Audi Music Interface and AAC music files

[Pbro]

Hi

We have a 2010 A4 with AMI.

I have formatted a SD card to FAT format. And put some AAC music files on it but it can't even detect them let alone play them.

The manual says AMI only supports MP3 and WMA music files. Has there been any updates to allow playback of AAC files as lack of support for this is a quite a let down ?

(It can play AAC files that are on my iPod , but this must be because the AMI is taking the analogue line out feed from the iPod).

[Simon68]

A workaround would be to use the facility within Itunes to convert files to MP3 and to copy these onto your SD Card. When you copy them to MP3 you will need to choose the option to display the MP3 files which you can then select and copy and paste direct to your SD Card. Remember once you have done this to delete the files in itunes so that you don't end up with the AAC and MP3 versions.
If you get stuck just search in youtube for converting AAC to MP3.... lots of examples.
Just so you know my friend took delivery of an S5 in December and he had similar issues, however some of his tracks played and some didn't. Doing the above cured the issue.
If you get stuck PM a contact and I will talk you through it.

I forgot to mention that I seem to remember that there were some size limitations on memory cards..... it maybe that cards in excess of 4gb don't work.... also ensure your card is not a SDHC one.

[Pbro]

Hello Simon.

I tried a SD card (non-HC) and aac to mp3 conversions work fine.

Interestingly , in my 2008 A6 I then tried a SDHC card in a generic SD card reader connected to a AMI usb cable and it was even able to play some AAC files albeit after a few more seconds ,even though my A6 manual specifies support for only mp3 and WMA ( they must have enabled AAC support in a AMI software update I presume .) What's more, the AAC tracks sound better than the mp3 conversions, more of a kick about them. They not surprisingly also sound better than via the AMI Bluetooth dongle from my iPhone .

For my A6 I think I will put my entire virtually all AAC library onto a SDHC card and give that a whirl.

[Simon68]

You would think in this day you wouldn't have issues..... its not like this is new tech!

Unsure about the update...... I have always found that I know more about the updates than the dealers and whenever I talk to them about connecting usb/sd's & iphones you may as well go and talk to a wall!

Glad you got something to work.......

Regards

[Pbro]

Thanks for chiming in.

I have transferred my 10gb AAC iTunes library to a SDHC card and all the AAC tracks I have tried so far play just fine in my 2008 A6. The only niggles- its clunky browse by artist only and I can't get it to shuffle.

I have been advised that I can use DirSync Pro to perform incremental syncs between my iTunes library folder and the SDHC card which should be quite a convenience.