[LR-Phan]

The ability to play audio tracks from a USB stick plugged into the socket in the centre console seems to be a real boon. Others have drawn attention to the lack of inclusion of a CD player but since it is easy to copy CDs (or indeed your ITunes library) onto a USB stick that can be left plugged in permanently (preferably a 'low-profile' version that will take up virtually no space in the cubby) and which is very robust.
The USB needs to be -
· formatted to FAT 32 and audio files must be .mp3 format
. the minimum bitrate of the files must be 128kbps (there is no max), and
· it is more efficient if the number of folders not be huge!

However, you can encounter some issues. Firstly, copied tracks will normally appear in the USB track list by order of the date of the file rather than alphabetically which can make it difficult to locate a particular track n the list. I have previously posted a solution to this which rearranges your folders i.e. artist/albums etc and the individual tracks contained therein) into alphabetical order (see http://discosportforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=200&p=1532#p1532.

But, if like me, you wish to play a list of tracks selected from those by different artists or albums (either sequentially or, if you press the shuffle tracks icon, in random order, you will need to produce a 'Playlist file'. A playlist can, for example, play only your favourite tracks of an album or your favourite songs, tracks for the kids or - spare me! - Christmas songs. They can also be useful to ensure that you play individual movements of a classical work in the correct order. You can, of course, have any number of different playlist files.

Such a playlist file needs to be in .m3u format and located in the root folder of the USB. It is essentially a form of text file that lists the tracks to play by location. Fortunately, it is very easy to compile such playlists files and there are many different freebie programs available for download. The one which I use very successfully is Playlist Creator 3.6.2 - this is available (for Windows) from http://www.oddgravity.de/.

 

[chris24747]

Aha! Nice find regarding the need to put the m3u files into the root. I had a folder with my play lists in which simply did not appear on the interface.

One thing to note for others is that if you make a play list with windows media player, it tends to use 'absolute' locations to tracks (ie includes C:\music\artist\track1.mp3). This will not work as the car won't have the same drive nomenclature. You will need to make sure that the playlist uses 'relative' links (ie just 'artist\track1.mp3').

You may need to make changes to your play list files if, like me, you have to move the location of the m3u file relative to the music files.

Just something to bear in mind if playlist aren't working.

 

[Charles]

Thanks for this. May need some more help when I get my car and tried the above

 

[rtdf]

Such a playlist file needs to be in .m3u format and located in the root folder of the USB. It is essentially a form of text file that lists the tracks to play by location. Fortunately, it is very easy to compile such playlists files and there are many different freebie programs available for download. The one which I use very successfully is Playlist Creator 3.6.2 - this is available (for Windows) from http://www.oddgravity.de/.

Hi, I tried the playlist creator without success.. Music is in folders, playlist in root, but no music in the play list. The settings had the path set as relative, going to try absolute.. Just wondering if there was another trick to get it to work.. whether it prefers / rather than \ etc.

ta.

 

[Twobar]

I have an ipod touch permanently plugged in and I have encountered a few issues with it:

Sometimes the displayed track name does not match the track actually playing
Sometimes the ipod does not automatically start up - the screen just jams on "Media" and I have to press play on the ipod itself to get it going
Also "Track List" is always greyed out... does this only operate on a USB stick and not on an ipod?

Has anyone encountered similar issues?

Thanks

 

[rtdf]

I did have my Ipod in but it wasn't always there on start - not sure if cable issue now, but perhaps not from what you're saying. I'll have to have another look.

 

[RachelG]

We have an iPod classic but can't get it to work.

Btw does your radio/music automatically come on when you start the engine? Ours seems to come on even if we didn't have the radio on the last time we drove the car!

 

[chrisdeben]

I came across this thread and found it really helpful, so I wanted to add some additional notes based on my experience. Maybe this will help someone else. If you have a USB drive with a capacity above 32GB that you can't get working, read on - maybe this will solve your problem.

I purchased a 64GB USB Drive thinking I could easily store my 350 +/- CDs and have them all available in my Discovery Sport. So after spending a few hours cleaning up the collection (MediaMonkey is my ripping and organizing tool of choice) I copied everything onto the USB drive. I had a few errors so I deleted all of the files which took a surprisingly long time, and after that I reloaded. Again, some errors to be corrected and files to reorganize, so I decided to clear the drive again. Since the first time took a while, I thought I'd just format it...and that's where the fun began.

I did the obvious think and right-clicked on the drive and selected format. My 2 choices were exFAT and NTFS, and since I had seen the previous post on using FAT32 I figured I'd pick exFAT. My (admittedly flawed) thinking was that exFAT was simply a newer version of FAT32 or some such thing. The drive was cleared in seconds, I reloaded it, and plugged it into the USB port. Nothing. The drive wasn't recognized. So after some research, I learned I do have to format as FAT32, but there is no way to do that in Windows. Since the drive was over 32GB, I didn't have the FAT32 option at all. Only problem, exFAT and NTFS, neither of which will work.

I did some digging and found a DOS command that I could try (total throwback, huh?) but that didn't work either:

C:\Users\Chris>format e: /FS:FAT32 /Q /X
Insert new disk for drive E:
and press ENTER when ready...
The type of the file system is EXFAT.
The new file system is FAT32.
QuickFormatting 60.5 GB
The volume is too big for FAT32.
Format failed.

So now I had a USB drive that I've effectively destroyed for my purposes because it somehow arrived formatted as FAT32 but I've now changed that format to exFAT and can't get it back! However, since it arrived as FAT32 I figured there had to be a way to resolve that problem. So some further searching led me to a utility called "2Tware Fat32Foramt Free 1.0" which I downloaded from CNET (http://download.cnet.com/2Tware-Fat32Format/3000-2094_4-75623509.html). That utility was able to get it back to FAT32, back to 64GB (technically 60.5), and then I loaded it up again and it worked! Problem solved.

One last note...if you use MediaMonkey to create the playlists, you have to export them to the local computer then copy them to the USB drive. When I exported to the USB drive directly, it added in the full path name. However, when exported to the PC first, it used the relative path names which is required as mentioned in the previous post.

 

[BobbyBox]

The OP refers to a shuffle mode.
Where is this option. I can't find it?
I do not have the Meridian system.

BB

 

[wardie]

See this thread I started on the play order topic.
http://www.discosportforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2269&start=40
I had a problem when browsing albums off USB as the track play order proposed was alphabetical when viewing by album name (or artist name) whereas obviously you want it by track sequence number on albums (01, 02 etc). My dealer applied a software uograde and it now works as expected. But I think browsing by USB folder mode shows it somehow differently, probably by timestamp like OP says.
Bizarrely it was not a problem once a playlist was established as it resorted them correctly when playing, it was only a problem when browsing to select the playlist initially. (Note: I do not mean using playlist files just the internal list the system creates of tracks to play as a result of browsing)

 

[LR-Phan]

The OP refers to a shuffle mode.
Where is this option. I can't find it?
I do not have the Meridian system.

BB

On the 'Standard' system, go to the Infortainment screen
- select Media
- select USB
- the bottom line shows a series of controls...
- the furthest left is the Shuffle play order: graphic is two arrows that cross over. Touch to elect shuffle (arrows highlight)
- similarly the furthest right is the Repeat: graphic is two arrows chasing each other.

Both the Shuffle and Repeat options should work on tracks playing by artist, album or playlist. I assume there is a similar facility on the Meridian system.

 

[luca67]

Hi, i read carefully the post but i can't create playlist on USB device (the playlist file are in the usb stick but LR system doesn't recognize them)
i create m3u file and try different option (relative, absolute ecc., put them in root directory or in specific folder etc) - in my usb device i've all my songs organized by folders.
Could you help me? i don't want to buy IPOD if it's possible...
thanks in advance

 

[MikeJohn]

Sorry to re-awaken an old thread, but this seems the most relevant topic!

Has anyone managed to get playlists to work with InControl Touch Pro (ICTP) Version 17C ? I have a smallish memory stick, with just a handful of tracks to experiment with. Created a couple of playlists and save as m3u in the root folder.

I can play the tracks OK and browse folders and see albums artists etc all fine. But I cannot find any option to play a playlist.

According to the manual it should be next to browse etc but I cannot see it.

Any clues? Or have they removed support for playlists for some obscure reason?

Thanks in anticipation

Mike

 

[s5156]

Hi MikeJohn, I'm not sure if this will help or not, but I had this very same hassle with my 2018 Volvo XC60 (I had 2 x DS's and rejected them both due to build quality problems). I know it's a different vehicle but I created a doc that explains how to create playlists etc. some of the information MAY be transferable so it's worth a look at least. I have attached a PDF file.
Good luck, cheers
View attachment My Solution.pdf

 

[MikeJohn]

Thanks very much for the ideas in the attachment - I have done very similar steps to create the playlist and it is sitting in the root folder. Problem is I cannot find an option anywhere to actually play the playlist...

If you browse folders and find the m3u file you can select it but the system then tells you it contains no playable media - which is actually correct suppose but it is clearly not recognising it as a proper playlist.

Still trying to work out if I have done something wrong, or not. Playing the playlist on a PC works fine so I think what I have done is OK.
Any other ideas most welcome!

Thanks

Mike

 

[s5156]

Hi MikeJohn (Mike)
I have the m3u files included within each album folder NOT in the Root folder. On my system it needs to be in each "album" and I believe that it's the main reason I can't do a "shuffle" of all the files (but only within each album). I do understand we're talking "apples and bowling ball" with the DS system and the XC60 system but that's how it worked for me on the XC60.
I do remember having similar problems with my USB in the DS (in fact with both of them) and nobody at the time could give me a "directory structure" to use that would work.
Anyway, good luck, David

 

[ccomley]

Did anyone get to the bottom of this?

I've been having a play. I can kinda get it working... then something doesn't and I don't know why not.

My USB stick contains loads of old M3U files from so far back... they show as empty. But when I open them in an editor I can see that the lines all contain a drive letter and an incorrect (for the current situation) file path. If I edit this to have NO drive letter and the correct file path from the root of the USB, then it works!!!

Except the lists are so old they don't have a lot of my recent stuff in.

So I created a new list from scratch, actually in WinAMP, export it, edit out the drive letter and...

The playlist itself doesn't even show up. I tried putting it in the root. I tried putting it in the "music" folder.

The ones it DOES see are in such a bizarre subfolder (has to do with the app I was using ten years ago!!) that I'm surprised anything can find them - clearly the system searches down the tree. So why doesn't it find my new list file?

 

[Barnsh]

Did anyone get to the bottom of this?

I've been having a play. I can kinda get it working... then something doesn't and I don't know why not.

My USB stick contains loads of old M3U files from so far back... they show as empty. But when I open them in an editor I can see that the lines all contain a drive letter and an incorrect (for the current situation) file path. If I edit this to have NO drive letter and the correct file path from the root of the USB, then it works!!!

Except the lists are so old they don't have a lot of my recent stuff in.

So I created a new list from scratch, actually in WinAMP, export it, edit out the drive letter and...

The playlist itself doesn't even show up. I tried putting it in the root. I tried putting it in the "music" folder.

The ones it DOES see are in such a bizarre subfolder (has to do with the app I was using ten years ago!!) that I'm surprised anything can find them - clearly the system searches down the tree. So why doesn't it find my new list file?

Is this what you are doing ?

 

[ccomley]

Not quite. The format of the file is fine, it's having the system FIND the file that appears to be the issue.

 

[Barnsh]

Not quite. The format of the file is fine, it's having the system FIND the file that appears to be the issue.

It should find it in the root / or in a folder in the root. The path to the music is relative to the placement of the file .
A bit like c:\playlist file on a pc when playing the usb

This points to c:\: root so any path ( in the list) is relative to C: no need to change the start of paths if the list is in root.

It could be the old music has a location stored in its file and that can't be found by the new playlist file , is it looking to match the original path name to name in the music file.i.e embedded.?

Try creating a usb with just new music? If that gets to work you know where the list file should be saved.
Then work on the old separately with another USB and file list

You may then see the difference?
Or be able to have both copied together.