[Summest]

Got around to trying out the USB audio option on the ELS audio system. Works good. Sounds great. The folder structure is easy to follow and album art looks good. Another nice option for listening to music.

 

[Summest]

Updating Gracenote DB

The update of the Gracenote database took about 10 minutes.

Not sure I needed it but they had a newer version available.

Grab the one for the RLX since TLX does not appear in the choices. The filename actually lists TLX.

 

[TeeElX]

Nice, thanks for the feedback. Will make sure to have a look at this myself when I go in for a test drive.

 

[Keith Mickunas]

I'm considering buying a new TLX with the tech package and today I attempted to listen to music from my own USB drive and I found the interface rather poor and this is a problem for me. I have my music organized by artist/album and correctly tagged, and I have a folder with a number of playlists. But I found no way to load a playlist in the TLX. Is this possible? Did I need to initiate a scan of the device somehow?

 

[r.johnson]

dumb question, im old-school and do not sort anything by artist/album in mp3 metadata

im hardcore DOS style folders/filenames type of guy lol

will the TLX be able to load files simply by folder and files?

 

[Summest]

I'm considering buying a new TLX with the tech package and today I attempted to listen to music from my own USB drive and I found the interface rather poor and this is a problem for me. I have my music organized by artist/album and correctly tagged, and I have a folder with a number of playlists. But I found no way to load a playlist in the TLX. Is this possible? Did I need to initiate a scan of the device somehow?

Somewhere I read that you can have 3 or 4 playlists. Which seems like quite a limitation to me. Must be somewhere in the console.

The interface is a bit plain. I copied over my MP3s that I bought on Amazon. I moved over the entire folder structure with album art. The display shows the folder structure and the songs within the folder. It's not as pretty at the HDD directory. The album art is cool though. I wonder if it pulls art from my USB or gets it through GraceNote?

I see this is your first post, Welcome to the Forum!

 

[Summest]

dumb question, im old-school and do not sort anything by artist/album in mp3 metadata

im hardcore DOS style folders/filenames type of guy lol

will the TLX be able to load files simply by folder and files?

Never a dumb question.

I like DOS. I believe it will play MP3s even if they are all in the root.

But folders keep everything neatly grouped by the Artist or Artist and Album. Depends how you name your folders.

I copied over my Amazon MP3s in the structure they made on my PC hard drive, with album art and all. Meta data may affect it, I haven't played anything I "made" myself. But the main sort is either created by when the folders were created or alphabetically. I think I read somewhere that they were sorted by creation date.

 

[Summest]

Playlists

I did find this limited info in the manual. It seems playlists act differently on the USB option and HDD option.

USB

How to Select a Play Mode
Play Mode Menu Items

Repeat Song: Repeats the current track.

Shuffle Albums: Plays all available albums in a
selected list (playlists, artists, albums, songs, genres,
or composers) in random order.

Shuffle All Songs: Plays all available files in a
selected list (playlists, artists, albums, songs, genres,
or composers) in random order.

HDD

The HDD has two types of playlists: original playlists and user playlists. An
original playlist is automatically created for each album when a music CD is
recorded. You can customize up to six user playlists provided on the HDD by
adding tracks from your original playlists.

 

[Keith Mickunas]

Somewhere I read that you can have 3 or 4 playlists. Which seems like quite a limitation to me. Must be somewhere in the console.

The interface is a bit plain. I copied over my MP3s that I bought on Amazon. I moved over the entire folder structure with album art. The display shows the folder structure and the songs within the folder. It's not as pretty at the HDD directory. The album art is cool though. I wonder if it pulls art from my USB or gets it through GraceNote?

I see this is your first post, Welcome to the Forum!

Thanks for the welcome.

Loading an m3u files should be dead simple, I'm a software developer and I can tell you there are fewer files that are easier to read than an m3u file. For some reason Apple has never chosen to support them, thus making iTunes not work well with other media players, and it looks like Acura is in bed with Apple and they only want ipods and iphones to work well with their system.

I like to load a few thousand files on a device along with a few playlists, load a playlist, and just go from there. Works absolutely great in my Ford Focus. Should be a simple operation for any system really.

I don't like to listen to music from my phone either, after all I can easily get cheap USB sticks and load them up with as much music as possible, getting phones with tons of extra space isn't that easy. Then there's the battery issue, or I have to always plug the phone in when I drive, and so on. It's just not the way I want to do it. And I just can't help but feel that a $40k car should work the way I want it to in this regards and that I shouldn't have to change what I do to suit it, especially when others do it fine.

 

[Summest]

Thanks for the welcome.

Loading an m3u files should be dead simple, I'm a software developer and I can tell you there are fewer files that are easier to read than an m3u file. For some reason Apple has never chosen to support them, thus making iTunes not work well with other media players, and it looks like Acura is in bed with Apple and they only want ipods and iphones to work well with their system.

I like to load a few thousand files on a device along with a few playlists, load a playlist, and just go from there. Works absolutely great in my Ford Focus. Should be a simple operation for any system really.

I don't like to listen to music from my phone either, after all I can easily get cheap USB sticks and load them up with as much music as possible, getting phones with tons of extra space isn't that easy. Then there's the battery issue, or I have to always plug the phone in when I drive, and so on. It's just not the way I want to do it. And I just can't help but feel that a $40k car should work the way I want it to in this regards and that I shouldn't have to change what I do to suit it, especially when others do it fine.

I agree, using a playlist should be a lot easier. I am looking forward to trying playlists out once I get my car back from the shop. With a lot of songs , playlists make sense, if not a necessity.

I agree about not using the phone as much. Especially when you can leave the USB stick in all of the time and with the HDD option. Too bad you can't copy MP3s to the HDD.

I still use my phone over bluetooth to listen to audio books. The interface in the console makes it real easy to navigate audio books, like it does with Pandora.

Otherwise, it is XM, USB or HDD for me. I tried the CD but if it rips every CD I insert, I don't need the CD anymore. Lots of options available.

I agree. For the price, I would expect more, but I do see improvements over the radio in the 2014 tech TSX.

 

[Summest]

m3u file

I'm considering buying a new TLX with the tech package and today I attempted to listen to music from my own USB drive and I found the interface rather poor and this is a problem for me. I have my music organized by artist/album and correctly tagged, and I have a folder with a number of playlists. But I found no way to load a playlist in the TLX. Is this possible? Did I need to initiate a scan of the device somehow?

What if you create a m3u file on your PC and copy that file to your USB?

I need to try this myself to see if it works. For manually creating a playlist, I found this online...


Method 1

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Notepad.
2. Create a text file that includes the full path to the files you want to include.
3. On the File menu, click Save. Save the file with one of the following extensions, based on the types of files included.
   • For files of type .wav, .mp3, .mpg, or .mpeg, use the extension .m3u.
   • For files of type .asf, use the extension .asx.

For example, to sequentially play the Chord.wav, Ding.wav, and Chimes.wav files, include the following lines:
c:\windows\media\chord.wav
c:\windows\media\ding.wav
c:\windows\media\chimes.wav
Save this file as Filename.m3u, where Filename is the name you want to use for the file. When you double-click this file or open it in Windows Media Player, it plays the files in order from the top of the file to the bottom.

This information also applies to most third-party media player utilities, such as Winamp. For example, if Winamp is the default player for .mp3 files, Winamp starts when you double-click the file.

Method 2

You can use the dir command to port the contents of a folder to a file that can be used as a playlist. To do so:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, and then click MS-DOS Prompt.
2. Change directories to the folder that contains the media files for which you want to create a playlist.
3. Type dir /b>playlist.m3u, and then press ENTER.
   
   Or, to write the file names to the playlist in alphabetical order, type dir /b/on>playlist.m3u

This creates a file named Playlist.m3u that contains the contents of the folder and plays them sequentially. You can also use other command-line switches with the dir command to modify the order in which the files are listed in the playlist. Type dir /? at a command prompt for information about the command-line switches for the dir command.


Method 3


Use Windows Media Player to create and/or export the m3u file.


Now we need to see if the ELS can play/execute m3u files.

 

[Summest]

No luck with m3u files as playlists

Generated the m3u file fine.
Works good on my PC.
Does not work in the ELS.
:crying:

 

[r.johnson]

here's a challenge for you guys....or rather guinea pigs

i have a mp3 file that i have been able to play on the computer, my cell phone and on my lexus (via usb).............just not on the TLX (via usb). it can load the file name on the file list, but if u actually try to select it to play, it just says "unplayable file" and skips to the next song

the major difference this mp3 file has over other files: it is 4 hours long. yes, four hours

basically its a non-stop mix of a crap load of songs

tried renaming it to 8.3 format, no go. tried the file over 3 different USB storage drives, no go.

so i was wondering if the TLX's mp3 system has a cap on how big of a file their system can playback, and if my file is way too long to be supported. can you guys give it a try for me please? thanks in advance

just for the record, mp3s that are 1 hr long plays fine

 

[Summest]

Interesting

here's a challenge for you guys....or rather guinea pigs

i have a mp3 file that i have been able to play on the computer, my cell phone and on my lexus (via usb).............just not on the TLX (via usb). it can load the file name but it just says "unplayable file"

the major difference this mp3 file has over other files: it is 4 hours long. yes, four hours

basically its a non-stop mix of a crap load of songs

so i was wondering if the TLX's mp3 system has a cap on how big of a file their system can playback, and if my file is way too long to be supported. can you guys give it a try for me please? thanks in advance

just for the record, mp3s that are 1 hr long plays fine

Good question and good discovery.

I will have to find my long tracks. I used to record off XM to make MP3s for work, before we got wifi. These MP3s could be anywhere from 2 to 6 hours in length, I believe.

I'll have to give it a try tomorrow.

 

[r.johnson]

any luck, my friend?

 

[Summest]

Some news.

any luck, my friend?

I decided to check before I went off to bed. Amazing.

I tried a 3:18:26 file and it said unplayable file.

I tried a 2:00:00 file and it worked!

The three-hour file is 279 MB.

The two-hour file is 168.8 MB.

Maybe there is a size limit issue?

 

[r.johnson]

oh snap.......that really shouldn't happen, its not even over 2GB per FAT restriction. while most people will not have a mp3 file that long, i see no reason at all to set a limit, especially if other cars (lexus) can play it fine

maybe u can forward it to acura and see what they say about it....

 

[Summest]

maybe u can forward it to acura and see what they say about it....

Another good idea. I will add it to my list for my grand report.

 

[r.johnson]

tried re-converting the long mp3s, no go

tried taking a 1hr mp3 that works, make duplicates and have it play back to back, and create one big mp3 file

2hr still works
3hr no works

i give up

also another pet peeve: it takes 3 taps on the touchscreen to change the repeat/random playback modes. which is fine, but every time you skip the next song, the repeat/random setting is reset, which i find annoying because i will have tap 3 times again, and will cause distracted driving. they really should provide a small touch icon area on the playback screen that can toggle between different repeat/random modes on the fly