Mp3 Dvd
06-18-2008, 04:02 AM
#1
JK Enthusiast
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Mp3 Dvd
I have an 08 Sahara with the 6 disk DVD changer. I’ve had it for about a month. I’ve had units that will play MP3 CDs, but this is the first in vehicle DVD player for me. I’ve done a lot of searching here and didn’t find definite answers, so this is an attempt to share what I’ve learned messing with MP3 DVDs.
I don’t have an ipod, I have a 30GB Zune. I have about 18GB of music, 2800+ songs. Most of the music on my PC hard drive has come from ripping CDs to MP3. The rest is MP3 downloads from Amazon. The Amazon MP3s don’t have any DRM (Digital Rights Management) built in, so you are free to do as you see fit with them. For burning I’m using Nero 8, making an MP3 jukebox disk.
DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD-R/W all work fine. I tried 1 double layer disc and got a read error. I don’t know what the problem was; maybe it exceeded the maximum folders or files for a disk. The 255 file limit mentioned in the manual is either wrong, or a per folder limit. I have not run into any problems filling 4.7GB DVDs.
File Structure:
On my hard drive the music is organized in folders:
Artist
Album
Songs
This structure can be burned straight to DVD and will play fine in the Jeep. The problem is that it only shows the album level folders when you press the LIST button and it sorts them alphabetically. In other words, the organization by artist disappears in the player, along with any order other than alphabetical that you try to put them in.
To try to keep things by artist I copied my entire collection to another folder, so it wouldn’t mess up the originals and began to experiment. I found a freeware bulk renamer (http://www3.telus.net/pfrank/PFrankDownload.html) that will add the folder above to the beginning of a folder name, so the album name becomes Artist_Album. It was still a pain. If anyone needs more detail on this I can post it later.
So we end up with a DVD with 50ish albums of music with each folder named by artist, then album name. It works very well in the player. The remaining issue is that the display in the folders list is short, so that in some cases the entire artist name is not visible. This leads to some guessing when picking folders, but it’s manageable.
I have most of my collection on 5 DVDs by genre in the player. Using an external MP3 player is more flexible and allows random, but it’s a target in an open Jeep. On a day to day basis this works real well.
Sorry that this got long. Hopefully it helps.
I don’t have an ipod, I have a 30GB Zune. I have about 18GB of music, 2800+ songs. Most of the music on my PC hard drive has come from ripping CDs to MP3. The rest is MP3 downloads from Amazon. The Amazon MP3s don’t have any DRM (Digital Rights Management) built in, so you are free to do as you see fit with them. For burning I’m using Nero 8, making an MP3 jukebox disk.
DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD-R/W all work fine. I tried 1 double layer disc and got a read error. I don’t know what the problem was; maybe it exceeded the maximum folders or files for a disk. The 255 file limit mentioned in the manual is either wrong, or a per folder limit. I have not run into any problems filling 4.7GB DVDs.
File Structure:
On my hard drive the music is organized in folders:
Artist
Album
Songs
This structure can be burned straight to DVD and will play fine in the Jeep. The problem is that it only shows the album level folders when you press the LIST button and it sorts them alphabetically. In other words, the organization by artist disappears in the player, along with any order other than alphabetical that you try to put them in.
To try to keep things by artist I copied my entire collection to another folder, so it wouldn’t mess up the originals and began to experiment. I found a freeware bulk renamer (http://www3.telus.net/pfrank/PFrankDownload.html) that will add the folder above to the beginning of a folder name, so the album name becomes Artist_Album. It was still a pain. If anyone needs more detail on this I can post it later.
So we end up with a DVD with 50ish albums of music with each folder named by artist, then album name. It works very well in the player. The remaining issue is that the display in the folders list is short, so that in some cases the entire artist name is not visible. This leads to some guessing when picking folders, but it’s manageable.
I have most of my collection on 5 DVDs by genre in the player. Using an external MP3 player is more flexible and allows random, but it’s a target in an open Jeep. On a day to day basis this works real well.
Sorry that this got long. Hopefully it helps.
06-18-2008, 04:46 AM
#2
JK Super Freak
Yeah, the 255 limit is wrong. I just dumped 300+ random songs I like on a single DVD with no folder and it works just fine. I have another DVD with one folder that has 1285 songs in it and it can play every one of them just fine. I also have the 6 disc DVD/MP3 player.
The DL-DVD's are different; the reader just can't handle burned DL discs. There is a difference between a "Hollywood" DL-DVD (ones that movies come on) vs a blank DL-DVD∓R. Its f-d up, but oh well.
I sort my music by artist as well, and all my files have the IDv3 tag on them, but the file names are "Artist - Song Name". I try to avoid sorting by album, I let my Archos or windows do that based on the tags. I'm not sure why it's not keeping the album list of folders, it should show that.
I have a CD with some comedy on it, and it has both of Mitch Hedgeburg's CDs. Each CD is it's own dir, and both of those dir are in a single folder called "Mitch" which I put in the root dir that way I can tell them apart on the player, and it works fine.
I have noticed that it'll list all folders on the root directory regardless of the level they are on. Its weird, but then again, this isn't the best designed player as was obvious with a lack of a "random" button.
Now, for me, I just renamed each song a number starting with 0001 and counted up till I ran out of songs. This way, I could sort of "randomize" them by picking a file randomly and giving it the next number. They still play the same order every time, but it’s not hard to mix it up on the computer some.
I’ve started using my mp3 player a lot more now. I like the random feature it has and the fact that I have all 100 GB worth of my music with me all the time. I never leave it in the jeep, ever. That thing is almost glued to me.
The DL-DVD's are different; the reader just can't handle burned DL discs. There is a difference between a "Hollywood" DL-DVD (ones that movies come on) vs a blank DL-DVD∓R. Its f-d up, but oh well.
I sort my music by artist as well, and all my files have the IDv3 tag on them, but the file names are "Artist - Song Name". I try to avoid sorting by album, I let my Archos or windows do that based on the tags. I'm not sure why it's not keeping the album list of folders, it should show that.
I have a CD with some comedy on it, and it has both of Mitch Hedgeburg's CDs. Each CD is it's own dir, and both of those dir are in a single folder called "Mitch" which I put in the root dir that way I can tell them apart on the player, and it works fine.
I have noticed that it'll list all folders on the root directory regardless of the level they are on. Its weird, but then again, this isn't the best designed player as was obvious with a lack of a "random" button.
Now, for me, I just renamed each song a number starting with 0001 and counted up till I ran out of songs. This way, I could sort of "randomize" them by picking a file randomly and giving it the next number. They still play the same order every time, but it’s not hard to mix it up on the computer some.
I’ve started using my mp3 player a lot more now. I like the random feature it has and the fact that I have all 100 GB worth of my music with me all the time. I never leave it in the jeep, ever. That thing is almost glued to me.