SD Cards - AAC/MP3 format

[A4chitect]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I recently bought a 2012 A4 Quattro S-Line, and I love it. Well, everything except for the music interface. I purchased a CarPro (similar to tune2air) and I think it's kind of resolved my bluetooth streaming woes...it's a bit glitchy, but it will do.

That said, do Audi's not support AAC song file formats? The reason I ask is because most of my songs are on iTunes Match, and I tend to just stream songs. When I download them and put them on a SD card, it seems my car only wants to read the mp3 format...is this true, or is there some sort of workaround? I really don't want to download all of the songs, then have to convert everything to mp3 format.

[kkemp]

It can play AAC (.mp4) songs but getting them to play off of the SD card is a bit of black magic. There are lots of restrictions, some of which are sort of documented (limits of songs per folder, total songs on card, etc.) and others that people have found by trial and error (bit rates, etc.) It will also not play songs with any DRM on them, so if you purchased songs from iTunes back when it placed DRM on its files they will not work.

I have the CarPro as well and have found that despite its little foibles it is much easier to deal with and more reliable than trying to get my iTunes Match songs to play from the SD card.

[adamazing]

This is one of the biggest reasons I'm so happy I bought a B8.5. 110GB of music on two SD cards is a wonderful thing.

[kkemp]

Are you really sure you can play all 110GB of music? The Audi SD card software has file count limitations that often kick in first. On my Concert radio (B8.5) for example there is a hard limit of 500 songs per card. Although I can load well more than 500 songs on my SD card, and the Concert radio will read the card, it will silently stop reading songs once it gets to 500. The MMI may be different, of course.

[A4chitect]

It can play AAC (.mp4) songs but getting them to play off of the SD card is a bit of black magic. There are lots of restrictions, some of which are sort of documented (limits of songs per folder, total songs on card, etc.) and others that people have found by trial and error (bit rates, etc.) It will also not play songs with any DRM on them, so if you purchased songs from iTunes back when it placed DRM on its files they will not work.

I have the CarPro as well and have found that despite its little foibles it is much easier to deal with and more reliable than trying to get my iTunes Match songs to play from the SD card.

I had a feeling this was the case, I just wanted to see if there was something I didn't know...

Oh well...thanks for your input!

[adamazing]

Are you really sure you can play all 110GB of music? The Audi SD card software has file count limitations that often kick in first. On my Concert radio (B8.5) for example there is a hard limit of 500 songs per card. Although I can load well more than 500 songs on my SD card, and the Concert radio will read the card, it will silently stop reading songs once it gets to 500. The MMI may be different, of course.

100% Positive. I've been using them for the better part of a year now.
I believe the file limit is only applicable to files within a folder. I structured my card (in FAT32 of course) to hold individual folders for each album, with the album tracks inside. Since no album is going to have 500 songs on it, the system identifies each folder and file just fine.

My directory looks like:

Artist A - Album A
Artist A - Album B
Artist A - Album C
Artist B - Album A
Artist B - Album B
Artist C - Album A
etc
etc


It makes for a long list, but it's still alphabetized by Artist. The drawback is that I'm not able to shuffle-play the entire card - I can only shuffle the tracks within a particular album - but that's not a big deal to me.

[auditd0rk]

FWIW, I use an app called Playlist Export (available on the Apple App Store for $5). Makes it easy to export songs and directory structure to my SD card.

[A4chitect]

FWIW, I use an app called Playlist Export (available on the Apple App Store for $5). Makes it easy to export songs and directory structure to my SD card.

I'm not able to find it on my phone...is this only for Mac computers, not iPhones or iPads?

[adamazing]

I used TAG Scanner - freeware. It's a bit more manual but it gave me granular control over everything I wanted in the metadata, including album artwork.

[TheNader]

I've had good luck with a program called MMItunes. I've got a 32gb SD card with ~1200 MP3s on it (most of them at 320kb/s). There doesn't appear to be a hard cap on how many songs the radio (I've got the B&O) can handle, but I will say that every time I add more songs, it takes the radio more time before I can control it. With 200 songs, the radio controls would be responsive instantly. With 1200, it takes about a full minute of unresponsiveness before it's done scanning all of the tracks again.

[auditd0rk]

I'm not able to find it on my phone...is this only for Mac computers, not iPhones or iPads?

Sorry, missed your comment... Yeah, it's for the Mac.

[Peter.dupuis]

A while back I saw a post about someone using Apple TV in there b8.5. Anyone know about that? Or if it's possible


Sent from my iPhone using Audizine mobile app

[Fastbke170]

100% Positive. I've been using them for the better part of a year now.
I believe the file limit is only applicable to files within a folder. I structured my card (in FAT32 of course) to hold individual folders for each album, with the album tracks inside. Since no album is going to have 500 songs on it, the system identifies each folder and file just fine.

My directory looks like:

Artist A - Album A
Artist A - Album B
Artist A - Album C
Artist B - Album A
Artist B - Album B
Artist C - Album A
etc
etc


It makes for a long list, but it's still alphabetized by Artist. The drawback is that I'm not able to shuffle-play the entire card - I can only shuffle the tracks within a particular album - but that's not a big deal to me.

Thats Strange As I use a Single Fat32 SD card 64GB card and Once I Select Mix Mode it will Shuffle through all folders and Seems limitless. Concert Radio NO Nav

[adamazing]

Thats Strange As I use a Single Fat32 SD card 64GB card and Once I Select Mix Mode it will Shuffle through all folders and Seems limitless. Concert Radio NO Nav

Interesting, I've been through all the setting countless times and I don't have the option to set the shuffle reading across the entire card - only the current folder I'm in. I suppose I could re-group the card by adding a parent folder and putting all my albums in there. Maybe that would work, but I don't really need shuffle anymore. maybe I'll give it a shot when Im bored one day.

[kkemp]

OK, I just went and scanned my manual to get some definitive answers. This is from my 2016 with Concert (no nav). YMMV on other radios and model years.

The salient points are these:
- For the SD card there is an overall limit of 2,048 songs on the card, with a limit of 512 per folder, and a limit of 255 folders (my earlier guess of 500 per card was a bit low)
- It can play MP3, WMA, and AAC files but notably the latter must be "Low Complexity." This may explain why some iTunes songs do not play even if they lack DRM.

I have noticed that there is no error if you exceed any of the limits above - it will load what it can and just stop when it hits its limit. If you try to play a playlist that points to a song it could not load it will just skip it until it finds one that it can play. So you may not notice it very often - while it *seems* limitless, it's definitely not.

Also, with respect to the different shuffle behavior: you can change how it shuffles, but confusingly by changing the repeat setting, which also controls shuffle behavior. Open the "control" menu while playing a file, then scroll around to the "repeat" area of the circle and you can chose what level it repeats at (e.g. entire medium, within a folder, etc.) This setting will also apply to shuffle, so it will shuffle all songs in folder, or a playlist, etc.

EDIT: just saw you said you could not access the entire medium for shuffle. The manual does say that the available options may vary but does not explain why they vary and under what circumstances you get what options.

[adamazing]

I'm willing to put that to the test. There's already a discrepancy in the brochure because I'm running dual 64GB SDXC cards - which it says it not supported.

I would assume the system would load the files in organic order, meaning the the 2,049th file and beyond would not be playable? Or is it completely random everything you boot the system?

[kkemp]

You have an MMI system with Nav and dual SD cards though, don't you? Given how different our systems are it would not surprise me at all if they had different file limits.

[adamazing]

Ah, great point. Forgot about that.

[kkemp]

Also, totally off topic, but I have been watching your build thread and wrapping progress and it looks absolutely fantastic!

[adamazing]

Also, totally off topic, but I have been watching your build thread and wrapping progress and it looks absolutely fantastic!

Thanks man! That means a lot since it was my first time wrapping anything, and the sheer amount of time and effort it took.

[BVB_Hawk]

I'm willing to put that to the test. There's already a discrepancy in the brochure because I'm running dual 64GB SDXC cards - which it says it not supported.

I would assume the system would load the files in organic order, meaning the the 2,049th file and beyond would not be playable? Or is it completely random everything you boot the system?

If something isn't supported, that doesn't necessarily mean it won't work. It just means that Audi won't guarantee that such a configuration will work.