Copying audio files to SD card

I've had my new Golf for a week now, and thought I would try out the SD card facility for playing music. What is the best way to copy such files ?

I tried copying files from within iTunes on my iMac onto the SD card, and although the tracks played fine, the track listing was not grouped into artists or albums, as I expected. This seems odd, given that the player software is able to read the metadata and display the album/artist/track/artwork while a track is playing.

Most of my music ripped to iTunes is in 256k AAC format, with a few albums as MP3 at 192k or lower.

Not wanting to seem rude, but you will find lots of helpful info on this topic, if you look through this area of the forum. I don't use a Mac, but found that just copying artist folders from my PC's My Music folder worked fine. Making album art work is a whole new can of worms, but, again, loads of info to be found.

Talk-torque said:

Not wanting to seem rude, but you will find lots of helpful info on this topic, if you look through this area of the forum. I don't use a Mac, but found that just copying artist folders from my PC's My Music folder worked fine. Making album art work is a whole new can of worms, but, again, loads of info to be found.

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Thanks.

I did do a quick search, but didn't come across much which was Mac specific. However, I did notice someone's recommendation for OptimUSB, which does a great job of deleting all the hidden files which the Mac puts on the SD card.

Following your advice, I tried copying the entire contents of my iTunes Media/Music folder (which is grouped into artists) onto the card, and that worked a treat. I can now browse by artist and then album using the Golf MMI. All the albums copied show album artwork correctly, except one. I suspect that may be an album cover I added into iTunes at some point, which is larger than 500x500 pixcels.

Glad that my rushed post helped! You seem to have SD cards sorted. As you say, album art must be 500x500 or less.

Talk-torque said:

Glad that my rushed post helped! You seem to have SD cards sorted. As you say, album art must be 500x500 or less.

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After browsing through my newly copied music, I discovered that there were actually 4 albums which refused to display album art. This was easily fixed in iTunes by doing a 'Get Info' on the offending album, then dragging in suitable album artwork. iTunes then embeds the artwork within each track file.

However, two albums still wouldn't play ball, but the problem was identified in zitek's excellent post here: http://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3147 The key was to ensure that the image file was in png format, less than 500x500 pixels and less than 200kB. Album art then displayed correctly.

Anyone know if there is a shortcut method to navigate up and down the hierarchy of SD card / Artists / Albums / Current album playing ?

On my Discover Nav system, I have a "Selection" button along the bottom left of the screen. This gives me a screen with the current album and tracks, plus, along the top of the screen, a series of icons. These start with the SD card followed by the hierarchy of folders you have added. I have all my artist folders in a folder called Music, so that, if I touch/select that icon, I get a list of artists, which I can scroll down and select from.

I'd guess that the other systems work in a similar way.