helix139

I have a 32GB card that is about 98% full and it only takes a few seconds for all my music to be available when I first insert the card. It's ready to go by the time I've backed out of my driveway.

Everyone is right about the SD card audio quality being superior to the iPod though. Very noticeable. The other alternative is to get a portable hard drive and USB adapter for the AMI. You'll get digital sound quality but more capacity. No personal experience using it though.

zulujams

Long answer to your question: I had a random problem where MMI playback got stuck in an album when it should have been mixing (shuffling) everything on the SD card. I ended up blowing away all the artist and album folders that went onto the SD card from iTunes so that just the tracks were listed--this was just an experiment to see how MMI would handle it. The mixing worked fine. I then copied the songs without the artist and album folders to the jukebox, and the folders were restored on the jukebox which surprised me. The data must be embedded. I can scroll to any artist I want and pick out an album or song in the jukebox. I don't know if playlists are possible. I always play in Mix mode which shuffles the entire jukebox. This is how I listened to iPods in the car and in previous cars. Maybe others can offer up insight to any advanced abilities on SD cards and the jukebox. Note: if you like Mix mode, know that you need to enable it almost every time you get in the car unless you only left the car for a few minutes. MMI doesn't remember this setting after the car has been off for awhile. Just a quirk--not hard to set it again.

MSUplayer06

I leave my Ipod in the car 100% of the time. Whatever folders or playlists you have on your Ipod can be navigated to through MMI, which makes things pretty easy. The only quark, as mentioned by others, is that if you want shuffle/mix, it needs to be turned on through MMI everytime you turn on the car.

Side question: When the Ipod is connected to the car in the glovebox, does it ever shut off? Or is it constantly drawing power from the battery? I noticed when the car is off and I open the glovebox that the Ipod is on.

UmIsThisThingOn

It turns off after a little while.

Hard Driver

Personally, I have an SD card that I use.

I got a 32 GB card and loaded it up and found that there is a 4000 song limit on each SD card. After this, weird random messages about folders not containing playable files start showing up.

I have never had a problem with the SD card not loading quickly with over 3900 songs on it as long as I just leave it in there.

zulujams

Hey urojohn. How long did you let it go? I used the Import button which was the top left one by the joystick. I first tried selecting just the songs I wanted on the CD I loaded, but that says it finished in just a second or two. Nothing was uploaded. I then tried again with the whole CD and that worked, but wow was it slow. I finally left the car for awhile after 8 minutes and maybe 30% done. I came back close to 20 minutes later and it completed successfully as verified on the jukebox (then I deleted a couple tracks which is really fast other than a lot of scrolling). I can't see myself ever doing this again unless I needed to show someone how ridiculously slow it runs. Maybe a newer CD rips faster but SD cards are the way to go for jukebox loading.

EF99

As I learned from NWS4guy (and assuming you have a PC), you just start windows media player, select the Rip tab, select your resolution/bitrate, insert your store-bought CD into the computer, and it automatically rips the entire CD in a couple minutes. It also detects the CD and stores its as artist->album->track title in your "My Music" directory. No typing required. It retrieves cover art as well, but MMI doesn't use it. Then you just click and drag that to your SD card.

So, even if MMI CD ripping worked, it's not as easy/fast as the above method.

rocknS4

I'm somewhat stymied with all the options for storing and playing music. Just how much time are you guys spending in your cars to listen to all that music? I have a commute in the mornings and a trip home at night, each way about 12 miles which translates into no more than say 6-7 songs each way. On weekends maybe a tad more. Combine that with listening to news, weather, and sports...well you get the picture. Just how much storage is necessary?

urojohn

Yeah I had a similar experience but never got anything usable. It sounds like a cool feature, but it is so much easier to do on a computer that it isn't worth the effort. I let mine go for 20 minutes or so the longest time.

zulujams

I think we have some audiophiles in the group ;-) It isn't so much a matter of how much time spent in the car as having options available. Being able to play with technology is a plus (for some). I have similar driving times as you, but personally I can't stand regular radio with commercials and blabbing, and Sirius doesn't come in well on local roads and cuts out under just about every bridge. I listen to music all the time when in the car so iPods, SD cards, and the jukebox are great for storing a variety of music.

EF99, I haven't played with Media Player in a long time, but it sounds like a good option. For me, I typically put any new music on my iPod through iTunes, so it is easy to drag and drop the tracks to an SD card and then load to the jukebox as desired.

urojohn, agreed. I don't expect to try ripping any more CDs. I will still occasionally buy an actual CD but if so it may be through the mail and not at a store where I 'absolutely need to rip it right away'. I'd just listen to it in the CD player (remember those? lol).