Leaf Audio/Music Features

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Well, I'm still at a loss.

I copied over two CD's worth of music to a freshly formatted stick. I copied each album sequentially with a 3rd party file manager in order starting with Track 1. Both sets of music were in different folders with the Artist name.

The playback is "random" and not in numerical order.

Maybe just for the heck of it, I should choose "All random" and see what happens :)

It may not sound like much, but it sure is weird to losten to music that isn't in the track order that I've been listening to for years. Back to the drawing board...
 
"Directory order" is the worst possible thing, since FAT doesn't sort directories. Files are written in an order that is usually not visible to the Windows user.

If you select 10 files in Windows and "Drag & Drop" them to media, they aren't even in the selection order, or the source order! Windows has always had a strange deal with the first selection moving to the bottom, etc.

If you want to see the 'raw' directory order, you have to use a DOS window and run DIR, since Windows will always sort them for display. (They are not sorted in the volume.)

So.. if the LEAF is really going by FAT Directory order, it's darn near random unless you take measures to write them in a specific order.
 
I'm still trying to come up with the best way to organize the MP3's on my USB drive to work best with the LEAF. What are you guys planning on doing? The songs showing up in Album folders is not my favorite since I don't really know all my Album names that well. Artist seems like a good way to organize, no?

I did download TagScanner and MP3 Tag Studio. They seem great for populating the MP3 tags, or renaming files. I can't seem to figure out how to use them to move files around and re-create the folder structure. Doesn't seem to come with documentation. Could I get a quick tutorial on how to get my MP3's into a better folder structure that works with the LEAF?

thanks,
Peter
 
prberg said:
I did download TagScanner and MP3 Tag Studio. They seem great for populating the MP3 tags, or renaming files. I can't seem to figure out how to use them to move files around and re-create the folder structure.
In TagScanner check "Restructure files on disc..." under Music Renamer tab. Use a format of something like %albumartist% \ %albumartist%-%album% \ %filename%.

BTW, I've not tried this option. So, test before converting the whole collection.

In terms, of the best way to organize, I guess we have to figure that out yet. But the above format I think would be a good start.
 
A little more success to report.

Using the same "track number in order" method of copying to my USB stick (that didn't play that way in the LEAF), I burned an MP3 data CD in the same manner with 4 folders, each one with one album's worth of songs. The folders had the name of each Artist.

When I burned this to CD and played it in the LEAF, it worked just fine and played the songs in the proper track # order...

Randy
 
CDs and USB drives are prepared differently -- they have different filesystems.

USB drives (and SD cards in adapters) are FAT formatted, where the order of files is largely random or mixed up.

CDs are written in ISO9660/CDFS and have more planning that goes into the layout. The burning software puts them in order.
 
Okay, more work this afternoon, and I think I can safely say that the USB audio sorting problem is identified.

Here is what I found...

I downloaded a free program called DriveSort that was billed as sorting the order of files on the stick specifically for mp3 players. I thought I was on the right track. What I discovered is that the files were already written and sorted by track order. Sorting them again left them in the same order.

Ah, but this program alerted me to something I didn't know.

I have a collection of over 50,000 mp3 files and have been converting my music collection for a number of years. I've been particular about file names and tags, but the DriveSort program showed me that I have some "funkiness" with the SHORT file names of my audio files. They were created at different times on different machines, copied around, etc. The tags and LONG file names look great, but it was the SHORT file names that were causing the problem.

The LEAF appears to be playing the files according to the alpha order of the SHORT file names. Tried several experiments and verified it every time.

I used a file manager (ZTree) to mass rename all the audio files on the USB stick to 01.mp3, 02.mp3, etc in order and verified that it changed both the SHORT and LONG filenames to those music files. Once I tried it in the LEAF, everything worked okay. So I could do a mass file rename on the USB stick when I add new music or delete/re-write music and that would fix it. The LEAF does pick up the Artist, Track Name, and Album Name tag info, but sorting is done by the short file name.....I wouldn't have guessed it....

RedRandy
 
Randy said:
I used a file manager (ZTree) to mass rename all the audio files on the USB stick to 01.mp3, 02.mp3, etc in order and verified that it changed both the SHORT and LONG filenames to those music files. Once I tried it in the LEAF, everything worked okay. So I could do a mass file rename on the USB stick when I add new music or delete/re-write music and that would fix it. The LEAF does pick up the Artist, Track Name, and Album Name tag info, but sorting is done by the short file name.....I wouldn't have guessed it....
Very interesting. So it is not playing in the order you wrote it - but alpha of the short name ?
 
I would love to be able to modify the short file names and leave the long names alone, so I'll be searching around to see if a tool is available to do that...
 
Randy said:
I would love to be able to modify the short file names and leave the long names alone, so I'll be searching around to see if a tool is available to do that...
Yes - and then make the short file names start with track #. Even otherwise we can change the long file names to start with track # - that will make leaf play them by track #s.
 
Randy said:
I would love to be able to modify the short file names and leave the long names alone, so I'll be searching around to see if a tool is available to do that...
Not sure how various implementations of the FAT filesystem might deal with this. This might cause some software to get confused, so proceed with caution! Probably safer to just be sure that the first few characters of the long filename force the desired sort order, since the first few characters of both filenames are supposed to match.
 
I THINK that there are NOT both Short and Long file names, but that Short (8-characters before the "dot") are "manufactured" from Long names.

I thought that the long names aee truncated to 8 characters, and then, if there are duplicate names, a "~1", "~2", "~3", etc. would be substituted for the last of the 8 characters, as needed.

If there are more than 9 (or 99?) "duplicates", I do not know what it does.

But, I have never encountered both a "long" and a totally different "short" file name.

Could you please give some examples of the long, and corresponding short, file names (to help me learn)?
 
I learned something interesting today... I have Slacker internet radio on my Android phone (Evo 4G) and I connected it via the Bluetooth for both phone and audio this morning. When I entered the car this afternoon and restarted it I had bluetooth on in my phone, the car connected to it automatically, restarted the Slacker app (it was off at the time), and started playing again. Also, the skip track in the stereo/steering wheel skips the song in the Slacker app. I can leave the screen off and control the Slacker app using the car (pause also works). I have the Slacker app set to the higher quality audio and it sounds great through the Bluetooth connection. It does not display any song information in the stereo but that I do not mind. I also placed a call while playing Slacker radio; it paused the music during the call (very clear connection) and then resumed it when I hung up. The voice command also worked well to dial the number I spoke to it. Needless to say I am very impressed and happy.
 
tps said:
Not sure how various implementations of the FAT filesystem might deal with this. This might cause some software to get confused, so proceed with caution! Probably safer to just be sure that the first few characters of the long filename force the desired sort order, since the first few characters of both filenames are supposed to match.

Nope. There are certain conventions employed by Windows in *creating* the short filenames from the long names. Indeed, some are patented as part of VFAT. This is to ensure that the short filename is unique (no two the same in one directory), and that it's at least vaguely suggestive of the long filename for programs that were stuck to 8.3.

BUT.. you are free to assign ANY valid 8.3 short name to any long filename. They do not need to be related in any way.
 
I believe the answer would be "no video", at least while the car is ON (ready to drive, in motion or not) since that is against CA state law.

Any "video" screens need to be located where the driver cannot watch them.

So, legally, it could be done in ACC (not with the AUX-Audio Input) mode, if it was programmed to handle video and had the correct CODEXs available.

Edit to correct AUX to ACC
 
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