Rolfe
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Update. Using iTunes to do this is not as complicated as I thought at first. Once the CD is downloaded as an mp3, everything can be done through iTunes and there is no need to rename the files on the C drive at all. The trick seems to be to make sure you are in the "Library" window when you do it, not the window relating to the individual CD. (I can only imagine that's what I did wrong at the beginning, because what I tried first is now working.)
All I'm doing now is adding my standardised ordering text at the beginning of the name of each track. The track name should be left, following the ordering text, or edited as required, because it will show up on the infotainment screen following the ordering text. (It's also possible to edit the artists' names and the name of the CD at the same time, if desired. These will also show up on the infotainment screen.)
As I said, I'm doing the ordering as the composer's surname followed by a short form of the name of the work, followed by the track number for that work. So if a work is spread over more than one CD, the number sequence needs to continue to get the whole thing in order. As I have more than one performance of some works that I might put on the stick, I'm thinking about adding something to identify the conductor as well.
I suppose there are cases where the composer's initials might have to be included, as for example Bach, JS and Bach, CPE. That will keep individual composers together even where the same surname is shared by more than one.
If any changes need to be made these will have to be done in iTunes and the tracks re-copied to the USB stick. All you see on the stick's own menu is the haphazard filenames iTunes gave the tracks when it downloaded them. These could be changed on the stick but that won't influence the way the tracks play because they don't appear on the Infotainment screen and they don't influence the order the tracks are played in. I'm thinking it might be worth renaming them on the stick though, using the ordering text, because otherwise the stick's file list is going to become unmanageable with everything mixed up together.
I'm copying CDs that I've never copied before at the moment, but when I want CDs I copied already as m4a files, I'll look into converting these rather than having to re-import the CDs themselves. However, the way I'm doing it now is producing exactly what I want on the infotainment screen, and that might not work with file conversions, I don't know.
This allows any number of CDs to be uploaded, selected, and played in order, without using folders the MG4's software is going to ignore anyway. I might have to split the library across a number of labelled smaller USB sticks if the sheer number of tracks gets out of hand, though.
All I'm doing now is adding my standardised ordering text at the beginning of the name of each track. The track name should be left, following the ordering text, or edited as required, because it will show up on the infotainment screen following the ordering text. (It's also possible to edit the artists' names and the name of the CD at the same time, if desired. These will also show up on the infotainment screen.)
As I said, I'm doing the ordering as the composer's surname followed by a short form of the name of the work, followed by the track number for that work. So if a work is spread over more than one CD, the number sequence needs to continue to get the whole thing in order. As I have more than one performance of some works that I might put on the stick, I'm thinking about adding something to identify the conductor as well.
I suppose there are cases where the composer's initials might have to be included, as for example Bach, JS and Bach, CPE. That will keep individual composers together even where the same surname is shared by more than one.
If any changes need to be made these will have to be done in iTunes and the tracks re-copied to the USB stick. All you see on the stick's own menu is the haphazard filenames iTunes gave the tracks when it downloaded them. These could be changed on the stick but that won't influence the way the tracks play because they don't appear on the Infotainment screen and they don't influence the order the tracks are played in. I'm thinking it might be worth renaming them on the stick though, using the ordering text, because otherwise the stick's file list is going to become unmanageable with everything mixed up together.
I'm copying CDs that I've never copied before at the moment, but when I want CDs I copied already as m4a files, I'll look into converting these rather than having to re-import the CDs themselves. However, the way I'm doing it now is producing exactly what I want on the infotainment screen, and that might not work with file conversions, I don't know.
This allows any number of CDs to be uploaded, selected, and played in order, without using folders the MG4's software is going to ignore anyway. I might have to split the library across a number of labelled smaller USB sticks if the sheer number of tracks gets out of hand, though.
