Playback problems from USB stick

[Wordman]

Thomas

That's very cool! 881 CDs? Dude, where do you keep 'em all?

Dick

 

[thomaspf]

I keep all my CDs in plastic crates in the crawlspace together with the DVD collection. I run a network attached storage device to have them online at all computers in the house.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[thomaspf]

Experiences with a 120Gb hard drive

Here as a summary of my experiences after using the 120GB hard for two weeks.

Short summary: This is not for everyone and there is room for Hyundai to iron out some issues with the software of the multimedia system. My wife is not using this because of the bugs.

Details:

• 
  The sound is great and having 900 CDs at your fingertips is a lot of fun!

• 
  The playback still gets stuck every so often. I am using high quality WMA encoded tracks and this is exactly the same behavior I have seen with my USB memory key so at this point I am pretty sure it is the Hyundai software

• 
  Everyonce in a while the car does not recognize that the device is plugged in. This also happened with my USB key and indicates that the initialization is not implemented very robustly. When pulling the plug and replugging the drive sometimes more than once the car eventually recognizes the drive

• 
  It takes about a minute before the playback starts. This again is due to a strange implementation choice in the playback software. It appears that the system is scanning the whole drive before doing any playback. Instead of just trying to contiue where it left off it rebuilds the whole track list every time you start the car. Better choice would be to assume that nothing has changed. It could still trigger a rescan any time it does not find an item that it has in it's data base. In order to deal with new tracks the system needs a way to manually trigger a rescan but that operation is probably very rare.

• 
  Navigation is painfully slow. I am not even sure whether they go back to the drive for every navigation but this should clearly be done from the cached library and only involve any disk action if you want to play back a track. Turning the wheel button should enable you to scroll freely throught the contents of a directory instrad of the page by page navigation the system does now.

The bottom line is that you should only do this if you can live a couple of bugs in the system. It would be great if Hyundai could address these issues rather sooner than later.

I also have a few suggestion on how to further improve the system to make it truly outstanding.

• 
  Support for a real media library with tag support. Navigation should be possible by Genre, Artist, Album, Composer. Every cell phone with a lot less memory and a weaker processor can do this today, so why not the powerful system in the Gensis

• 
  The limited amount of information during playback is again beyond my understanding. Any MP3 player or cell phone runs circle around this. I would like to see at least
  Genre, Artist, Album, Track Number, Track Name. Composer on classical albums would be extra browny points.

• 
  Support for album art from the mp3 or WMA tags. Navigating a large library is so much easier if you can quickly skip through the cover art. Album art should also be part of the playback screen.

• 
  Some form of search function that lets you use the wheel similar to the navigation system to quickly find an artist, album, or track. This works extremely well and fast on the street network so it shouldbe a no brainer for the much smaller data set in a media library.

• 
  Not music related but the ability to display JPEGs on the screen would be nice touch.

There is plenty of embedded media library software available for cell phones that implements these functions so these requests are really simple to integrate by Hyundai.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[BaywayRic]

See page 119 of the DIS manual. Although it is working for you, intermittantly, there is a reason the system only supports memory sticks! The max bit rate is 320kbps which may be causing you some minor grief as well. Maybe this will be addressed in future models/updates, but until then I would not risk frying the system by implementing solutions that are clearly outside of what is supported in the documentation. Just a thought.

 

[thomaspf]

Thanks for pointing to the manual. A 64GB or 128GB USB memory stick will have exactly the same problems. How do you define memory stick anyway? Nothing can fry the system with this setup.

The only problem here is the buggy software!

This computer happens to be in a car which is why people seem to live with this crap but problems like this are only acceptable for a short time and better be addressed quickly in a luxury article.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[garwal]

You will not harm anything using external HD. I am using a WD Passport 160G. I have it set up with folders for different genre and then put the artist in his own folder. The WD passport is on sale at wally world for 69 dollars and includes a very short cable that is perfect for this job. The power it takes to drive these 5400 rpm drives is minimal and cause no problem for the system. I am today working on trying different video formats, there may be a way to watch video while in motion, I just wanted to pass this along as it makes one easy solution for not using your ipod and how can you do better at 70 bucks for 160G which includes inclosure' and cable. just plug and play
Gary

Here is a link to one on the bay
http://cgi.ebay.com/WD-160GB-Wester...14&_trkparms=72:1234|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1307

 

[thomaspf]

Hi Garwal, great you are exploring a similar avenue. I'd love to hear what you find out about video.

However, that specific model of drive you are recommending is exceeding the power requirements for a USB port. The specification indicates a maximum power draw of 1000ma which is in line with the power requirements for 2.5" drives. You can probably connect this drive but you risk your warranty unless you supply external power to that drive via the 12V port.

The USB specification limits the power draw on the integrated 5V line to 500ma so you are exceeding that by a factor of 2.

The 1.8" drive I suggested is within the limits of that power budget and can simply be connected via it's USB cable.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[garwal]

Hi Garwal, great you are exploring a similar avenue. I'd love to hear what you find out about video.

However, that specific model of drive you are recommending is exceeding the power requirements for a USB port. The specification indicates a maximum power draw of 1000ma which is in line with the power requirements for 2.5" drives. You can probably connect this drive but you risk your warranty unless you supply external power to that drive via the 12V port.

The USB specification limits the power draw on the integrated 5V line to 500ma so you are exceeding that by a factor of 2.

The 1.8" drive I suggested is within the limits of that power budget and can simply be connected via it's USB cable.

Cheers

Thomas

Thomas

Thanks for the info I just want to know where you got these figures.
The USB specification limits the power draw on the integrated 5V line to 500ma so you are exceeding that by a factor of 2.

There is is no external power input on this drive. I would like to see the information that says there is a 500ma limit on the usb port . Thanks and I will keep you up to video work. Do yoy know what file types the genesis can use in the video area.
Gary

 

[wayoutwest]

I am also having problems with songs repeating the last 4-5 seconds at the end using just a Sandisk Cruzer micro 8 GB. I did do a fresh full FAT32 format and that didn't fix it. Anyone found a fix for this? Most of my MP3s are between 192k-320k or VBR224 (V0 encoding).

Cheers!
Dave

I will try a Sandisk Micro 2 GB which i have lying around and see if that helps.

 

[Richard Ft. Lauderdale]

I am also having problems with songs repeating the last 4-5 seconds at the end using just a Sandisk Cruzer micro 8 GB. I did do a fresh full FAT32 format and that didn't fix it. Anyone found a fix for this? Most of my MP3s are between 192k-320k or VBR224 (V0 encoding).

Cheers!
Dave

I will try a Sandisk Micro 2 GB which i have lying around and see if that helps.

I have this problem when I insert the stick before starting the car. If I insert the stick after starting the car it does not happen.

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[wayoutwest]

Hmmm... that is kinda silly that you can't just leave it in all the time... no? Who actually takes it in and out every time they get in the car? I'd think that wear on the USB slot over time would be pretty high!

 

[Richard Ft. Lauderdale]

Hmmm... that is kinda silly that you can't just leave it in all the time... no? Who actually takes it in and out every time they get in the car? I'd think that wear on the USB slot over time would be pretty high!

I know there are some people who leave them plugged in all the time and never have a problem. I don't know why mine is different. Maybe yours has another problem. Have you tried to see if it will work properly if plugged in after the car is started?

 

[thomaspf]

USB connectivty problems solved with DIS update

when I brought my car to the shop for atune-up they updated the DIS firmware. While it is painful to have lost all the contacs etc. I am extremely happy to have found that my USB connectivty problems are gone.

I leave the drive always connected and with the new firmware it is being detected every time I start the car. The player application still gets stuck once in a while but much less frequent.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[IronRed]

I know this is an old thread, but I just called the dealership after reading this thread to see if there was an update for my car, the guy told me it was only a NAV update. I don't have the Nav unit. The guy said I would have to bring my car in for them to inspect it. That's not what I wanted to hear.

My issue is that the USB stick will work most of the time, but in certain folders, it will get to t certain point and then stop playing, it will just keep advancing tracks. Sometimes I can switch folders and it work. If I pull it out and reinsert, it works fine, but if I advance back to where it was, it may start skipping again immediatly.

Does anyone have any new suggestions?

 

[mikec]

My issue is that the USB stick will work most of the time, but in certain folders, it will get to t certain point and then stop playing, it will just keep advancing tracks. Sometimes I can switch folders and it work. If I pull it out and reinsert, it works fine, but if I advance back to where it was, it may start skipping again immediatly.

Does anyone have any new suggestions?

Some folks have had similar issues with USB sticks - things work normally up to a particular song or whatever... and then it goes stupid. Typically it's one of two things:
1: the song encoding is corrupt... or encoded with variable bit rates. VBR seems to sometimes confuse the system. The system doesn't seem to have much tolerance "when things go wrong or do something unexpected" in the encoding.

2: the "FAT32" formatting of the USB stick isn't quite per the spec. Many "factory formats" are slightly askew in one way or another. The fix is to move your songs/data someplace and then let Windows format the USB stick completely. Put your songs/date back after the format is complete.

I have one that I leave in the car full-time - works fine. The Tech package system remembers where it was when the system was shut OFF and resumes from that point - instead of re-starting at the top of the stick each time I start the car's engine.

mike c.

 

[vega]

One problem could be the mp3 file itself. It could become corrupt from its creation, and sometimes from copying. Try mp3val to repair the files.

 

[Hghwy52]

I use mp3DirectCut (it's free and easy to use) to change the sound level of mp3s or cut out some long instrumental intros that can't really be heard over road noise. I can attest to the fact that editing some vbr recordings can produce a mp3 file that plays fine on a computer but will be skipped over by the Lexicon. And some downloaded files may have already been edited in such a way that they will not play on the car's audio.

 

[eruddoh]

Can anyone who is not having problems post an example of the exact file structure you'd recommend? I thought it had to be folder/song like "Black Keys/01-10am Automatic" something like that, in the root drive. I'm having the random advancing issue that has been mentioned, but other than that I like the feature...

 

[homeofstone]

Can anyone who is not having problems post an example of the exact file structure you'd recommend? I thought it had to be folder/song like "Black Keys/01-10am Automatic" something like that, in the root drive. I'm having the random advancing issue that has been mentioned, but other than that I like the feature...

I use mp3 files in 256 or 320 I think. I RIP the music from cd's using windows media player. I then organize the music in folders to my liking on the usb drive and it works without any problems.

 

[vega]

Can anyone who is not having problems post an example of the exact file structure you'd recommend? I thought it had to be folder/song like "Black Keys/01-10am Automatic" something like that, in the root drive. I'm having the random advancing issue that has been mentioned, but other than that I like the feature...

I have had no problems with any files I ripped myself, both CBR and VBR. Some files I have downloaded, or were given, would have problems toward the end of the track, where they would stop @ 5 seconds before the end and repeat the last 10 seconds or so. Repairing these files corrected the skipping, most were found to have "garbage at end of file" by mp3val. I have mp3's from 128kb all the way to 320kb, and many are VBR. All play flawlessly.

I have the drive formatted as Fat32. Directory and file structure seem to be anything goes. I can tell you, the Genesis player is very slow browsing directories with more than 25 files in them. As for the drive itself, I've used 1gb right through 16gb drives without problems, and have a couple of Cruiser Micros that have U3 that also play fine.