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      03-24-2014, 04:58 PM   #1
mynamesnotbob
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USB Drive - Setup with Album art and Playlists

OK, so a few people have been asking about options they have for playing media in their cars, and the option of USB has come up with various successes.

I thought some might find it useful to put together a complete guide to set it up so you get all the features, and it works as if you were using an iPod – people seem to have limited success with trying various things, but this is one method that does work. I couldn't find a guide how to make it work properly, especially not with playlist, so here it all is in one place. And ignore any dodgy music taste please

I have Pro Media, and currently run a 1TB USB 3 drive with all my music files - this allows me full artist/album/track/composer/genre search, full album artwork, full control via iDrive, full playlist support (matched up to iPod/iTunes playlists), MP3 support, FLAC support.

I can play all MP3 formats up to 320kbps and VBR, m4a's in all rip rates iTunes supports and FLAC in the following formats:

16 bit 44.1Khz
24 Bit 88Khz
24 Bit 96 Khz
24 Bit 192 Khz

As I said I have pro nav – and I believe to get all the features such as album artwork you either need pro nav, pro nav plus EBT, or EBT with any other system – but I’m sure there are other threads that would verify this.

So the drive I’ve used is a Seagate STDR1000200 1TB (AMAZON LINK) – picked as I’ve had one previously and it’s been pretty reliable, it was cheap on Amazon and I had some vouchers to use up.

The drive sits neatly in the center console, and powers fine through the USB port there – no other power source has been needed, even though it’s a HDD not SSD. I did have some worries about the speed not being enough as I’ve seen the F30 seems to reject iPod classics with its HDD so I thought it was a bit of a risk but worth taking for the cost. I would have just stuck with an iPod classic, but I left mine on a flight the other month and didn’t fancy stumping up £150 for an iPod I know the F30 didn’t like, and the iPod touch doesn’t have enough capacity for my music. I also could use my iPhone over the apple cable, but it’s a hassle to keep plugging in and out, and if I used BT streaming I still needed to keep it plugged in as the battery gets hammered.

Anyway, here is the drive:




Other methods may work, but this is what worked for me…

So basics first:

I keep all my music on a Network Server, with iTunes on a Mac with my playlists that I sync my iDevices to, and also run a windows VM and use a program called mp3tag to edit all the MP3 metadata– so use different software depending on what I want to do – but you can do all of this on Windows, and Mac too if you chose, I’ve just got into habits over the years, and will be using OSX, Windows, mp3tag, itunes, DS Store Remover, TextEdt, SyncToy, and that’s about it – all free apart from the Windows Licence.

Music File Structure:

So the first this is to make sure your music is organised –assuming you have everything in a folder called music, you should have all your music in the following format:

Music/Artist/Album/File

• Where Music is the root folder
• Artist is a level of folders split by all the artists
• Album is each album of that artist
• and finally track is the .mp3 file within the album

Embedding Metadata:

Once you have this set up (most seem to organise their files this way, and I think itunes etc does too) – load the entire Music folder into mp3tag – this will take some time as all the metadata is read, analysed and added to the database. You will then be presented with this view:



As you can sort by Artist, Album, Composer, Track and Genre on iDrive – you need to make sure all of these are populated; otherwise you are just going to get blanks and be unable to search. It takes a while if you have a large collection, but it is something you only really have to do once. Go through and update all tracks, make sure that artists have the correct spellings, even down to the case used. Adele and adele will be shown as two different artists in the artist search, so correct this now.

Sort by as many different views as you can to find the errors and blanks and finalise all of them after you’ve edited them, by selecting all and hitting save. Again this will take a while as it updates each file:



Now you need to make sure you have album artwork. iTunes may have had this, but to make it work on iDrive you need to have the artwork embedded in the mp3 metadata – this is also taken care of in mp3tag. Often purchased music will have them, some rippers takes care of it, but many may be left without. Select the track, right click on the artwork location, and select the file to use (you can select whole albums if you want), the format should work for any JPEG below 900x900 I believe. Once you’ve dragged it in, hit save and the artwork will be embedded.





You can see what tracks have artwork by looking at the album artwork column – it should read “1” if saved, if you have more than one image attached the count will be higher. I found when there was more than one iDrive got confused, so try to remove any multiple entries.



Now after doing all the editing, and saving all changes you should have a full metadata included in the MP3’s.

Setting Up Playlists:

Now I’m assuming that playlists are in iTunes, but if they are in any other player the principle should be the same. I have done this in a mac, as that’s where I run iTunes from, but Windows should be the same I’d imagine. Also it’s assumed that the files that were edited above, are the same files that have been added to iTunes.

First thing to do is to create a folder called “Playlists” – this will be used to store the playlists, and will be copied across when you copy the music across.

Now go to itunes and select your playlists, select the playlist you want to export, go to File, Library, Export Playlist…, and export as an m3u playlist – this should now appear on your desktop.



Right click on the file and select “Open With” and open the file with TextEdit. For Windows, use notepad or something similar.

You will then see a file opened that looks a bit like this:



The file will contain contents in the following format:

#EXTM3U

#EXTINF:243,1904 - Benjamin Francis Leftwich
/Volumes/media/Music/Benjamin Francis Leftwich/03 1904.mp3
The First line, “#EXTM3U” is the format descriptor.
The second and third operate in a pair.

The second begins “#EXTINF:” which serves as the record marker. The “#EXTINF” is unchanging. After the colon is a number: this number is the length of the track in whole seconds or anything else. Then comes a comma and the name of the tune.
The second line of this pair (the third line) is the actual file name of the media in question.
Now the first thing to do is to get the file names being pointed to in the correct location.

The need to be in the format Music/Artist/Album/File, the Artist/Album/File part of the file location should already be identical, so we just need to change the earlier part so it points to the folder “Music” – not anything else that may be there.

In my file you can see that the folder volumes/media/Music/Artist/Album/File is used, as this is the location on my media server. You should now find and replace the early path that is there, for the new part.

So do a find and replace, and swap all instances of “volumes/media/Music” for “/Music”. This now matches the file path being used on the new drive, obviously change for your relevant filepath.



Now for a Mac the file paths use a “/” instead of a “\” – so these need to be swapped out. Again do a find and replace, search for all instances of “/” and replace with “\”. I don’t think this step is needed on Windows, only if you are using Mac or Linux.



Your file has gone from looking like this:



To this:



Save the file into your playlist folder, you’ve now created your playlist.

Repeat for each of your other playlists.

Now you should have a folder full of playlists.

Copying To The USB Drive:

Now copy both the folder Music and Playlists to the root of the USB drive – this will take a while depending on how much music you have.

As I add new music and update playlists fairly regularly I want to be able to keep things in sync easier. So I use a program called SyncToy – it’s free by Microsoft – and allows you to sync everything in your Music and Playlist folders onto your drive assuming you use Windows. The good thing here is it will look for changes to files, and only change or add if needed, making updates of the drive much simpler. It’s a fairly easy tool to use, so I won’t go into it and it’s not essential, so I won’t waste much space.

But here is the front screen with the folders to Sync



And here is the completed report (the error here is a file that didn’t copy as I was playing it!)



The final step I do is to remove any unnecessary hidden temp files along the way, this is because if the iDrive finds them it can interpret them strangely for instance spotlight files in the playlist folder are given some random file name that does nothing. These are added by various media players and by OSX if you use that, just for views etc. I use a program called DS Store Remover that removes these files. Run the drive through this and it will take them all out.



Now at the end of it you will have a USB drive with two folders in the root directory, Music and Playlists – you’re now done.

Working in iDrive:

Go and plug the drive into the car in the centre armrest, start the car and wait for it to load – for me it was near instant. Go to Media, select the USB drive and it will start on the first track it sees. Now the computer has to index the drive, for me this happened really quickly and I could play in seconds – not sure how long it took but it should be done in a few minutes. If it’s taken hours something is not quite right. Ignore the quality, it's dark out...



Select the magnifying glass icon, and you can then search by your criteria, artist, album whatever – click play selection and your working.








After about 5 seconds the screen should switch to the album artwork, and you’re done.




If you want to listen to playlists, scroll down to playlists, select it:





You can see there are a few random entries, I’m still getting to the bottom of this, but just ignore them they do no harm… EDIT: This was because I hadn't emptied the recycle bin and the car was seeing trashed files. Just empty the bin before ejecting the drive on the computer and they will be gone.

Select your playlist you want and the playlist starts – simple as that.

You now have your whole music collection permanently attached to your car and complete playlists. The drives aren’t much, so much cheaper than an iPod, and less hassle than using your phone.

Next Steps:

Find out what the random files are in playlists
Plus I want to code the car to play video through USB with all Codecs, and copy some videos across to see if they play. If they do then I’ll fill up the drive with them and I’ve got something to distract the kids with if I never need to. Bit pointless but I’m keen to see if it works

Last edited by mynamesnotbob; 02-17-2018 at 04:10 PM.. Reason: Restore pics
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      03-24-2014, 05:10 PM   #2
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Excellent and very detailed guide.
Will help a lot of people out on here.

Thanks.
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      03-24-2014, 05:17 PM   #3
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That's great. Thanks for your hard work.
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      03-24-2014, 05:27 PM   #4
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That's awesome...very detailed
What's the difference in the way you describe above compared to using an iPhone? I use my iPhone because I know it's up to date and always with me but I do find the MP3 Tags are slightly messed up. Sometimes it will split Artists, Albums, Duets etc into weird groupings and I find it hard to search through my library. Will I be able to use MP3Tag to sort out my files and then import then back into iTunes or should I alter everything with iTunes itself?
TIA
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      03-24-2014, 05:38 PM   #5
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Wow! I just download the tracks and put them on the USB stick! Always worked perfectly!

10/10 for effort though whatever your name is!
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      03-24-2014, 05:39 PM   #6
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Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Very detailed and informative
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      03-24-2014, 06:00 PM   #7
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Does anyone know if album art works with business nav?
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      03-24-2014, 06:05 PM   #8
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An excellent guide for pulling music in through iTunes. Like Teaston I simply copied the my music folder onto a usb stick and it all worked. I have pro media too.
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      03-24-2014, 06:13 PM   #9
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None really, I just don't like having to keep plugging in my phone every time I get in, and I've found in the past when I docked the phone I was forever going back to the car once I was in the house/office and realised it was still hidden in the glove box. Also as my only phone is my work iPhone, I'm limited on storage and I can't be bothered justifying a 64GB version which even then won't take the full library.

I would have used an iPod for the reasons you mentioned, but they don't make a big enough touch, and the classic is not liked by the F30 and seizes as it's read speed is very slow.

Plus as I knew I wanted my full collection a 1tb drive was less than a third of the cost of a 160gb iPod.

it's not better than an iPod, but it works as well for what I want, costs less and I can update easily.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWSKI View Post
I use my iPhone because I know it's up to date and always with me but I do find the MP3 Tags are slightly messed up. Sometimes it will split Artists, Albums, Duets etc into weird groupings and I find it hard to search through my library. Will I be able to use MP3Tag to sort out my files and then import then back into iTunes or should I alter everything with iTunes itself?
TIA
2 ways to update metadata after you've edited externally and want iTunes to reflect it.

1 - Play each track for a second (bit of a faf if you've done hundreds)

2 - Follow this method (but back up everything twice, just in case):

Re-creating the iTunes Library file

Note: After re-creating your library, any devices that you sync with iTunes (Apple TV, iPod, iPhone, iPad) will see your iTunes library as a new library and will completely resync. The next sync with such a device will take longer and may reset some options since your rebuilt library isn't familiar to the device.

1. Quit iTunes.

2. Locate your iTunes folder (this is the folder that contains the iTunes Library and iTunes Library.xml files).

Operating System Default location of iTunes Folder
Mac OS X /Users/[your username]/Music
Microsoft Windows XP \Documents and Settings\[your username]\My Documents\My Music\
Microsoft Windows Vista \Users\[your username]\Music\
Microsoft Windows 7 \Users\[your username]\My Music\

3. Open your iTunes folder.

4. Drag the "iTunes Library.xml" or "iTunes Music Library.xml" file to the Desktop. If neither is available, learn how to add files back to the Library (because the XML file is not available, playlists and other information will not be available).

5. Drag the following file from your iTunes folder to the Trash:

Mac OS X "iTunes Library" or "iTunes Library.itl"
Microsoft Windows "iTunes Library.itl"

6. Open iTunes.

Important: Do not add any content into iTunes at this point (such as by purchasing something from the iTunes Store).

7. Choose File > Library > Import Playlist.

8. Navigate to the "iTunes Library.xml" file on the Desktop.

Mac users: Click Choose.
Windows users: Click Open.
If your Podcasts list in iTunes is empty after following these steps, learn how to add them back into iTunes.
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      03-24-2014, 06:15 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Proftinkerpot View Post
An excellent guide for pulling music in through iTunes. Like Teaston I simply copied the my music folder onto a usb stick and it all worked. I have pro media too.
That would be the easier method, but wanted to see what else it could do. If I can get video working, that would be good - but pretty pointless...
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      03-24-2014, 06:20 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by F30Andy View Post
Does anyone know if album art works with business nav?
I believe you need EBT on business Nav, but it may be available through coding or may now be standard - I've never had one to try so not 100% sure
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      03-24-2014, 06:57 PM   #12
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Excellent guide.

I loaded some new music onto the HD of the car tonight and noticed there are files all over the place. All I've done is taken the directory structure as it stands in iTunes and copied it over. I did notice that you can browse the directory structure via the iDrive. If this method doesn't work well, I'll be giving your way a go.
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      03-24-2014, 06:59 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mynamesnotbob View Post

2 - Follow this method (but back up everything twice, just in case):
Thanks for this! Much appreciated
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      03-24-2014, 08:24 PM   #14
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Awesome Notbob. Thanks a lot.
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      03-25-2014, 03:58 AM   #15
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Epic post, need to get up to speed with all this stuff.
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      03-25-2014, 05:28 AM   #16
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Great post.

I've got all this working already but the one thing that bugs me is the clunky nature of the Idrive interface.

eg - Currently playing a song by an artist. I want to quickly browse other albums by the same artist. You have to go all the way back to External Devices/USB/Music etc and then you can see all the other albums.

Unless I'm missing a quicker way...??
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      03-25-2014, 05:57 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nordberg View Post
Great post.

I've got all this working already but the one thing that bugs me is the clunky nature of the Idrive interface.

eg - Currently playing a song by an artist. I want to quickly browse other albums by the same artist. You have to go all the way back to External Devices/USB/Music etc and then you can see all the other albums.

Unless I'm missing a quicker way...??
Have you tried pressing the 'back button'? that will take you to the last screen.
Although it only takes you back to the selection process (artist, genre, track etc.) rather than allowing you to search where you left off. I find that limitation frustrating!
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      03-25-2014, 06:04 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWSKI View Post
Have you tried pressing the 'back button'? that will take you to the last screen.
Although it only takes you back to the selection process (artist, genre, track etc.) rather than allowing you to search where you left off. I find that limitation frustrating!
Yeh - same difference - still clunky though.....
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      03-25-2014, 06:08 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nordberg View Post
Yeh - same difference - still clunky though.....
I still don't see why you're going all the way back to External Devices/USB/Music etc??? That doesn't seem right to me. From memory anyway...
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      03-25-2014, 06:13 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nordberg View Post
Great post.

I've got all this working already but the one thing that bugs me is the clunky nature of the Idrive interface.

eg - Currently playing a song by an artist. I want to quickly browse other albums by the same artist. You have to go all the way back to External Devices/USB/Music etc and then you can see all the other albums.

Unless I'm missing a quicker way...??
Yep, assuming you are on a different screen, selecting back should get you there.

If you are already in the media screen, just click right on the idrive knob to select the magnifying class and you are able to search again.

As already said it gets you back to the selection screen, not the last search - which can be frustrating, but that's just the way it works. I've never really had any car interface work better.

The other way is to assign the search function to a hot key, so no matter where you are you can get to it with a single keystroke.

But by far the easiest way is to use voice control. Press the voice control, and no matter where you are say "Select Artist", then say the artist, it then lists the albums, say the album you want, then select the track or say play selection.

No need to use the idrive knob or really look at the screen at all - I just use voice now. And that's the non singing and dancing voice control, just the regular one.

I want to code EBT and see if that gives better voice control on the Pro Nav, as it appears Pro Nav cars have the voice control AppID 23 (17) FSC Code already there. But I need to verify this.
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      03-25-2014, 06:26 AM   #21
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Great guide, that really helps, especially using a Mac creates those pesky _DS files. Now I know how to get rid of them. Artwork has been a real pain, as iTunes doesn't always embed it with the mp3 file, even though the artwork was showing on my iPod.

I used a piece a software called Coverscout that embedded everything automatically, and then went away and searched the web for all the gaps. Finally got it all sorted, but it was a bit of a pain. Like you, now going through all the different sorts to make sure artist names, genres etc are all correct and sorting out duplicates.

Just got to wait for the car, though the flash drive works in my e90 just as well.
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      03-25-2014, 06:30 AM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWSKI View Post
I still don't see why you're going all the way back to External Devices/USB/Music etc??? That doesn't seem right to me. From memory anyway...
Back takes you back to Search, which then means you have to navigate to the folder you're already playing music from.

What I would like to be able to do is quickly get to the Artist folder so I can select another album by the artist.....
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