USB drive organization

[jlv]

You can use any of several free programs to convert the wav audio files to mp3. I can recommend Super.

[karma]

I have a studio and software that lets me make any kind of file I want but I prefer .wav files and this makes no sense whatsoever. If my thumb drive holds the .wav file why should the Leaf care if it's a .wav, mp3, or wma since it's not taking any internal space? Way to dumb down the quality on one hand while offering a Bose stereo upgrade on the other. Even a 320k mp3 is only about a quarter size of a .wav file so you can imagine the depth and saturation you are losing.

[cwerdna]

^^^
It cares because someone has to write the software (or create the hardware) to decode and play the file format in question along w/various codecs that can be associated w/that extension (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Audio#Codecs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, for example).

[jlv]

... why should the Leaf care if it's a .wav, mp3, or wma ...

Because the folks who wrote the software in the headend restricted it so. Why? Maybe they had to acquire an extra software license (although since it supports, WMA, you would think that it would be included). These are the same folks who apparently made it sort based upon DOS short-names. They probably had a spec that said what it should support and then only enabled those containers and codecs.

Here's a suggestion: Try to rename a file from .wav to .wmv and see if it shows up and plays. The codec might be in there, and the player might be able to play it, but the interface might only show (and allow selection of) files with "known" extensions. I believe I saw somewhere that the system is based upon Windows Embedded, but it might still use something that dynamic detects content type (rather than being driven by file extension).

[jlv]

so you can imagine the depth and saturation you are losing.

Most people really can't tell the difference. Most car audio systems make the difference even less discernible.

In particular, the speakers in the Leaf seem worse than most other cars. I have the Bose system and nothing sounds decent. These are MP3s I ripped myself that sound rich and wonderful on my 12-year-old Passat Monsoon system. I even tried the original CD of the MP3 files I fed it and both sounded equally terrible.

[Rat]

Solved! Finally!
Today I played an audiobook ripped from a CD and copied onto my USB drive and the tracks played in correct order for the first time after years of trying. I did one thing different this time which seems to make the difference: I ripped to mp3 format instead of wma format. This gives credence to those who thought it was the ID3 tags that determine the order.

I had tried converting wav or wma files to mp3 before, and they still wouldn't play in order. I would guess that's because the ID3 info wasn't in the original wav or wma files. So I ripped directly from the CDs to mp3 this time and checked the properties and there are many ID3 tags shown, including one labeled #. I think that must be the one used by the Leaf player.

So why didn't I ever try this before? I didn't know how. I'd always used Windows Media Player to do the ripping and the mp3 option wasn't there. WMA was, and that's the only other format the Leaf player can play, so I used it. I never knew that you had to download the LAME codec from sourceforge or elsewhere. Apparently due to copyright or patent issues programs like Windows Media Player and Audacity can't include that codec in their programs. I had a good audio editing program (WaveLab LE) and never felt the need to download Audacity, but recently someone mentioned a feature that Audacity had that my program didn't, so I installed it. I checked to see if it could save a file as an mp3 and it couldn't, but when I looked in the help file I discovered the informational statement about downloading the codec from LAME in order to get that functionality. So I installed that codec and found that Audacity, Windows Media Player, and Wavelab can all now save in mp3 format! Why didn't those other two programs tell me to do that? It never made any difference for music since I always play that in random order anyway. I've never been able to tell the difference in sound quality between wma and mp3 even on my home stereo system with a good amp and speakers, so it just didn't matter.

I don't know why the Leaf player can't use the file names or dates for wma files, but it still plays those in random order when it's audiobooks. For music files, in Normal mode it does play in alphabetical order by file name. I don't know why that doesn't work with audiobook wma files. I'm going to post this in the thread "Can't play songs in order" too, since the same discussion has taken place there.

[Stanton]

Good to know, and explains why I never had a problem: I haven't done "wma" for years and only play "mp3" (with ID3 tags). Glad you figured it out!

[praegler]

I also found out something. I listen to a lot of Audio books myself so they have to be in order. I have all MP3's. They were named as such:

Folder: Christopher Paolini 1 Eragon
Files: Eragon 001.mp3 - Eragon 125.mp3

Folder: Christopher Paolini 2 Eldest
Files: Eldest 001.mp3 - Eldest 125.mp3

The interface would put the second folder before the first and the files would be in what looked like a random order. I had the track numbers in order, did a mass modify to make sure the modify dates were in order, deleted from the flash drive and recopied. None of that helped. But when I changed it so the number was not in the middle or end everything comes up in order now

Folder: 1 Christopher Paolini - Eragon
Files: 001 Eragon.mp3 - 125 Eragon.mp3

Folder: 2 Christopher Paolini - Eldest
Files: 001 Eldest.mp3 - 125 Eldest.mp3

I tried this with just a few of the folders out of order and files out of order to make sure it was going to work. Now I can rename the rest in the same fashion and all should be right again.

BTW: I used the program "Advanced Renamer" for doing the mass rename of the files. Works nicely as you can give it a format to use like "Increment title".

[be236]

I might have missed this point.. but what disk file system format does LEAF read from USB hard drive? NTFS? FAT32?

Then I just format that for my USB drive and copy in MP3 files to use?

[Stanton]

I might have missed this point.. but what disk file system format does LEAF read from USB hard drive? NTFS? FAT32?

Then I just format that for my USB drive and copy in MP3 files to use?

FAT32. You may need to do some file name editing if you want a certain order (mentioned above), but that's basically it. I typically group things by folder...which are also read in alphabetical order.