AMI - USB Disk folder / file structure?

[dpm_dpmartin]

Car is being delivered on Wednesday, so I thought I would spend a bit of time preparing my USB disk for plugging into the AMI on the day. I've got a disk that will work, so I'm OK on that front - I've got plenty of space, so I'm OK on that front - I've written a little program that will auto-copy - and sync. - my library and ensure the filenames and ID3 v1 tags are all correct as to how I want things organised, so I'm OK on that front.

However, I did find myself wondering about a few things. This USB disk will be used solely for the car - nothing else - so it will not be filled up with 'other crap'. I have around 1,800 Albums by 805 unique Artists (all in 320kbps CBR MP3, over 200GB) and I found myself wondering what the AMI would like best for getting up and running quickly... as I assume it spends some time scanning the disk when the car is started.

I read that the AMI system prefers a flat folder structure if possible - and can't actually use anything deeper than 7 folders. That's OK, perfectly sensible, 'cos my original plan was to just put a very simple structure onto the disk, i.e.

<Artist> \ <Album> \ <Track#>, <Track>.mp3

...and that structure would be with (currently) 805 Artist folders slap bang in the root of the disk - not inside any other top level folder - but that number would grow, obviously.

I then read that "No more than 500 tracks should be stored in one folder (in case of more than 500 tracks, the system performance is greatly reduced)." and I started to wonder whether this applied to folders too?

Does anyone know?

I'm starting to wonder whether I should split out my top level and not have it as 805 distinct Artist folders, but - probably - 6 FirstLetter folders, i.e. A to E, F to J, K to O, P to T and U to Z and then have the relevant Artist folders below each of those.

So, I'd be increasing the folder depth by 1, but hopefully not falling foul of any "500 per folder limit" - that I'm not even sure applies to folders as well as files (but a folder is a file, at the end of the day, isn't it?).

Of course, that top level could even be a few Genre folders instead, but I prefer the order and structure of FirstLetter being my top level.

This might all need to be trial and error - but does anyone have first hand experience of whether the AMI will accept 805 (but more in future) top level folders for Artist or whether it will turn its nose up at that?

Any guidance / thoughts appreciated.

Cheers, DpM

[IanHo]

Wow that's a lot of information to take in at this time of night!!

I don't have anywhere near that number so can't comment on the performance of having 805 folders in the root. I think once the MMI has scanned it once and as long as the device/memory card is still connected it stores the folder information as on mine it is available as soon as the MMI is up and running. I think I did read somewhere it does a background scan in case anything has changed.

I think having 805 folders in the top level would be a pain to scroll through as you can't Page Up/Down so I would think splitting things down in to more manageable chunks would be the way to go, as you suggest A-E etc. Probably reduces the accident risk as well...

[dpm_dpmartin]

I think having 805 folders in the top level would be a pain to scroll through as you can't Page Up/Down so I would think splitting things down in to more manageable chunks would be the way to go, as you suggest A-E etc.

That is probably a very good reason to do what I'm thinking of, i.e. increase the depth of the folder structure but simplify at the top level.

I had assumed, but did know it wasn't this way with the RNS-E, that there might be a letter dial in the UI - just like with the Sat. Nav. screen to allow you to quick-jump to a specified letter... but, if not, then I think splitting out at a higher level would be smart anyway.

I might have hoped the MMI dial 'nipple' might have helped you quick-jump too - maybe by acting as some kind of page up / page down.

Anyway, how many rows of text can you see in the MMI screen? I could make the breaks, i.e. "A to E" or "A to D" or "A to C" so that there was just one full screen of choices at the top level, then no scrolling at all, until you got deeper.

It's OK once you get past Artists as most Artists only have a couple / few Albums - it's the rare Artist that has ten or eleven Albums - and Tracks isn't a problem for obvious reasons.

What is really needed is voice control... "AMI", "select Artist Kings Of Leon", "shuffle". The bit in colour possibly being one of the ID3 tags from your collection.

Surely just a question of programming by Audi - after all, the raw capability is there - and controlling the music / radio / CD etc. by voice should just be as simple as adding new tags and ability to teach those tags... I'd hope.

Likewise for the climate control... which Fords can do by voice by the way... but Audis cannot. Audi voice control is supposedly more intuitive and clever, got to try it myself, but getting it controlling most of the car's functions is pretty key, too. Right now it appears to be quite limited... in the A4.

Cheers, DpM

Edited August 30, 2009 by dpm_dpmartin

[Scotty]

I'm not sure how's it's gonna work out but I'll be very interested in your findings

[IanHo]

There are 5 lines of text on the MMI Screen available for Media which fits in with your proposed system nicely. Tweaking the nipple is only for scrolling around the SatNav screen and navigating DVD menus. Nipple tweaking should not be used for anything else according to the manual (accident risk)

Voice control works quite well, although remembering the commands is the problem, I'm going to photocopy the page out of the manual and tape it to the windscreen to remind me! I find it most useful for dialling phone numbers as for most other things it is quicker to use the MMI buttons. Problem for me is every time I say a word starting with "M" it insists on showing me the Map other than that it is pretty accurate. Worked well straight out of the box although I have now gone through the voice training bit as well.

Edited August 30, 2009 by IanHo

[Scotty]

Do you know whether the voice training is for one user or whether you can do it per key i.e. my wife and I use our own keys to remember the sound settings, temp, etc and it would make sense if we could each do the voice training.

[IanHo]

It's not really clear in the manual if it is for 1 person or a profile is stored for each key. It doesn't specifically say so I'm guessing it's just 1 voice that can be trained. Since I've done the training I can't say it has improved much it was pretty good anyway as long as you speak clearly it should be fine without the training. Only thing I've heard someone say if you have a really thick accent, it may struggle until you have trained it but for most people it should work OK in the default "untrained" mode.

[dpm_dpmartin]

Ouch! There's no People's Republic of South Yorkshire variant out and about?

This could prove irksome, but I have to try it (see if it works fine for my "thick" - in more ways than one - accent) before booking in for those elocution lessons.

Cheers, DpM

[IanHo]

Ouch! There's no People's Republic of South Yorkshire variant out and about?

I think I saw it as an option, from what I've heard it just changes certain words like yes to aye etc. & you can ask the Sat Nav to take you downt pub sorry couldn't resist

[Scotty]

Sounds like we'll survive then. After all we don't have an accent

[dpm_dpmartin]

With regards to how things will be placed on the AMI USB disk, I've arrived at the following 3 folder deep disk structure to Tracks from the root as my first attempt...

<FirstLetter> \ <Artist> \ <Album> \ <Track#>, <TrackName>.mp3

Considering that's taking all my MP3s from a very strict:

<SingleAudioRootFolder> \ <Artist> \ <Album> \ <TrackName> (<TrackNumber>).mp3

...structure / format, then I think that is what is sensible for the AMI in terms of (fingers-crossed) performance and usability. I have decided on only 5 of the top level FirstLetter folders, as per:

case Upcase (mArtist[1]) of
 '0'..'9','A'..'F' : DestTopLevel := Number2F;
 'G'..'L' : DestTopLevel := G2L;
 'M'..'R' : DestTopLevel := M2R;
 'S'..'V' : DestTopLevel := S2V;
 'W'..'Z' : DestTopLevel := W2Z;
end;

...and I hope this gives the right balance of not having too many Artists in one folder and being able to navigate through them. If I decide there's too many to be usable in, say, S to V (there's all the Ts in there and I do have a lot of "The" bands that I've got in T) then I can tinker around with them... maybe have 10 top level FirstLetter folders.

It will all become clearer in time I expect.

Of course, I will have the Tracks ordered correctly as I'm also moving my TrackNumber part of the filename to the front, yet I am going to be very well-behaved and edit the ID3 tag in the same copy / synchronisation process too. I clean the Track of ID3 version 2 tags as well.

Watch this space... I will report back if I'm experiencing any kind of issue.

[dpm_dpmartin]

I am now not so sure that this scheme will be as usable as I had originally hoped.

On the synchronisation, I saw that the "0 to F\" folder would have had over 200 unique Artist folders in it. That would be a real pain to browse through with only 5 lines per MMI screen. So I have added to the number of breaks and changed it thus...

0 to C\, D to G\, H to K\, L to O\, P to S\, T to U\ and V to Z\ - T to U\ has that very short break as there are a lot of Artist names beginning with T.

Anyway, I have still ended up with 114 Artists in the 0 to C\ folder. I don't think that is very manageable using the MMI dial to scroll.

I wonder if I will end up with A\, B\, C\, D\ etc. folders as the top-level. Hope not, and doubt it, but it could easily be 13 top-level folders each with 2 FirstLetter Artist names.

If there was a Page Up / Page Down function, on the MMI, then this would hardly be an issue I suppose. Anyway, roll on tomorrow, when I can play around with it properly and judge how it works.

[dpm_dpmartin]

I think having 805 folders in the top level would be a pain to scroll through as you can't Page Up/Down so I would think splitting things down in to more manageable chunks would be the way to go, as you suggest A-E etc. Probably reduces the accident risk as well...

I spun the MMI dial really fast while laboriously trawling through 214 Artist names beginning with C to F and the MMI went into a Search Mode...

Try it.

[dpm_dpmartin]

With the discovery of the 4,000 song limit (really songs plus folders as they count for 1 too) and the fast browse feature (spin the MMI dial fast), I have decided to flatten out my AMI folder structure on the USB disk, moving from:

<FirstLetter> \ <Artist> \ <Album> \ <Track#>, <TrackName>.mp3

to:

<Artist - Album> \ <Track#>, <TrackName>.mp3

So, "M to P\Patti Smith\Horses\01, Gloria.mp3" now becomes "Patti Smith - Horses\01, Gloria.mp3".

Reasons for doing this? I'm hoping a flatter structure will improve start-up time performance. I'm hoping the small reduction in the number of folders might allow me a couple more albums. I'm bored of pressing "Go Up" in the DIS repeatedly when wanting to search for another track that might be in another FirstLetter folder - have to "go up" three times and then start searching - hopefully that should be easier to use.

"Rang dang diddlela dang a dang"...

Cheers, DpM