[rusky_335]

I pick up my idrive-equipped 335i at the factory in June, so I was starting to rip all my CD's to mp3, with the intention of transferring them to the built-in hard drive. Two questions:

1) It occurred to me that since I was using a file name format "song title.mp3" that I was likely to get the songs played in alphabetical order, rather than album order. Is that true? A fix for this might be to use a file name format "## song title.mp3", where ## is the track number.

2) I read in the owner's manual that when importing music from a USB device, "the entire contents of the USB device is stored as a separate album and is named automatically". Does this mean you end up with one huge album?

I'd like to hear from some people who are playing music off the hard drive. Thanks.

[bsd107]

Note that if you want, you can just take your favorite Audio CDs, and let the car just rip them for you.

Also, you can just play MP3s directly from a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, without transfering to the hard drive...

[rusky_335]

The reason I was ripping the CD's myself was to get a higher bit rate (better sound quality) than what I've heard is the system's default. I think the 12.5 GB should be sufficient for all my music, even if the file size doubles.

[SteveMD]

When you transfer the contents of a flash drive, the car prompts you for a folder name. So for example if you have 30 random songs on the drive, they all go into the same folder.

If you then rip a CD, it becomes its own folder.

It's a bit klunky and I haven't fully explored how it all works. Not sure if you can rename folders once created.

Originally Posted by SteveMD

When you transfer the contents of a flash drive, the car prompts you for a folder name. So for example if you have 30 random songs on the drive, they all go into the same folder.

If you then rip a CD, it becomes its own folder.

It's a bit klunky and I haven't fully explored how it all works. Not sure if you can rename folders once created.

You can rename the folders, but I tried renaming the songs, and it won't allow me to.

[rusky_335]

My desire is to transfer my music library from PC to USB, then USB to onboard hard drive. The music would be nicely arranged in an artist\album folder structure on the USB drive. What would the final folder structure look like on idrive? Would it retain the artist and album subfolders, or would all be thrown into one big heap?

[pebell]

I just got my 3 series with pro nav yesterday, and the first thing I did was fill up a 8gb USB stick with a selection from my itunes library. I used the structure that iTunes maintains for me:

/Media/<Artist>/<Album>/## <Title>.mp3

I put the USB stick in and before I knew it, my car was downloading all music to its harddisk (I must have missed the part where I could choose the folder name, it looks like it defaulted it to "USB1").

As the track number is in the songname, I expected no problems with the playback order (I read something about that on other forums), but it didn't work out.. When I search for Artist, then Album, it will play the songs of that album in alphabetical order ON THE MP3 TITLE, not the filename or the MP3 track number. I am stupified by this. A simple player would order by filename, an advanced player would use MP3 tag information (and thus the track number), but what is the reasoning behind ordering on the Title in the MP3 tag?? I am stupified.

Will do some more experimenting and post further findings here..

[cereal]

If you just navigate through your music library it will play the tracks in correct order, but the downside to this is if you do another USB upload it will create a new folder called "USB2" and if you're playing from "USB1" and want to browse through "USB2" it starts playing automatically so you lose what you were listening to and if the first album in your folder happens to be a loud one you can get a big shock!

I'm hoping they add a few more track sorting options in an update.

[3's the kiddy]

I have just got my 330D SE with full Idrive features and it also does the same thing playing tracks alphabetically when you use the search facility. Problem is it also does the same when I connect my Ipod with the exception of a couple of albums.

Any clues as to how to put it right?

[2kaccordocoupe]

Why not just keep it on the USB and play it off of that??? I have yet to put any music on my internal HD and have no plans of doing so.

By the sounds of it you already have all your playlists, folders, sequence, structure etc... setup on the the USB.

[Thunder Dump]

Originally Posted by 2kaccordocoupe

Why not just keep it on the USB and play it off of that???

Some of us don't have the USB port in the center console. The only one I have is the one in the glove box and I can't run a drive off of there and keep the glovebox closed. So I transfer all my music to the HD.

[2kaccordocoupe]

Originally Posted by Thunder Dump

Some of us don't have the USB port in the center console. The only one I have is the one in the glove box and I can't run a drive off of there and keep the glovebox closed. So I transfer all my music to the HD.

Thanks for the clarification - I guess the package breakdown in the US is different than Canada.

[PiperD]

This is an old thread, but if anybody is still stumped by this...

... my MP3 files are named "## - artist - song title.mp3" and the ID3 tags are populated with all relevant info, including track index. I get varying results on how iDrive chooses to order the files - but that's irrelevant, to be honest, because:

Once you're playing a track from an album and you want to listen to that album in the correct order, press the voice button and say "Accept Album". iDrive will then select that album and play its tracks in the correct order.

Whether it's using my filenames to determine the "correct" order or the ID3 tag is something I can't say. But again, depending on how I navigate to the tracks (music search, browse directory, etc.) I get a different result for how the tracks are ordered. The only definitive way I've found to order the tracks correctly is to say "Accept Album" once I'm playing a track from the desired album.

Hope this helps.

[wepio]

Resurrecting and old thread...

I just got a 2009 E92. Loaded up music from a flash drive. Does anyone know if you can move the files out of a directory? It is very annoying to have a new directory created each time a I load music. I just want all the music folders shown when I recall the "Music Collection" function.

Thanks!


Off topic: Anyone know if there are additional car settings only accessible to the dealer via proprietary equipment? Like, seats sliding back when you turn off the car, auto folding mirros, etc. The broker I bought the car from mentioned there were like 20 or so "dealer settings" that are accessible only by plugging the car into the BMW diagnostic computer.