MDI niggles

[Mk6 GTI]

my MDI is pretty hopeless to say the least. It skips between tracks and skips the 1st second of a song most of the time. Not to mention the occasional crackle sound! And yes the voltage settings are correct..

[G-rig]

Does anyone know if there is a way to set the iPod playback to playlist not songs as a default? It's starting to irk me having to go backwards and search my playlists!

Yeah that's hopeless and it happens everytime you get back in the car. It's good that it remembers the track you are up to but really needs to remeber the folder or 'now playing'.

Should have kept my old.

Not planning to worry about the NAV or Bluetooth with this car, or at least I'll there's new MDI firmware and works properly with the rcd510. After market could be the way to go.

[Karlosovic]

Which other players have 80-160Gb? There weren't any for ages.

yeh that's *the* reason I 'upgraded' from my Zen, and still the only thing the Pod has going for it

[G-rig]

yeh that's *the* reason I 'upgraded' from my Zen, and still the only thing the Pod has going for it

Also has gapless going for it whereas my iAudio U3 doesn't (even though it supports FLAC and heaps of other file types. Will have to see if there is new firmware).
It was also one of the only players with a proper lineout. Helps with docks and with other equipment instead of dodgy mp3 players where the headphone volume has to be adjusted as well as on the other device.

Would be good to get rid of itunes, rune pretty slow and sick of seeing this message:

[Frankenstrat]

Here are the results of my scientific experiment.

1) I copied all of the MP3s from my USB-pen drive and lobbed them into a directory on my PC
2) I deleted all of the files on the USB-pen drive
3) I individually dragged files back onto the USB-pen drive in random order
4) I reinserted the USB-pen drive back in my Girly Golf-mobile and the following morning set off for work

The first tune that started playing was one that was half-played when I switched off the engine last Thursday. Somehow it remembered which tune was playing and where it was within the tune - despite the fact that the USB-pen drive had been removed for at least two and a half days. It also continued playing the tunes from that point in alphabetical order.

Conclusion: complete failure.

My next experiment wil be to see if the MDI will recognise a WMP Play List.

[Corey_R]

Lol... I seriously think you're going about this the wrong way man. Almost nothing plays things "in the order they're dragged".
I mean, files have multiple dates. Created, modified, accessed. Which date do you expect it to be using?

As I said before - if you want them to play in specific order, give it something that it will actually use! Now, if it's playing alphabetically, then number the files. If the files are tagged correctly (and that system can read tags - I don't have a Polo GTI atm so I can't test this myself) then the file names should not affect the title information displayed as the current song playing.

[Kwoka]

My MDI also sometimes skips the first few secs on a song does get annoying but i guess i can live with it.

[G-rig]

Re: MDI niggles

It's not good enough and they should bring out some new firmware or enable you to roll back to the previous one.

Has anyone gone to the dealer about this?

[kennyc]

Can't believe you guys have all these issues with the MDI, i love it and it work perfectly for me. No probs what-so-ever.

No gaps between songs, remembers last song if turned off half way through.
Only thing is that it plays in alphabetical order.

[G-rig]

Re: MDI niggles

Can't believe you guys have all these issues with the MDI, i love it and it work perfectly for me. No probs what-so-ever.

No gaps between songs, remembers last song if turned off half way through.
Only thing is that it plays in alphabetical order.

How else would it play other than alphabetically (assume you are talking about hitting play on all 'Songs' folder or when reconnecting the device defaults to the songs sorting too.

[Frankenstrat]

How else would it play other than alphabetically

Why shouldn't it play alphabetically? Burned CDs play in the right order, why shouldn't MP3s on a USB device?

Corey, all I'm expecting is for the MP3s to play in the order that were written to the USB-pen drive. My next quest is try is a WMP Play List to see if that works.

[G-rig]

Re: MDI niggles

I think you're missing the point of the mdi.

It sorts by and let's you play by Album, Artist, Song, Genre as well as playlists etc.

Sounds like you need to tidy up your files ID3 tags.

[Karlosovic]

If by 'burned CDs' you mean an audio CD... then yeh of course... your disc authoring program puts the tracks on the CD in the order you specify and it's basically just sequential play from there. I'm pretty sure it's all just one file essentially, with a disk index containing a list of time stamps that a player can use to skip to a specific song. It's only 1 step up from a tape

A USB thumb stick, hard drive, iPod or whatever all act in similar ways, in that the files are stored on the device as individual files, with individual file names, file sizes, file dates etc.
The files can then be listed by an operating system in an order according to various criteria, the default of which is almost always alphabetic.
Something simple like a car stereo probably won't have an option to change this default. This means, if you want to specify an order, it's best to name the files with a numeric prefix.
ie: "01_U2 - Elevation.mp3"

It's the nature of the medium

You could also try organising your files into a folder directory structure... e.g < Artist > / < Album > / < Tracknumber> - <Title>

[Karlosovic]

I think you're missing the point of the mdi.

It sorts by and let's you play by Album, Artist, Song, Genre as well as playlists etc.

Sounds like you need to tidy up your files ID3 tags.

I don't have mine yet, obviously
So does the MDI recognise ID3 tags from the file itself, or can it only get this info from a supported mp3 player?
Ever since (I think it was) coreying mentioned USB hard drives I've been toying with the idea of just getting one of those to leave in the car.... and to hell with iPods

[Corey_R]

Why shouldn't it play alphabetically? Burned CDs play in the right order, why shouldn't MP3s on a USB device?

Corey, all I'm expecting is for the MP3s to play in the order that were written to the USB-pen drive. My next quest is try is a WMP Play List to see if that works.

Buddy - I'm sorry, but all your expecting is not reasonable, as it's not something that almost any dedicated MP3 player supports, let alone a consumer electronic device or car stereo.

We've all been giving you suggestions which will work, yet you continue to go down a path which is obvious to a computer-savy person will not work.
Audio CDs do not use a traditional file system. They use the Red Book CD Standard. You effectively have a single track with an index. However, the CDFS file representation of these audio tracks for computer-based-playback systems certainly is in alphabetical order. The files display as "Track01.cda, Track02.cda" etc.

MP3 players, as G-rig has pointed out, typical sort tracks via Album, Artist, Song and Genre, all of which are taken from the songs tags (ID3 tags for MP3 files). If songs are not tagged, then they'll play them in alphabetical order.

As for whether WMP play lists would work, I would think that the car manual would mention what formats the head unit / mdi supports, including whether it supports playlists.