File Structure on RNS510 For MP3 Playback

[evr]

OK I bet I'm not the only one in this boat. I didn't order the MDI with my R36 as I thought I could simply load my iTunes files (AAC/m4p) onto the hard disk of the RNS510 & away I go. Not to be!

Firstly, the RNS510 definitely doesn't support AAC/m4p so I spent a while again ripping my fav CD's but this time in MP3. "Good job" I hear you say, bloody took me a while & I gave up after about 5GB (few hundred songs) but I thought it would be worth it. So I burnt a couple of DVD's as a music disk with all the file structures (i.e. artist, album, song, etc) then I thought I'd just laod this onto the RNS510 hard disk just like magic I'd have a functional MP3 player built in to the car! Oh how wrong I was. RNS510 couldn't even read the DVD (unrecognisable file format apparently).

Last ditch effort, I just dumped all the songs (MP3 format) onto a data DVD but I DID include the directory structure as before (i.e. artist, album, song, etc). Good news was the RNS510 did recognise the format this time & started playing. Damn I got excited at this stage. When I took a look at the playlist, all I could see was a list of hundreds of songs without any directory structure. What a pain in the neck to have to sort through heaps of songs without a proper directory.

So, any of you bright sparks know how to get around this? Oh & don't say "get a MDI fitted"!

Thanks all.....

[Rocket36]

Ironically I just spent the last hour copying over 1 gig to my R36's HDD. I have the full folder structure as per the SD card I copied from... Sorry. Not sure why you don't.

[evr]

Ironically I just spent the last hour copying over 1 gig to my R36's HDD. I have the full folder structure as per the SD card I copied from... Sorry. Not sure why you don't.

So the full file structure appeared in the play list? Did you just select the top level folder & copied that & all the sub folders & files came across also?

[Guy_H]

Only copies from the SD card, not from the DVD drive to the best of my knowledge.

[Swallowtail]

http://www.my-gti.com/167/volkswagen-rns510-loading-of-mp3s

You can copy from DVDs. Some useful tips in the above guide.

[Lance B]

Can you not bulk convert AAC versions to MP3 versions in iTunes by highlighting the whole album list of songs by selecting the "Edit" tab and then pressing the "Select all" tab and then right click on the highlighted area and then select the "Create MP3 Version" from the drop down box?

Haven't tried it, but it may work.

[Rocket36]

Haven't tried it, but it may work.

Yeah but that only works if you're using a VW approved oil! :nana:

Converting audio files, in my experience, is best (and easily) done with Winamp. At least, that's what I've always used.

It really whips the lama's ass!

[bennobee]

It really whips the lama's ass!

Ha winamp did come up with a good catch cry on that one LOL. :)

I hate to be a pain but the MDI does just work so easily.....

[Rocket36]

I hate to be a pain but the MDI does just work so easily.....

Guess what? Copying all the music I'll ever be able to listen to, to the build in 18Gb HDD is a lot easier and less time consuming than a visit to the dealer to buy the MDI and FREE! Plus I will never EVER own an iPod or iPhone.

[Lance B]

Yeah but that only works if you're using a VW approved oil! :nana:

LOL. Stop it! :brutal:


Converting audio files, in my experience, is best (and easily) done with Winamp. At least, that's what I've always used.

It really whips the lama's ass!

[Guy_H]

http://www.my-gti.com/167/volkswagen-rns510-loading-of-mp3s

You can copy from DVDs. Some useful tips in the above guide.

Good link :)

[evr]

Guess what? Copying all the music I'll ever be able to listen to, to the build in 18Gb HDD is a lot easier and less time consuming than a visit to the dealer to buy the MDI and FREE! Plus I will never EVER own an iPod or iPhone.

I'm with you Rocket36!!!

Now only if I can get the damn thing to recognise the DVD!

[bennobee]

Guess what? Copying all the music I'll ever be able to listen to, to the build in 18Gb HDD is a lot easier and less time consuming than a visit to the dealer to buy the MDI and FREE! Plus I will never EVER own an iPod or iPhone.

Fair enough I guess. Each to their own. I guess for some its the perfect (and as your rightfully said ) free option if you have the rcd-510. Others my find the mdi better. Do you find it quick to use (ie. scrolling and flicking between songs ?)

[GreyWagon]

I'm with you Rocket36!!!

Now only if I can get the damn thing to recognise the DVD!

I have two new VWs both with RNS510 and while I love the concept I am finding the reality of copying music across very frustrating. After trying numerous brands of dvds and the RNS510 not reliably copying from any of them I am now copying over using CDs - reliable but will take a lot of CDs at 700Mb each. I also had the problem of my itunes music being mp4 but there are plenty of shareware programs available to convert them back to mp3 - e.g. "free mp4 to mp3 converter"

I also had problems yesterday where the rns510 would put itself on mute for about 10 minutes at a time.

Hopefully the software will improve with later versions and we'll be able to get later versions downloaded. Wishful thinking probably.

Otherwise I love the cars (r32 and r36 wagon) though :)

[Rocket36]

never had any issues with any dvds or usage issues with my unit.

[Swallowtail]

OK, so I have a DVD full of MP3s - about 4.2GB worth... Tell the RNS510 to copy to HDD, and leave it to it.

Find that it's copying about 1Gb per half hour (damn it's slow), then find that half an hour after leaving it to it that the RNS510 has turned itself off and stopped copying. What the...! How am I supposed to copy music on - leave the ignition on for 2 hours to copy 4GB? Or 6 hours for the 12GB that I want to load?

How has everyone else done it?

[How much more black]

OK, so I have a DVD full of MP3s - about 4.2GB worth... Tell the RNS510 to copy to HDD, and leave it to it.

Find that it's copying about 1Gb per half hour (damn it's slow), then find that half an hour after leaving it to it that the RNS510 has turned itself off and stopped copying. What the...! How am I supposed to copy music on - leave the ignition on for 2 hours to copy 4GB? Or 6 hours for the 12GB that I want to load?

How has everyone else done it?

I used a 2Gb SD card but each time you load it a new folder is created, ie copy of SD card 1, copy of SD card 2 etc. To avoid this I think you have to copy one folder at a time, very time consuming. To make matters worse in my case, I had finished copying 12 Gb when noticed some dead pixels (something to check at delivery for those still waiting). Screen could not be swapped so whole RNS replaced. Had to reload 12Gb of music. One wonders where they sourced the first retrofitted RNS, e-bay.............?

[Rocket36]

never had any problems copying... pretty simple process really.

[apom]

OK, so I have a DVD full of MP3s - about 4.2GB worth... Tell the RNS510 to copy to HDD, and leave it to it.

Find that it's copying about 1Gb per half hour (damn it's slow), then find that half an hour after leaving it to it that the RNS510 has turned itself off and stopped copying. What the...! How am I supposed to copy music on - leave the ignition on for 2 hours to copy 4GB? Or 6 hours for the 12GB that I want to load?

How has everyone else done it?

Same... its S L O W, (great link, solves the 1 folder at a time issue!)

And why does the unit turn itself off? I notice this when I was washing the car after 30 minutes. Can this be changed in the setup somewhere?

[Rocket36]

to avoid flat batteries...

[Swallowtail]

I used a 2Gb SD card but each time you load it a new folder is created, ie copy of SD card 1, copy of SD card 2 etc. To avoid this I think you have to copy one folder at a time, very time consuming. To make matters worse in my case, I had finished copying 12 Gb when noticed some dead pixels (something to check at delivery for those still waiting). Screen could not be swapped so whole RNS replaced. Had to reload 12Gb of music. One wonders where they sourced the first retrofitted RNS, e-bay.............?

Same when you copy a whole CD - Copy of CD1, etc.

I am copying single folders at the moment. Have created a Music folder in my hard drive so I can do a mass delete with one action if I want to, and copying single folders underneath that.

Rocket - :duh: very happy that you have had no problems copying your music... what I was looking for was if anyone had a way around the "30 min turn-off" or another way to copy any more than 1GB without leaving the ignition on. How much music have you got on your HDD, and how did you copy it on - in one copy, or separate copies for different folders?

[tryingavw]

I also had problems yesterday where the rns510 would put itself on mute for about 10 minutes at a time.



do you have bluetooth? sometimes my phone wont 'let go' of the audio and i lose sound like this turning off the bluetooth on the phone fixes it.

[Pana]

Swallowtail - haven't tried copying stuff yet so I might be talking out of my bum, but I thought I read somewhere that the transfer rate from SD card to HDD was a lot quicker than CD/DVD to HDD - can anyone confirm?

[Swallowtail]

Swallowtail - haven't tried copying stuff yet so I might be talking out of my bum, but I thought I read somewhere that the transfer rate from SD card to HDD was a lot quicker than CD/DVD to HDD - can anyone confirm?

I can... :) much quicker. Thanks for that Pana.

This is what I ended up doing:

The RNS510 will copy about 1.8GB off an SD card before switching off at its 30 minute timeout (as opposed to under 1GB off a DVD). So I used 2 x 2GB SD cards. Created a Music folder in the root of the card, and put artists folders under that. Inserted the card, stopped it playing, and copied the Music folder to the HDD. Repeat with second card. Note that when it warns you that a folder of that name already exists and if you continue it will replace it - ignore it. :) It doesn't replace it, it merges it. 6 full SD card copies later, I now have about 11GB of music on the HDD.

I also noted that when I did it on DVD it had truncated all the folder and song names to 8 characters, but that may have been the way I burned it (i.e. ISO9660 / Joliet / UDF etc) whereas the SD card left proper names.

[wowser]

I can... :) much quicker. Thanks for that Pana.

I also noted that when I did it on DVD it had truncated all the folder and song names to 8 characters, but that may have been the way I burned it (i.e. ISO9660 / Joliet / UDF etc) whereas the SD card left proper names.

I can only assume this problem came from your DVD. I copied about 5 DVD's worth of mp3 to my RNS510 and the names are not limited to eight characters.

[Swallowtail]

I can only assume this problem came from your DVD. I copied about 5 DVD's worth of mp3 to my RNS510 and the names are not limited to eight characters.

Yes, as I said, I'm pretty sure I burned it with the wrong filesystem type. To be honest thought the dreadful slowness of the DVD copying was the main killer of that for me. The copy rate off DVDs is about 4Mbit/s, or less than 1/2 MB per second. ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...... Whilst the SD cards are still slow, they are about twice the speed of copying off DVDs.

LOL - I like the line in the RNS510 manual - "your navigation system is a powerful computer". Uh-huh. 400MHz of blistering speed.... :mowlawn:

[wowser]

LOL - I like the line in the RNS510 manual - "your navigation system is a powerful computer". Uh-huh. 400MHz of blistering speed.... :mowlawn:

One thing I did notice was that the copying of files from the DVD continued even if I turned the car off, so it was not quite so painful.

[Swallowtail]

One thing I did notice was that the copying of files from the DVD continued even if I turned the car off, so it was not quite so painful.

It does indeed... for 30 minutes only, in which time it will only copy less than 1GB off a DVD. It then turns off mid-copy and stops, leaving you with no idea of how far it has actually got without going through each folder and checking... :brutal:

Quicker off SD cards though.

[wowser]

Oh oh,

Better check to see if I copied all my music over.

[hannson]

.. I also had problems yesterday where the rns510 would put itself on mute for about 10 minutes at a time. hi!! I have the same problem too!!