USB memory keys in car audio sytems

[ChrisGreaves]

This is, sort of, an emergency. Not a real one though.
I am driving a Chevy Trax around Newfoundland, land of interminable miles of stunted pine trees that block the view off to the side, "roadworks next 40km", and those stop/go flagmen at every other bridge (think mountains, rivers, bridges ...)

The Chevy Trax has TWO sockets for USB keys. In a fit of unbridled enthusiasm I loaded six audio books onto one key and all my language MP3 files onto a second key and tried playing them.

Windows o/s it isn't. I got all the "Track 1" of every disk in every audio book played, and these were followed by every "Track 2" of every disk of every audio book. Trust me on this one: You do NOT want to listen to the first five minutes of every book on every disk in a collection of P.G.Wodehouse "Jeeves" stories.
And we probably won't know until my next vacation what listening to an apparently randomised collection of French, Spanish and Slovenian tapes has done to this old brain.

To make matters worse, I am now entertaining the thought of plugging my Moto-x SmartPhone into a socket to see if I can listen to the Australian, British, French and Canadian current affairs podcasts.

Question1: In general, do these in-car audio stems ever provide a folder-by-folder selection of tracks. As an example, in a Windows environment I'd navigate to Jeeves, and within that to "Old School Chum", and within that to "Disc 01" and tell WinAmp to play the entire disc, about 45 minutes of story, then I'd ask it to play "Disc 02". I'm not expecting anyone to go out and buy a Chevy Trax in order to answer my question, but I'd like to know whether i should spend time exploring the Trax's audio system, or just to shrug. This morning I have dragged only the Spanish podcasts to one of the memory keys.

Question 2: In general, can I plug the USB cable from my smartphone into the audio socket? I plug it into my laptop to charge and to transfer files. Is there a possibility that something will burn out if I do that. (I am reluctant to fry my Moto-X smartphone. Or the Trax)

I am now heading off from St Anthony to L'Anse Aux Meadows (Nevil Shute novel "An old captivity"), and then driving back down the west coast to St George's to ask "Yes, surely, but St George his WHAT?", so I won't have WiFi access until late tonight.

And this really is non-urgent. I know enough songs to sing to myself for most of the way.

(signed) "Making a serious effort to catch up with Technology", one time of Toronto.

[Rudi]

Regarding Q1:

I have a USB with the following on the USB root (all files in *.mp3 format):
- a folder with music (containing sub-folders by artists)
- a folder with audio books
- a folder with various audio downloads

In my car, I can navigate to any of the 3 primary folders and it will play all mp3's in that folder. I can use the folder navigation arrows to move up and down through the folders on the root. When the radio display shows the folder name, I use a button called OK to select it. It then plays the contents of that folder.

In the case with music, when I press the OK button on this folder, it will play ALL music tracks from all the folders. However, I can continue using the folder navigation buttons to browse for a specific artist folder and if I choose OK again, it will only play tracks by that artist, ie (the mp3's in that artist sub folder).

On most radio systems (AFAIK), you have buttons for folder navigation on one side and on the other side you have track navigation buttons. If your audio system is a large LCD screen, the navigation will probably be via touch navigation and/or visually navigable.

[BobH]

Rudi, I think you've hit upon a very specific problem. There seems to be consistency - or industry standard, if you will - in the way these radios work. At the high end you get video screens and reasonably intelligible GUI information, but at the low end you get whatever wizardry took the mind of the designer and manufacturer when the product was packaged for sale.

Chris, I think what I just said was "You pays yo' money an you takes yo' chances."

[kdock]

Chris, in each of my cars (two different brands, and not a Chevy) the USB plays as Rudi described, including screens and options for switching.

I've split up my "playlists" into folders. It then plays them track by track. If each track is not preceded by 01, 02, 03, it plays them alphabetically. If there is more than one track 01, it will play each of them in alpha order, before moving on to any that are prefaced with 02. Since you essentially have six track 01s, it seems that your car plays them as either of my car systems would, one after the other.

My suggestion would be to put each book into its own folder, if you can, or find the controls per Rudi's response.

Good luck! Kim

[ChrisGreaves]

On most radio systems (AFAIK), you have buttons for folder navigation on one side and on the other side you have track navigation buttons. If your audio system is a large LCD screen, the navigation will probably be via touch navigation and/or visually navigable.

Thanks for all this, Rudi. The Trax has a screen (4"x3" ?) with about six buttons on it. The touch-screen is not as responsive as the equivalent physical buttons.
I don't think the screen is in two parts, but then, it doesn't seem to rate much attention in the 370-pages of manual. I'm still struggling to stay awake nights while I RTBBM!

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I have remade my two memory keys. Barrons501_Disc01 has two spurious folders "assets" and "Images" and I have deleted those from the memory key. I forgot to mention yesterday that "Track 1" nation included language intros as well as first 5 minutes of every audio book.

I'll try these this morning. I plan to drive a little way out of town and then stop for five minutes to study the audio system.
Yesterday I "did" Spanish review for two hours, got so absorbed I missed a turn and ended up in Roddickton, in someone's driveway at the end of the highway, to be inexact.

After two hours I decided to wade through a backlog of current affairs podcasts. (I was surprised to learn that someone called Trump is running for leader of the Republican Party ... (hah hah))

If I get this working I'll be delighted. Today is another boring day - St George's to Harbour Bretton and I need some mental simulation.
Cheers, and thanks again. Chris
P.S. I'll try to take a snapshot of the screen with my smartphone camera.
C.

[ChrisGreaves]

... There seems to be consistency - or industry standard, if you will - in the way these radios work....

Bob, you're probably right.
At least those Debit Card portable devices adhere to a strict industry standard for the end-users (me and you) - every retail establishment uses a different model, layout, and set of response keys.
What a Triumph for modern technology.

Yesterday I came close to mastering all the controls of the second right-hand stalk on the steering column. Took me a while to realises that three of the functions causes a little hand to wave at me in the rear window. How Clever! Then the rain started again so I turned it off (hah hah).

TWO stalks on the righthand side?

Today I plan to start playing with the stalk(s) on the left-hand side.
Also I will try to reset the long-term fuel consumption. It has been dropping 7.5 to 7.4 to 7.3 Litres/100Km (that's Mpg if you stand on your head) which reflects my steady pace of motoring. After reset it will be more like 4.5L/100Km, which will cause agonies to all the hot-blooded jerks who use the car after me, because no matter what they do, the long-term consumption will rise alarmingly.

(signed) "revengeful" of Old Fart Nation.

[ChrisGreaves]

... My suggestion would be to put each book into its own folder, if you can, or find the controls per Rudi's response. ...

Hello Kim, and thanks for this response. In my response to Rudi you will see today's Folder layout - basically a drag-and-drop from the laptop.
I think that your suggestion is to flatten-out the folder tree, so if today doesn't work, I'll go to a DOS 0.8 configuration, with just one level of sub-directory and see how that works,

How come you've got two cars when I have none? You might have lent me one for the month. I would have bought you lunch at Fran's (College Street) when you dropped one of them off.
Cheers
Chris

[kdock]

How come you've got two cars when I have none?

I think that's just a matter of priorities. And perhaps parking spaces. And America's obsession with automobiles.

You might have lent me one for the month.

Yes, I might have.

I would have bought you lunch at Fran's (College Street) when you dropped one of them off.

A kind and generous offer, although the does imbue it with a dollop of mendacity. And since I've left you with the car I drove in on, you'll give me the keys to your apartment, right?

Kim

[ChrisGreaves]

... I can use the folder navigation arrows to move up and down through the folders on the root ...

Apologies. I am to tired to battle with the 3-image 256K limit.
I have put up the following text [with images} at http://www.chrisgreaves.com//New%20Microsoft%20Word%20Document.htm and will make an attempt to respost this with images in a couple of weeks time when i get home.
in the meantime: IT WORKS! Thanks Rudi et al.


I drop in the two memory keys and use “Source” to select USB-1 and it starts playing “tunes” (Spanish MP3 tutorial files) quite merrily.

It plays all the tunes it can find.
I press the “menu” command bottom RHS of the screen

Well, Waddyaknow! I choose “Browse Music”

And here are the songs it is playing somewhat mindlessly.
I choose “menu” again, but this will load a different menu. The “menu” command is context-sensitive.

I choose “Folder View”

I choose “Barrons501_Disc2” (originally the second CD disk from the back of the language book) and m\irable dictu I am launched into the first of 28 tracks, each track 2 to 4 minutes long.

I then went back and selected “USB-2” as the source and repeated the exercise and listened to the first ten seconds of a story, a real story.
Then, just to prove it was no fluke, I programmed my way back to the twenty-eight tracks of verb conjugations.
Later in the day, on a quiet stretch of road, I tried loading up the other disk of Spanish, the one with a million three-second pronunciation exercises, but quickly learned that this is a good way to bring the car to a stop, Newfoundland highways having NO shoulders, just twelve inches of gravel and then a ten-foot drop into a ditch. I should add that I learned that just in time.

Moral: Program the selection on BOTH USB keys before engaging Drive and releasing the parking brake! The screen menu system is not something to mess around with at 100Km/Hr (60 mph in Texas).
Or get a passenger to do the grunt work. (Kim, you interested in a tour of Newfoundland?)

In summary, if there is a screen, then there will be a programmed menu system, but you need to spend three to five minutes exploring it while still in the parking lot. It can’t be learned just by thrusting a memory key in the slot.
This is of course quite different when cars has CD players or Cassette players and all you could do was shove the disk/tape in the slot and listen.

P.S. FWIW this Trax is exciting. I read the manual each night before turning off the light. It is an automatic BUT you can move the gear lever to “M”anual and then use a +/- button to shift down gears (from 6 to 1) at the top of a steep grade.
I miss manual gear shifts. With the Trax I get both automatic AND manual.

Cheers
Chris

[Rudi]

Excellent; and quite a documentary Chris!

I must admit that a large LCD makes navigating a USB a lot easier than a small LCD and buttons as I described in my OP.

[ChrisGreaves]

Excellent; and quite a documentary Chris!

Thanks.
I'm thinking of turning it into an AudioBook, if I can make the time.

I must admit that a large LCD makes navigating a USB a lot easier than a small LCD and buttons as I described in my OP.

To a limited extent.
I appreciate that I can "get" the equivalent of dozens of CDs onto one memory key.
That saves switching between CDs.
The downside is that I can't see how to navigate the menu system safely without pulling off the highway and coming to a standstill for thirty seconds, all up costs about two minutes.
Which dissipates any savings in time.

Whatever, I set off again today. let's see. Saturday. Must be .... Slovenian.
And it's only 62Km to Marystown!

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

And since I've left you with the car I drove in on, you'll give me the keys to your apartment, right?

Sure, Kim.
No probs.
I won't be using it for another two weeks.

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

This is, sort of, an emergency. Not a real one though.

Even less now that the car rental company phoned me and asked me to return the car. They claim that they had sold the car while I was driving it. And after I dropped $70 on an oil change mid-stride.
I took it in yesterday and they swapped it for a grey-silver Kia and drove the red Trax off to be slung onto a ship. Spilled Cheerios on the floor and all.


In the Kia, first thing I checked was how to work the SINGLE USB port. My smaller key seems to run a book, but the larger (8GB?) key just produces text on the display that says "LoadingUSB please wait ...".
And no, I didn't spend the night in the parking lot.

I had spent yesterday listening to "Kill a Mockingbird".

From what I can see, the Chevy Tax software works for me when I have a single tree of folders.

I had deleted all folders and made a root folder "To Kill A Mockin'bird" (to quote Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek), within which were ten? folders Disc01, Disc02 etc.

With this structure I can navigate to, and play, a single disc (which can mean starting mid chapter 4 and ending mid chapter 6).
That works for me. It's not a problem to pull off the road for, literally, sixty seconds while I menu-switch to a new folder.
Of course, when we had real CDs, I could spend ten minutes swapping discs in and out until I found the fourth disc in the series.

My biggest problem now is not fainting when I exit the Foodland Supermarket to find that my Little Red Car has been stolen. Again.
I calm down once I realise that my Little Silver Car is still here, though.

The hybrid automatic/manual drive on the Kia is far superior to that of the Trax, IMNSHO.

P.S. Today is "cruise St John's" day, so I'll have many opportunities to experiment. Signal Hill (Marconi), Cape Spear (I'm going to become the most singular guy in North America) and a visit to the Public Transit headquarters.

Cheers
Chris