HHi,
i am trying to copy my iTunes library onto an SD card so that I can put it in my Audi A4 with the MMI. Is there any way of doing the transfer on iTunes but keeping the structure of iTunes, such as with albums, artists, playlists etc?
THanks in advane
Tom
iMac
Assuming your Library is consolidated in a single Folder, and iTunes is left to organize it, you should be able to simply drag and drop the Music folder to the SD card.
An itunes organized folder, will have the music files inside a folder with the name of their album, which in turn will be inside a folder with the name of the artist.
Whether or not Audi Media center can read this structure, I cannot say.
MMI? What's that?
You will have to research the answer. It really depends upon your car's specific interface. Some just play files on a drive in alphabetical order. Some will read the metadata embedded in most files and can build their own pseudo-iTunes using the car's software. Others can read playlists generated in m3u format using iTunes' export command.
When you say all in one folder, what do you mean?
when I import a CD etc, it will put it under the artist and the album. Do you mean put all of that into one big folder and then have each artist as a sub folder?
When I cut and paste the iTunes library onto my SD card, it put all of songs in a strange order. It had all of some number 1 from all the albums, then song 2, etc. It didn't keep them in album / artist setup. For some reason it won't copy over in the same structure.
MMI is the Audi Multi Media Interface (Basically the head unit and the controls for it)
i have done a lot of searching on the Apple and numerous Audi forums and no-one has been able to say why my iTunes library does not transfer across properly. It isnt a problem with playing the music, it's just the way it transfers onto the SD card.
Files are not copied to drives in a particular order. How they appear on a card depends upon how you have your computer set to display them. If I view a card with files and I have clicked the column header for "file modified date" then it will display in that order. The only time the copying of the files across to a flash drive will influence how your music appears in your player is if the player uses the file names to display the file order, with possibly some extra structure added using folders. If it reads the data inside the files then it will display them pretty much as iTunes would use them and how exactly they are displayed will depend upon how the player actually works. The other way (as I have already said) is if the player uses a special file to tell it how it should order the files on the display. When I last rented a new car it simple read the data inside the files as iTunes does and if a humble Ford Focus can do that then I suspect that is how Audi does it. If it is not doing this then maybe your files do not contain the data, or your simply have not read the special manual for the MMI that I see on Audi's website it provides to its owners and discovered how to set the view order.
Since nobody has seen to it I have been bestowed with an Audi you may have to wait for another Audi owner to answer this, or perhaps do some investigating yourself. If you type "Audi MMI A4" into a web search it will lead you to a bunch of videos on Audi's web site on how to use the MMI. My computer is old and my connection speed is slow so I absolutely hate instructional videos online and I will let you plow through them to see if any provide the information you need.
My understanding from Phil0124 statement is it is simply telling you to copy all the files in the Media folder to the card.
When I cut and paste the iTunes library onto my SD card, it put all of songs in a strange order. It had all of some number 1 from all the albums, then song 2, etc. It didn't keep them in album / artist setup. For some reason it won't copy over in the same structure.
Is this how you are seeing it when viewed on your computer, or is this how you are seeing it in the MMI? If that is how you are seeing it on the computer, forget it, or do as Phil01234 says and drag across folders from the main Media folder in the iTunes folder.
By the way, on a Mac to copy files from one drive to another you simply drag them, no copy and paste.
Thanks for everyone's help with this.
Tbooth1988 wrote:
When you say all in one folder, what do you mean?
when I import a CD etc, it will put it under the artist and the album. Do you mean put all of that into one big folder and then have each artist as a sub folder?
When I cut and paste the iTunes library onto my SD card, it put all of songs in a strange order. It had all of some number 1 from all the albums, then song 2, etc. It didn't keep them in album / artist setup. For some reason it won't copy over in the same structure.
Yes, the iTunes folder should have all your Artists, as sub folders, and then all the Artist albums as sub folders for the Artists.with the song files inside them. MP3, AAC etc..
If you copy the main music folder to your SD card, then it will retain that organization. not sure what you are seeing on your Audi MMI. It could be the way it reads the files, though
You can simply drag that Music folder, or the artists folders inside it to the SD card.
The Mmi should then pick up the music directly according to this audio forum thread:
http://www.audiworld.com/forums/audio-video-security-discussion-15/sd-card-mmi-2 809202/
Not sure where this is going awry. As long as you keep the folder structure, t should be fine. itunes however is not involved since it cannot directly copy to an SD card. an how it displays on the MMI would be up to Audi's software.
How to I copy my iTunes library onto an SD card in the same format such as artists, albums playlists etc on a Mac?
