SD cards to use in Audi A4 DVD Sat Nav

[IainP]

Help! I have an 07 plate A4 Avant with DVD sat nav. Sat Nav has slots for 2 SD cards for music etc. but the manual says that only 256MB cards are supported - surely not these days???

Has anyone used bigger cards (1,2 or 4GB) succesfully?:confused:

[dsmith133]

Does anyone know why the 4gb does not work?

[IainP]

Hi, the smaller cards are SD, 2GB and above tend to be SDHC which is not compatible. You can get SD 2GB cards very cheaply on e-bay which work a treat (I use a pair in the Audi). Cheers.

[shaziman]

as long as its not SDHC it'll work. i have 2 x 2gb in mine.

[HouseUK]

I pick my car up on friday and this was one of my questions so ill jump into this thread.

They are Full size (not mini or micro) SD cards that are not SDHC, and the files have to be MP3s? any bit rate restrictions?

The salesman was abit clueless about the whole satnav/stereo issue

[IainP]

Hi, yes they are full size SD cards but must be SD ONLY as SDHC will not work. You can get SD in 2GB quite easily and occasionally 4GB. You can only play MP3's not any other format so if you use iTunes you might need to convert from MP4 to MP3 or set it up to burn as MP3. There are loads of MP4 to MP3 converter tools on the web.

No surprise that the dealers could not help, a bit beyond them i fear :biglaugh:

[El Guapo]

I have two 2gb micro sd cards in mine and they work fine. One thing I noticed the other day though was one album that I had converted to MP3 on one of the discs does not show all the tracks on the cars display but if I look at the card on the pc I can see all the tracks? Why is it only showing some tracks in the car but they are all there in MP3 format? I tried formatting the card and then loaded the music again but still the same. I have been ripping my CD's onto my PC in MP3 format with the bit rate on the highest setting to get the best quality. It has worked on others but this one is a bit baffling? Any ideas anyone?

:confused:

[IainP]

I have the same issue - i reckon the firmware in the unit is not fully comaptible with bigger cards and therefore only displays a limited number of tracks...........you can help a bit of you flatten the folder structure i.e. only have album then tracks instead of artist and album folders followed by the tracks. There is firmware due with the new maps DVD this month I believe, maybe they fix it in that?

[Abyss]

Hi - I pick up my 07 plate A4 Avant on Saturday ( woo-hoo!! ) , and when i was asking about MP3 compatibility, the saleman told me that if I removed the SatNav DVD, it would play a CD/DVD disc full of MP3's - any idea if this is true or not? The salesman didn't seem too sure !!!

[IainP]

Yes it plays normal CD's and CD's with MP3's on them. I've never tried a DVD containing MP3's though and it will also not play DVD movies!!:D

[John140]

I think they probably mean not smaller then 256meg. When you go over 2 Gig the standard changes to SDHC and some olpder cameras and videos will not support this, but if a 256Meg card is supported cards up to 2 GIg should be.
Anyway, you cant fir a geat deal of mapping onto 256Meg if you want most of Western Europe which I use, you need about 512Meg min.

[SINGHY]

I've just bought an 07 model A4 Sline with the same system and have tried a 512mb card and it works, I learnt that you can also use 2 1GB cards so I'm uploading my mucis and will try it at the weekend.

[El Guapo]

I've just bought an 07 model A4 Sline with the same system and have tried a 512mb card and it works, I learnt that you can also use 2 1GB cards so I'm uploading my mucis and will try it at the weekend.

Yes they work as was said before. I have two 2gb cards. :D

[2007DBR9]

Don't worry, big cards work fine! I have a 512 MB in one slot and a 2 GB in the other, and both work fine. It is a really good feature to have, saves my glove box being full of CD's!

[El Guapo]

I have the same issue - i reckon the firmware in the unit is not fully comaptible with bigger cards and therefore only displays a limited number of tracks...........you can help a bit of you flatten the folder structure i.e. only have album then tracks instead of artist and album folders followed by the tracks. There is firmware due with the new maps DVD this month I believe, maybe they fix it in that?

Hi there, just to let you know that I took out the card from the car and then edited the track names on my PC (made them shorter) and now all the tracks are showing in the car. So thanks for that!

:beerchug:

It was a classical album so some of the tracks were well long!

[HouseUK]

I am having some strange issues with this.
Some tracks are not listed on the menus even though i have cut the number of tracks down, and some files will not play, even thought they are excatly the same bitrate/format as other files.

Its almost like the stereo hates certain artists/albums.

[Issac Hunt]

File name lengths must be under 64 characters, and not contain any 'special' characters or the RNS-E will not recognise them.

Have you exceeded the file limit of either 400/512 files per SD card?

[toff]

Have you exceeded the file limit of either 400/512 files per SD card?

Hi,

How come the total amount can vary between those figures? Disk format?

Al.

[BigRD]

Some tracks with ID3 V2 tags will be displayed on the screen but may not play.

The solution is use one of the free tag editors - google it - and remove the ID3 V2 tag. I use Multi ID3 Tag Editor.

Standard SD cards of 4Gb will work fine and as mentioned previously SDHC cards will not work. I recently bought 2 new Sandisc 2Gb cards with a card reader from Play.com for £17 or £12 for just the 2 cards. I have also used a 4Gb Sandisc SD Ultra II without a problem. 4Gb is just a bit overkill for a device with a 400 file/folder limitation.

I've also installed a Kufatec multimedia interface and hard drive media player so using the SD slots isn't so important but nice to have some favourites on there. :D

[obyone]

I am interested in getting a 4gb card and was wondering if you could point me to a website that sells the sandisk non hd card or do you have the part number so that I can track one down.

cheers

[BigRD]

I can't remember where I bought my 4Gb card from - it was a couple of years ago.

Google is your friend :D

[obyone]

BigRD

Thanks for the response. I have been trying to google the card but cannot be sure that it is a none HD card.

[BigRD]

Yep it does appear to be more difficult to find standard 4Gb cards. It's the non HC if you find any 4Gb.

[Abyss]

I just bought four 2GB cards from www.7dayshop.com (http://www.7dayshop.com) for 5 quid each and they work a treat !

[BigRD]

That's a great find and will file for future use. :D

[bcampbell]

I'm using a SanDisk Ultra 4GB in one of my slots - No probs with it. Found it under the camera memory section in e-bay for "peanuts"My only complaint is that the "random" selection keeps resetting each time I skip a track and its a bit of a pain to put it back on

[Dougster]

Just ordered 2 from 7dayshop.

Nice link.

[Dougster]

Got 2 of the cards from 7dayshop.com.

One failed to format and the other appears empty in the car slot while appearing to have tracks on it on the Laptop!!

Anyone help. This is doing my nut in!! :mad:

Update: Could a dodgy card or the reader itself mess up my laptop? Trying to play tracks off the card is crashing my system.

[nphnet]

If you are using a Mac I found this to be a problem, so I formated them as FAT32 in Windows and then copied the music across from the mac, if you are using iTunes then I found a great script just google dougs apple scripts it's called "Rip These To My Mobile" and you specify the SD card, works great but ensure if you delete stuff that you format under windows instead as the .filename still shows otherwise. Other than that I have a solution I'm happy with.

[Dougster]

Windows and only have the option to format as FAT 16 or FAT.

[Dougster]

Update 2: It was suggested by a friend that I try a 32MB card that I had in an old Nokia in my card reader.

Formatted no problems and is recognised by the car.

Now who suggested 7dayshop..........:(

I have sent them an e-mail to ask for a refund. Anyone else had formatting issues with particular cards?

[nphnet]

Windows and only have the option to format as FAT 16 or FAT.

Sorry what version of doze are you running?

[Dougster]

XP Pro.

I reckon it's the cheapo cards.

Just been on www.play.com and we'll soon see.

[Abyss]

I bought 4 of them , and they work just fine.
I have just formatted one in FAT and another in FAT32, and both work fine.
I will say one thing though, when they are inserted into the unit, the display says they are 196MB as opposed to 2GB, but all the tracks are there and all are accessable OK. I think its just a display error.

[nphnet]

If you take a closer look it is probably reading as 1.96gb as you lose space when you format.

[Dougster]

Well one didn't format at all and the other one was giving my laptop severe problems when trying to play tracks from the card.

In car it just said 'card empty'

[nphnet]

I bought 4 of them , and they work just fine.
I have just formatted one in FAT and another in FAT32, and both work fine.
I will say one thing though, when they are inserted into the unit, the display says they are 196MB as opposed to 2GB, but all the tracks are there and all are accessable OK. I think its just a display error.

I stand corrected they do say 196MB

[Dougster]

Ordered another couple for £8.99 delivered from play.com

So what speakers do I have then with this system?? :1zhelp:

I noticed the amp and little sub behind the panel in the boot had Audi logos.

[nphnet]

Sainsbury have 2gb Sandisk branded cards for 7.99 and they work very well.

[Bert Maes]

Question:
I'm driving a 2007 A4 Avant with MMI (2 SD cards slots).

It seems to me the MP3 player only accepts MP3s at 128 bit rate, which is a pretty low quality. Does anybody know if you can upgrade the player?

Thanks !

Bert

[Dougster]

I have just checked and some of my 'back up' tracks are 192 and working fine.

[KQuattro]

Yes 192 bit rate should work fine mine work as well.

I got my 1GB SD card from ebay, came from Hong Kong in a couple of days, didnt even need to format it, just stuck my mp3s on it and it worked first time. One thing to note is that stick with ID3Tag V1 to tag on your tunes as the RNS-E unit picks this up fine.

I use Winamp to sort all the tags out on my files, it also has the ability to change ID3 tag versions to v1.


1GB SD Card
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=230275136787

Ideally you only need one 4GB SD card, as mentioned before the limit is 512 items including songs and folders. Typically on a 4GB card if you rip at 192kbps you can get about 30+ albums each in their own folder. You can fit more if you lower the bit rate but that will compramise sound quality.

All I do is the following:

1. Create a folder for each album in the root directory of the SD card
\Album
2. Copy all mp3 tracks into corresponding album folders
3. Order them by track number
4. Stick it in the RNS-E
5. Select CD/TV
6. Select the card - All album folders are displayed
7. Select what album you want and enjoy.

For track names, whilst your track is playing select push setup and change preference to display track name.

Whilst a track is playing you can push the return button which takes you back to your root folder where all your albums are.

[Dougster]

Nice. I just downloaded ID3tag. Now how do I use it? All I want to do is get rid of track numbers.

http://www.audio-toolz.de/download.php?id=70001

How high can the quality go as I have some Linn files that I might try.

[KQuattro]

Nice. I just downloaded ID3tag. Now how do I use it? All I want to do is get rid of track numbers.

http://www.audio-toolz.de/download.php?id=70001

How high can the quality go as I have some Linn files that I might try.

Not sure on that program mate, I use Winamp. There will be a help file with the download look through that.

[Bert Maes]

Thanks for the help!

My playback issues have now been resolved !

It was a combination of factors apparently:
- Bit rate higher than 192
- Wrong tags (mostly with converted Mpeg 4 files including eg cover pictures)

I use Xilisoft to convert files, works fine. The trial version only allows you to convert 2 files/session, but you can open several sessions simultaneously

[Marshy08]

Hi,
I've just ordered a new A4 SE spec. It doesn't have DVD but it comes with a Concert radio, 'SD memory card reader' and colour screen. I understand that it won't take cards bigger than 2GB but I would like to know is what it will display on the screen - will it show track title, artist genre etc?:confused:

[Roach]

I stand corrected they do say 196MB

It says 196 because the display only allows for 3 digits. The real figure will be between 1960MB and 1969MB

I assume they only programmed it to show 3 digits because it was only tested up to 256MB.

[mick72]

while we r on the subject of SD cards etc for the sat nav plus, does ne one know wot is involved to get the telly and DVD playback option working? I would love these extra toys!

[Flakmunky]

Either an Audi TV unit or an Ebay video unit for about £100...