Uploading Music Files Through the USB Port

[electricfuture]

I have seen numerous post on this subject without a definitive answer so I used Nissan Chat to get the answer:
Eric W: Thank you for contacting Nissan LEAF Consumer Affairs. How may I assist you?
Electric Future: I am wondering if I can plug a music SD card into the SD card slot?
Eric W: Just a moment please as I consult my references.
Electric Future: Also, if not can I plug an SD card into the USB port using an adapter rather than say an IPOD?
Eric W: I will check on that as well. Just a moment please.
Eric W: Thank you for your patience.
Eric W: The SD slots are for specific purposes. One contains a memory card with the navigation map data. I will emphasize in conjunction with the manual, do not remove this card as the data is essential for the navigation system to operate.
Electric Future: What about the second slot?
Eric W: The second SD slot is for transferring data. Just a moment as I verify the type of data.
Eric W: The information that is transferred is to and from the address book.
Eric W: The USB port can accommodate a memory stick and the audio system will playback from a memory stick plugged into the USB port.
Eric W: However, there are some caveats.
Electric Future: And they are?
Eric W: Encrypted files will not play. Files will also not play if the memory stick is not supported by the system.
Eric W: Also the USB port does not support USB hubs.
Electric Future: OK What memory sticks work? I was planning on putting an SD card in a USB adapter into the USB port. So I could format the SD card according to what the system will accept. I have the music files on "AAC" (IPOD extension). Will this work?
Electric Future: Maybe they have to be ".WAV" files?
Eric W: A list of compatible memory sticks or memory stick formats has not been provided nor is regular testing performed by Nissan.
Eric W: I am verifying the audio formats that will play. AAC files most likely will require the iPod to play.
Electric Future: The manual says that "the most efficient" way to plug into the sound system is through the USB port rather than playing CDs or MP3 CDs. So I would think that compatibility issues would be available from Nissan.
Eric W: The audio system will play .WAV and .MP3
Electric Future: OK so if I convert the "AAC" to WAV a plug in SD card through the USB port should work - right? Also, what can I expect to see on the NAV screen? Will it have the song information or controls? Or is that only if I use an IPOD?
Eric W: The WAV format may not accommodate additional information stored in an AAC file.
Eric W: When you plug in an SD Card you can expect to see a folder list (if folders are present) and/or a list of files.
Eric W: The system will also display track title, album title, and Artist's Name.
Eric W: Thank you for contacting Nissan LEAF Customer Support. We appreciate your interest! Please feel free to contact us again with any additional questions. Through our website at www.nissan-usa.com or by phone at 877-664-2738. We are here to serve you from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (EST) Monday through Friday.

 

[TEG]

Sounds like you ended up with a good/intelligent customer support person on that chat session. Seems like above average responses.

My personal experience is with MP3 files only in a USB stick:

#1: Yes, folders show up in a list (individual lines of text) similar to the list you get to pick from XM stations.
#2: Click on a folder name and you see the music files within.
#3: Sound quality is better than FM radio or XM. (Although I supposed you could load up really low bitrate MP3s if you wanted bad sound quality.)
#4: I appreciate the fact that it remembers what it was playing. For instance, I can switch to bluetooth for a phone call, and when I go back it continues where it left off.

Also, I tried MP3s on SD card in the NAV slot, but no go. I did export address book data to an SD card to back it up. You can see the data on a PC. Basically slightly "munged" GPS coordinates in a list.

I have read some tales of people not having their USB memory stick work. Perhaps something like wrong low level format, wrong memory stick size, too many files, etc. But I think we have more success than failure stories so it seems somewhat flexible in what it will recognize and play.

 

[Anonymous]

Read this thread, lots of good info on there about how the USB drive works. It's what I use all the time, and after tweaking my files on my flash drive in just the right way to play nicely with the system, it has been working out great for me.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2427

 

[tps]

too many files

I have used a Lexar ZE 32 GB USB with around 2700 MP3 files organized into directories with no more than 255 files with no problems. Most files are 44.1 KHz stereo or mono encoded by LAME, but files from Amazon and a few random places on the Internet seem to work fine. Even a few files at other sample rates work fine. I've not found an MP3 file that doesn't play, yet.

 

[Rat]

They gave you bad info. The system does not support .wav files, only mp3 and WMA. I had to convert hundreds of wav files on my USB flash drive from WAV to WMA to get them to play. Unless they have upgraded the software since I got mine, of course.