USB Music

[CooperS]

Think yourself lucky you have folders at all! If you look on the left side of the second image I posted above, you'll see what I have to do to get every track in order.

Now look what you have gone and done @dsr

 

[dsr]

You can also get album covers to show if you have the jpg in your folder

Yep

 

[Rolfe]

They'd show if I left the "album by artist" line alone. But it seems to be a choice between having the right artist's name show up on a particular track, and the artwork. I want the right names. I did try to import the artwork - which is there in iTunes - but failed to find a way.

To clarify - the album in the images I posted has "Hans Hotter, Astrid Varnay" listed as the artist for every bloody track, regardless of the fact that this is not who is actually singing most of the time. They are simply the two main stars of the album as a whole. I do not wish to be listening to Ramon Vinay singing a solo aria, while being told this is Hans Hotter and Astrid Varnay. Fixing that is worth the time it took, and losing the artwork.

 

[CooperS]

Deep breaths Rolfe….

 

[Rolfe]

Oh, I don't hugely mind not having the album artwork visible. It's down to the twisted logic that says the name of the artist on the track is important in associating the artwork with the album. Classical music doesn't work that way. I think there should be a way to associate the artwork with the name of the album, pure and simple, but I can't find one. The album is consistently named on all the tracks, but the singers vary from track to track, and this seems to blow its mind.

Having, as I said, an hour's worth of music sung by Gré Brouwenstijn and Ramón Vinay playing with the names "Astrid Varnay, Hans Hotter" scrolling, is more than I can take. I can cope without the artwork.

 

[Wendwell]

In my previous car, I had my offline music on a memory card, structured via directories and sub-directories. A couple of examples: Pop - Springsteen - then various CDs; Chamber - Beethoven - String Quartets - then individual quartets. I haven't counted how many individual music folders I have, but there must be well over a thousand.

Sadly, I think I am correct in saying that I cannot in the MG4 (I have the ER version) use directories, but only individual music folders containing the tracks of a particular music album or piece of music. Can anyone confirm this is so?

If correct, I need some logical system to allow my music to list sensibly. The only thing I can think of is to give each category a code, say 01 for Pop and 02 for Chamber Music. For Pop, I could then order music, by performer and release date, by something like: 01 Springsteen 01 Greetings from Asbury Park; 01 Springsteen 02 The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, etc. For Chamber, it would be 02 Beethoven String Quartet No. 1, Op 18 No 2; 02 Beethoven String Quartet No. 2, Op 18 No 2, etc. I hope that makes sense? I trust the software will allow me to create 1,000+ folders, but I don't like the idea of scrolling through them! Is there a better way than that I have outlined?

As a postscript, I think I do know how to ensure I can see the music title and artist while playing a track.

Hi I am a newbie, both to the Forum and having owned a 2023 MG5 Trophy Estate for two weeks. I was going to start a new topic but was asked for recipients and had no idea what to put.

I too have found no music folders are reflected in the car entertainment system, which is annoying as I share the car and my wife has different tastes. But I have three other issues.

1) No lyrics come up when I press the icon. And this is for tracks that show lyrics on, e.g. my tablet.

2) The size of the text and the album cover. There is a huge screen available yet tiny font and even scrolling as if the screen was the size of a match box. It is as if MG want to encourage accidents by making it harder to read with a quick glance.

3) Sometimes when I start the car the system says there is no USB. I have to unplug the memory and plug back in and then the system has to read all the tracks again. I wonder if this is because I am using a Mini USB flash drives so that the memory stick do not protrude so much? Perhaps the mini USBs don't connect as well?

 

[Rolfe]

I'm using a mini-USB drive and it connects OK.

It seems to me that Trophy-spec cars have the capability to read a couple of layers of folders, but that it's not intuitive about how to access this. In the MG4 Trophy it's something to do with a "Play All" button, if you have anything like that on your car.

 

[dsr]

Yes, in the MG4, it is ‘Play All’, then the back arrow to the USB head folders. From there you can access sub-folders. Strangely, when you want to go up the tree you less the icon for the folder you have been in. Doubtless makes more sense when you practise, but don’t practise when on the move.

 

[Wendwell]

Yes, in the MG4, it is ‘Play All’, then the back arrow to the USB head folders. From there you can access sub-folders. Strangely, when you want to go up the tree you less the icon for the folder you have been in. Doubtless makes more sense when you practise, but don’t practise when on the move.

Hi DSR, Thanks for responding. I haven't seen a "play all" option on the display. It would help if MG provided a manual for the audio options or advised what software the screen uses for audio.

 

[Rolfe]

There is a manual for the MG4, although it doesn't give a great deal of detail. I'm only guessing that the Trophy on the MG5 probably has the same software as the Trophy on the MG4 though.

 

[Ian Key]

Hi I am a newbie, both to the Forum and having owned a 2023 MG5 Trophy Estate for two weeks. I was going to start a new topic but was asked for recipients and had no idea what to put.

I too have found no music folders are reflected in the car entertainment system, which is annoying as I share the car and my wife has different tastes. But I have three other issues.

1) No lyrics come up when I press the icon. And this is for tracks that show lyrics on, e.g. my tablet.

2) The size of the text and the album cover. There is a huge screen available yet tiny font and even scrolling as if the screen was the size of a match box. It is as if MG want to encourage accidents by making it harder to read with a quick glance.

3) Sometimes when I start the car the system says there is no USB. I have to unplug the memory and plug back in and then the system has to read all the tracks again. I wonder if this is because I am using a Mini USB flash drives so that the memory stick do not protrude so much? Perhaps the mini USBs don't connect as well?

Hi and welcome to the MG EVs forums.
You might be better posting your enquiry on the MG5 forum as although it probably shares some of the software and quirks with the MG4 I'm not sure the infotainment system is the same.

 

[dsr]

With apologies fo the poor image quality, here are some photos showing what I get.
1 The Play all screen. Hit the arrow alongside play all to get to…
2 The USB folder screen. Left arrow again for …
3 The screen which shows the head directories. Choose one for…
4 A screen showing folders within the chosen head directory. Choose one for…
5 The tracks available in that sub-folder. On my image the top one is playing.

 

[Ferretusmaximus]

Possibly a dumb question but has anyone found a quick way to swap from playing a USB to get the Radio on the Home screen?

 

[Grriff]

Possibly a dumb question but has anyone found a quick way to swap from playing a USB to get the Radio on the Home screen?

On the Home screen Media section {Trophy} you should have two arrows at the top which scroll through the audio options

 

[CooperS]

So just to muddy the waters, have used my mini usb that I have had for few years and I can find all 200+ tracks and appropriate albums, plus track listings. It was compiled a few years ago through itunes on a normal windows laptop, which I no longer have, so cant check formatting. However I recon they are all mp3 format, Im aware that XPower like Trophy runs different software.

 

[JonnyG]

On the Home screen Media section {Trophy} you should have two arrows at the top which scroll through the audio options

Yep, one press of the right arrow and I get straight to Radio

So just to muddy the waters, have used my mini usb that I have had for few years and I can find all 200+ tracks and appropriate albums, plus track listings. It was compiled a few years ago through itunes on a normal windows laptop, which I no longer have, so cant check formatting. However I recon they are all mp3 format, Im aware that XPower like Trophy runs different software.

All mine are mp3 and work OK on a USB C stick . My only niggle is that when starting the car it always defaults to “ play all” (random tracks) rather than sticking to the playlist I had on on turning off previously

 

[CooperS]

All mine are mp3 and work OK on a USB C stick . My only niggle is that when starting the car it always defaults to “ play all” (random tracks) rather than sticking to the playlist I had on on turning off previously

No doubt I will find that out! Not an issue as the car is not used every day nor is the usb, mostly use the radio.

 

[Ferretusmaximus]

On the Home screen Media section {Trophy} you should have two arrows at the top which scroll through the audio options

They're there, but only give the options USB, BT and Online....

 

[JonnyG]

They're there, but only give the options USB, BT and Online....

That’s odd they take me to radio straight away if I press the right arrow. That’s from the main Home Screen. If I go into the main music screen then there is no radio option though.

 

[Burgo]

Picard is a useful tool to sort out your music meta data, artwork, etc and can do some basic restructuring into a logical directory structure. Worth copying off, say, a few dozen albums into a seperate folder and experimenting on them. See: Introduction — MusicBrainz Picard v2.6.4 documentation ffi.