist and Album named folder (containing the .WAV files). The tool is a bit odd as it doesn't say where it put things... Using this tool point at the main Music folder click go and almost instantly it adds a M3U text file inside every individual Artist folder.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/oplisker/



e.g.

ABBA GOLD folder ends up with this M£U text file with this content

01 Dancing Queen.wav
02 Knowing Me, Knowing You.wav
03 Take A Chance On Me.wav
04 Mamma Mia.wav
05 Lay All Your Love On Me.wav
06 Super Trouper.wav
07 I Have A Dream.wav
08 The Winner Takes It All.wav
09 Money, Money, Money.wav
10 S.O.S..wav
11 Chiquitita.wav
12 Fernando.wav
13 Voulez Vous.wav
14 Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).wav
15 Does Your Mother Know.wav
16 One Of Us.wav
17 The Name Of The Game.wav
18 Thank You For The Music.wav
19 Waterloo.wav

[rcurley55]

According to the BMW PDF
1) files should not be in folders (but I think they are wrong)
2) it will sort itself out given enough time. I only drove 20 mins with 45 gig to sort (which it clearly says is not long enough ... more than 8 gig can take hours)

For issue 1 - organize your files into folders. When the car reads the USB stick, it does two things:

1) reads the folder/files structure
2) parses the files for the id3 tags

If you have folders, you can navigate around the drive using the folder structure and at least get your music playing before the tags are ready.

For issue 2 - I have 40 gigs of MP3s on my usb stick and it can take up to 5 minutes for all of my tags to be in place.

Works OK on iPhone and the files it "syncs" to the device are only .WAV files to start with, Unless iTunes converts them (in iTunes preferences its set to WAV encoder)... storage used is about same as the .WAV files take up in windows.

I wish I knew how they look (folder structure) and what file extension they are on the the phone as I'd have half an idea

You can't assume that what works when your iphone is plugged in will work when using a USB stick - it's simply not the case. My iTunes library is perfectly tagged and organized; however, my library required significant work to get ready for use with 6FL over USB.

The thing I don't understand from your post is your fixation with playlists - why are you so interested in playlists when it seems that you can't even get the iDrive to read your files? Why are you trying to get an individual playlist for just one album?

[BOTUS]

Originally Posted by rcurley55

The thing I don't understand from your post is your fixation with playlists - why are you so interested in playlists when it seems that you can't even get the iDrive to read your files? Why are you trying to get an individual playlist for just one album?

I never said it doesn't play. That worked the instant I plugged it in. Took quite a while to display what it was playing and then show a giant list of track 1's etc..

What I expected was it would have some structure due to embedded info in the files that Exact Audio Copy (I think) adds inside each WAV file. It doesn't seem to put them anywhere else (maybe this only exist inside the EAC when you use on the PC?)

Why are you trying to get an individual playlist for just one album?

I wasn't really, but I see it then lets u navigate giant list of files as if in folders...

I would have liked:
1) genre menu to work
2) it to play random tracks based on music type
3) the ability for some one else to create playlist based on my music, which is what I thought genius did, but I can't find or add to USB device

[rcurley55]

Originally Posted by BOTUS

I never said it doesn't play. That worked the instant I plugged it in. Took quite a while to display what it was playing and then show a giant list of track 1's etc..

Ok, now we are getting somewhere. If you throw all of your files in a root directory and plug it in, that's what you will see, an alpha list by file name.

What I expected was it would have some structure due to embedded info in the files that Exact Audio Copy (I think) adds inside each WAV file. It doesn't seem to put them anywhere else (maybe this only exist inside the EAC when you use on the PC?)

If the files are properly tagged, and the iDrive can read the version of tag that is written (it will not read all of them correctly), then you will be able to parse your library by these tags. It will not generate "structure" in the sense of file structure. I linked my earlier post - I discovered that files written with v2.4 id3 tags didn't work, but those with v2.3 will work. Itunes will accept either format, so what looks solid in iTunes and on your iPhone when plugged in, won't work when you try to transfer those same files to the USB drive.

I would have liked:
1) genre menu to work
2) it to play random tracks based on music type
3) the ability for some one else to create playlist based on my music, which is what I thought genius did, but I can't find or add to USB device

Item 1 and 2 are similar and require the files to all be tagged and that those tags can be read by the iDrive. This will only work if you wait for the iDrive to read all the files that you have tagged.

Item 3 is a separate issue all together.

I'd start with a few albums (one or two) and experiment with the tagging until you get it correct. Then I'd apply those fixes to the whole library. Then I would try to approach the playlist issue.

[BOTUS]

thanks,

latest fun, so you can embed tag info inside .wav but few editor's can do it right and I think you are correct that it doesn't read this in 6FL anyway

but to tidy stuff on the PC...
what I see is if I make a random selection of music wav files in one folder and then delete some, re order and renumber etc. so windows explorer lists it correctly, when you play in win media player the original embedded track number displays not the one it now is and often without the actual file name displaying either on the tracks where you changed things.


I didn't realise this was happening until I played with another editor that can edit the (EAC embedded) .wav TAG info. http://www.denondjforums.com/forums/...p?f=30&t=11266 Its another of those weird ones that doesn't let you see what happened it just does stuff (instantly) to your files. Looking at the test modified folder, its corrected the numbering and file names. I think by taking info you see in explorer and using this as the new TAG data.... but then I guess it ripped other stuff out.

[rcurley55]

Originally Posted by BOTUS

thanks,

latest fun, so you can embed tag info inside .wav but few editor's can do it right and I think you are correct that it doesn't read this in 6FL anyway

This is my biggest concern for what you are trying to do with this.

but to tidy stuff on the PC...
what I see is if I make a random selection of music wav files in one folder and then delete some, re order and renumber etc. so windows explorer lists it correctly, when you play in win media player the original embedded track number displays not the one it now is and often without the actual file name displaying either on the tracks where you changed things.

This is what you would expect, the media player is reading the tags, not the file names.

I didn't realise this was happening until I played with another editor that can edit the (EAC embedded) .wav TAG info. http://www.denondjforums.com/forums/...p?f=30&t=11266 Its another of those weird ones that doesn't let you see what happened it just does stuff (instantly) to your files. Looking at the test modified folder, its corrected the numbering and file names. I think by taking info you see in explorer and using this as the new TAG data.... but then I guess it ripped other stuff out.

You can probably go both ways with the tags/file names. Typically, I get the tags right in a tag editor, then use that tag editor to rename the files. You are going to have to experiment and see if you can get 6FL to read tags out of WAV files (and to see what kind of tags they are). If the car can't read WAV tags, then you are stuck moving to a different file format.

[BOTUS]

so just finishing off my experimentations

Using wave files (ripped as is, off a CD) but missing embedded meta data. I have added via third party tool where info is actually ripped from inside the different Itunes meta data and put back inside the .wav file


I wanted this not just for 6FL but loads of other devices around the house (on my network) that seem to struggle to locate and or give any meaningful menu structure *devices by Humax and LG being particularly thick and one from Denon that's quite sensible.

Back in the car. Still waiting for all the tracks to get indexed (or whatever it supposed to be called) but not holding out much hope as it says 6FL doesn't support meta in wav... what seems to have been added with the meta data is a nasty little high pitch pop at the end of every track. Never noticed it beforehand (Just as well I kept a copy of the unmolested tracks). Strange thing is I can't hear the "pop" on the PC.

Anyone else noticed this little extra on 6FL ?

[BOTUS]

I can confirm although clever (it embeds the iTunes meta data back into .wav files) this

http://www.denondjforums.com/forums/...p?f=30&t=11266

messes up all the tracks and adds a nasty extremely disturbing (and bad for your hearing) high pitched pop at the end of every track.

Its funny to hear the "pop" on the home HiFi you have to have at roof tile removing volume levels and listen out for it. On 6FL is sends a shiver down your spine and hurts your ears !!!