Experiments with HDD and ID3 Tags

[Hippogriff]

My 120GB Samsung S1 arrived today, very dinky, see it compared to the WD My Passport, here:

http://www.hmusiccentre.org.uk/forumimages/ami/Disks.jpg

That will fit into the AMI netting much better than the WD My Passport. Also, it is only 120GB in capacity, so I will not be wasting so much space when compared to the 320GB WD My Passport.

When I plugged it in it was recognised almost immediately - not sure whether this is a function of the capacity or the small number of files I had on there to start with, will check that out in more detail later. However, Audi had mentioned to me that there were some "issues" with 320GB disks - those remain unspecific I'm afraid.

However, my testing today had been about Track ordering in the MMI screen. I had noticed that Tracks going via the AMI were displayed by their filenames until you play them, then the MMI screen shows the "Title" ID3 tag. Yet, with things you have imported into the Jukebox, the Tracks are displayed by their ID3 "Title" tag only - not their filename - and this is before you play them.

I took an Album, Humbug by Arctic Monkeys, which has the following Tracks:

01, My Propeller.mp3
02, Crying Lightning.mp3
03, Dangerous Animals.mp3
04, Secret Door.mp3
05, Potion Approaching.mp3
06, Fire And The Thud.mp3
07, Cornerstone.mp3
08, Dance Little Liar.mp3
09, Pretty Visitors.mp3
10, The Jeweller's Hand.mp3
11, I Haven't Got My Strange.mp3
12, Red Right Hand.mp3

And copied it to my Samsung S1 - all Tracks have their ID3 v1.1 tags filled in correctly, with the Track Number tag being derived from the last two bytes of the Comment tag. No Tracks have any ID3 v2 tags.

I copied it twice... once with the filenames as is, and once with the filenames changed to remove the first four characters, i.e. the "01, " so it just had the Track name - the ID3 v1.1 tags remained unchanged.

When browsing the Album with the leading Track Number in the filename, I saw:

http://www.hmusiccentre.org.uk/forumimages/ami/AMI (Tracks with leading Track Number, and ID3 v.1.1 Tag).jpg

When browsing the Album without the leading Track Number in the filename, I saw:

http://www.hmusiccentre.org.uk/forumimages/ami/AMI (Tracks without leading Track Number, and ID3 v.1.1 Tag).jpg

As you can see, the AMI completely alphabetises the Tracks if they are not prefixed by a Track Number in the filename... it has not scanned the ID3 tags present in the files and ordered them appropriately.

I then imported the Album into the Jukebox, and saw:

http://www.hmusiccentre.org.uk/forumimages/ami/Jukebox after Import.jpg

So the Jukebox ignores the filename completely and it most definitely scans the ID3 tags and reads the Track Number tag derived from the last two bytes of the Comment tag and orders the Tracks as they should be.

Basically, the AMI cannot be depended upon to order your Tracks, unless you specifically include the Track Number in the filename. The Jukebox will always order your Tracks based on the ID3 tags.

Two very different ways of doing things... smacking of pretty poor overall integration.

Still, I have high hopes for the Samsung S1.

[BMWBig6]

Good to know, thanks for sharing your findings and screenshots. +1 rep!

[Hippogriff]

I am a happy-puppy.

I have copied the music I want to the Samsung S1, it fits into the AMI netting as snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug. But - get this - the last two times I have started the car, only quick tests, the music has restarted where it left off last time - instead of going back to the first track of the first album by the first artist, like it did all the time previously.

I need to test this after a much longer time with the car turned off... but if it does do it, then I will be mightily pleased. I'm almost on tenterhooks now.

Also, I now have a 320GB WD My Passport to repurpose.

[troc]

Also, I now have a 320GB WD My Passport to repurpose.

You could do what I did and extract the 320 GB drive from the passport (it's easy) and then swap it with the one in your laptop.

Of course this only works if you have a laptop, you want a larger drive in it, it's the same physical size and interface, you can easily get the original drive "cloned" onto the new one and other "minor" hassles :biglaugh:.

Then again, I now have a WB passport 80GB drive which has nothing to do..... :(

[ScottyUK]

Good work Hippo.

I have to agree that there's quite a lot of inconsistent coding in the MMI. Perhaps they should get some real world people to test their software before releasing it rather than their lab rats :(

TBH I wouldn't mind so much if they were open to feedback and valid customer input but it just seems like the frachises aren't bothered as there's no money in it for them.

[BMWBig6]

Weird, all of the USB HDDs I have tried in my car always started where I left off (in the middle of a song) when I turned the car back on, unless I happened to disconnect the hard drive (to add more music) and turned the car on without the drive connected (at which point AMI would detect it as a new device at that point and started at the first song of first album of first artist, as you described). I do have 2G AMI though.

I was able to "trick" the AMI a few times, by disconnecting the drive (car off) while it was in the middle of say Track 34 in a playlist. When I added more songs to the top of the same playlist (and Track 34 got pushed down to Track 36 for example), AMI started playing the "new" Track 34 (which was actually Track 32 before). So I guess it sets a bookmark by track or index number.

[Hippogriff]

With the 320GB WD My Passport drive, the car consistently started playing at the beginning of the first track of the first album of the first artist each time I started. It was not a dream... and it was most frustrating. Especially as I had put some Alanis Morissette on there. :Blush2:

If changing the drive has got rid of that niggle, then I will stop my moaning about all [most] other things.

As you say... "weird".

I think it would be nice if USB devices attached to the AMI presented tracks in the MMI screen as the Jukebox does though. It would be consistent and it would be better.

[MFGF]

So the Jukebox ignores the filename completely and it most definitely scans the ID3 tags and reads the Track Number tag derived from the last two bytes of the Comment tag and orders the Tracks as they should be.

Basically, the AMI cannot be depended upon to order your Tracks, unless you specifically include the Track Number in the filename. The Jukebox will always order your Tracks based on the ID3 tags.

Two very different ways of doing things... smacking of pretty poor overall integration.

Thanks for this useful info Hippo. I'm amazed that something as simple as interrogating ID3 tags has not been implemented for the AMI listings. Even the SD card slots have this feature, so why not AMI? Given that the track being played via AMI proves the ID3 content is available via AMI, it's surely a simple software tweak on Audi's part to enable this for listings.

Delighted to hear your car now seems to be remembering where you left off mid-track last time!

MF.

[Hippogriff]

So - I have left the car switched off for several hours and have just gone out for a quick spin and... the car remembered what song I was playing when I turned it off last!!!

Result! :beerchug:

All that doubt about whether to plump for the Samsung S1 now seems such a waste of time and silly reflection.

Considering much the same tracks have gone onto this Samsung S1 - using the same program I wrote to copy them across and organise them - as was on the WD My Passport, I can only conclude one of two possibilities...

1) The brand of disk somehow mattered for me - personally, I doubt it very much.
2) The capacity of the disk somehow mattered for me - 320GB didn't work and 120GB works like a charm.

A relatively expensive lesson, I guess... but a lesson I'm glad to have learned. Now I can live with my car... before this was fixed my enjoyment was being significantly spoiled.

I recommend the Samsung S1 for fitting in the AMI netting very nicely and working with the AMI very nicely.

[juniperz]

So - I have left the car switched off for several hours and have just gone out for a quick spin and... the car remembered what song I was playing when I turned it off last!!!

Result! :beerchug:

All that doubt about whether to plump for the Samsung S1 now seems such a waste of time and silly reflection.

Considering much the same tracks have gone onto this Samsung S1 - using the same program I wrote to copy them across and organise them - as was on the WD My Passport, I can only conclude one of two possibilities...

1) The brand of disk somehow mattered for me - personally, I doubt it very much.
2) The capacity of the disk somehow mattered for me - 320GB didn't work and 120GB works like a charm.

A relatively expensive lesson, I guess... but a lesson I'm glad to have learned. Now I can live with my car... before this was fixed my enjoyment was being significantly spoiled.

I recommend the Samsung S1 for fitting in the AMI netting very nicely and working with the AMI very nicely.
I am glad it has worked out for you.
Just one further, though inconclusive, data point.
I have the 320GB WD Passport HDD in my car.
It remembers exactly where is was overnight.
A difference is that I split mine into 2 partitions; the music is on the smaller 40GB one (though only about 600 tracks at the moment).

I can't tell you whether I have 2G or 3G MMI, because I don't have MMI - just AMI in a 2010MY registered in July.

No idea whether that helps you!

(Not relevant, but the 2nd partition is completely encrypted as it might be used as a bizarre form of off-site secure storage. Before I did the encryption, I did put music on both partitions to see what the Audi could see - predictably, just the first partition).

[Hippogriff]

Gut feel now is that it is a capacity thing - whether we're talking about the overall disk size in a single partition, or the first partition on the disk...

I suppose I could have partitioned my WD My Passport for one last sanity check, but now that I have my Samsung S1 snugly tucked-up in bed (AMI netting) I think I'll leave it there.

Curiosity only goes so far... sometimes... about as far as a working solution... often.

[BMWBig6]

FWIW, I have a 500 GB drive on a single partition, with 23,000 songs scattered across some really poor file/folder architecture. :)

[Hippogriff]

It certainly seems that restrictions were intentionally introduced with MMI 3G. I say that to clarify against what I may have originally thought, in that these restrictions were a throwback to earlier versions.

Maybe unlimited could be a hack on performance, I don't know (I don't necessarily see how navigating folder structures costs that much in CPU cycles) but I do think Audi (if that is a reason) have gone ultra-safe with their 4,000 limit in MMI 3G.

However, I can't get past it, I'm a lot happier today than I was yesterday.

[AndyH123]

Nice thread - the UI on 3G looks to have some nice refinements.

I'll just chip in and say on my 2G I've also never had a problem with the HDD picking up from where I left it.


Is there playlist support now for USB? I believe that's still one niggle of the 2G AMI with USB.

[BMWBig6]

Is there playlist support now for USB? I believe that's still one niggle of the 2G AMI with USB.

2G has always supported playlists of .M3U file format, as long as they are limited to 999 songs or less. If you have them sprinkled throughout your harddrive file folder structure, it may take AMI a few minutes to crawl and index them, but I put all of my important playlists in the root directory and they show up immediately.

More info (from A5OC):


Originally Posted by Deepmeister View Post
Playlists need to be stored at the "top"/"root" of the file storage tree and take the form "MyPlayList.m3u" as a text file.

An example of the contents of the file is as follows:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:246,My Track Name
\MyPath\MyFolder\MyTrack.mp3
#EXTINF:321,Another Track
\MyOtherPath\MyFavArtist\Song.mp3
etc, etc,

I build the files manually on a Mac without any issues. The contents are specifically as follows:

The phrase "#EXTM3U" is the first line.

The next two lines are for each track in the playlist, and you can have as many as you need in the playlist. I have upto 60 in one of them so the limit is quite high.

You start the line with "#EXTINF:" and then add the track length in seconds, followed by a comma, and then the name of the track as you would like it to appear in the list.

The second of the two lines per track is the path to the file as you have stored it in your folder hierarchy.

It is quite easy to extract this data from iTunes by saving the playlist as a text file, and then manually tweaking it. The textfile already has the trackname, duration in seconds, path, etc, you just need to copy/paste it around a bit into an "m3u" format.

Just remember to save the text in Windoze text format, not native MacOS or Unix text format. Of course, if you use Windoze, your text editor will already save it in Windoze format.

Hope it helps!

Though he says they have to be at the top/root, my AMI recognizes playlist files that I didn't even remember having in deeper directory paths. So I'm not sure about that particular limitation (mine works better than advertised I guess).

[AndyH123]

Superb - I shall give that a go! Thanks!