SD cards & MP3
 |
 16 years
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I did some experimenting with MP3s on SD cards...and had some conversations with a helpful Garmin tech.
Turns out that the MP3s should NOT be put in subfolders (e.g. album names) in the MP3 folder on the SD card. Doing so causes some of the MP3 to not load, sometimes an entire subfolder is skipped. The results seem to be real random.
I also found that the more you put on an SD card, the longer the unit takes to "boot up". I initially thought it had "locked up" and told her so, but eventually the unit "unlocked".
After being turned on and 'accept'ing the ULA, the unit loads MP3s, custom POIs and draws the initial map.
What happened with a heavy footprint MP3 SD card was that the MP3 player and the custom POI display showed the "hourglass" display of dots moving in a circle, while the map view said "drawing" and showed nothing else...for a long time. I thought it was frozen, but eventually all resolved to normal displays.
In the process, I did some experimenting with number/size of MP3s and size of SD cards....monitoring how long it took before all the MP3s and POIs were loaded and the initial map view was drawn. Here are the results:
# of MP3s...SD Card Size.....Time to draw map (min:sec)
---------......------------...........------------------
1119........4gb (used 4gb).........5:50
.none.......none........................0:05
.580........4gb (used 2gb).........2:00
.551........2gb (used 2gb).........1:40
So...a 4gb card is costly in 'boot' time, more so if it's full. A 2gb card is better. None is, or course, the best.
I haven't done any research on what the load of MP3s does to mapping and guidance performance....yet.
pp
What's the limitation of
What's the limitation of Nuvi reading the SD card?
My 360 has the latest software and firmware. I loaded the 2GB SD card with 1,444 mp3 files, 71 playlists which are named beginning with number with total size about 1.5GB. It takes about 1 minute or so before the browse icon becomes available. After importing all playlists, it shows playlists 01 to 47 then a few of the non-numeric playlists.
Months ago I asked Nuvi tech support, they said it reads upto 999 files only!!!
I want to clarify that there is no problem of copying 1,444 files onto the SD card 'cause I counted it.
All the mp3 files and the playlists are under a folder called "MP3".
Doesn't make sense. You can
Doesn't make sense.
You can put POi's in subfolders but not MP3's.
Go figure.........
Asianfire.......How did you
Asianfire.......
How did you get subfolders to work?
I created folders with the name of the band/artist and put them in the MP3 root folder on the Sd card.
When I browse MP3's on the nuvi, I only see all of the songs in one big list, not in separate folders.
Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks
.
You can put the MP3s in folders on your SD card which will speed up the unit's reading of them and is recommended for that purpose if you have a large number of songs loaded.
However, this will not affect the listing of the songs on the unit. The GPS units read the TRACK TAGS and pay no attention to the folder structure.
You need to be sure that your songs are properly tagged and then they will show up in accordance with the track information. (ie, Album, Artist, Genre)
MP3 resume on my Nuvi 350
On my Nuvi 350 I load all my tech podcasts onto 512MB and 1GB cards. The Garmin MP3 player isn't great, but it seems to get the job done.
One thing I'm wondering is...If I pause an mp3 podcast then power off, when I turn the unit back on the mp3 will start at 0:00 if I start playing it again. If I'm playing an mp3 however and just power the unit off, when I restart the mp3 player it resumes where it was when I powered off.
Just thought it was odd as with most tech stuff you're supposed to do proper shutdowns etc.
i havent had a problem with
i havent had a problem with sub folders
Apple's Garmin
Please NO! If Jobs acquired Garmin, it would be a sleeker unit, but you will have to pay 3 times more what everyone else is paying, and they will charge you every time a user fee every time you turn it on.
Zeus