What are you guys doing for ipod connectivity??

[reverseworm]

I really cannot speak more highly for the SD card functionality. It does take a little time to set up initially but I just loaded all my music on to the HDD from SD cards. If you set up a file directory on your PC first say for eg. artist/album/song names and load the files to that straight from itunes or media player, it loads into the car a lot quicker.

[Rocket36]

How do you coppy from the SD card to the HDD?

[reverseworm]

put the card into the slot and once the file comes up and starts playing, there is a button that appears on screen to the right of the file. If you push that it offers a couple of options - can't remember off the top, but one says 'copy'. hit that and you can then decide where you wish to put the file/s - exactly like a traditional file management system. I think there is 30gb of space on the HDD so that's plenty 'o' songs.

[Rocket36]

put the card into the slot and once the file comes up and starts playing, there is a button that appears on screen to the right of the file. If you push that it offers a couple of options - can't remember off the top, but one says 'copy'. hit that and you can then decide where you wish to put the file/s - exactly like a traditional file management system. I think there is 30gb of space on the HDD so that's plenty 'o' songs.

Thanks for that. I have 18Gb of space on the HDD which is enough for plenty of music.

Now to download iTunes so I can download some new albums and DoubleTwist to crack the iPod security. I'll just copy from SD cards to the HDD. If I can drive somewhere in one hit that means I start doubling up on 18Gb of music then I think I'd be better off flying. lol

[drbass]

Thought I'd better kill this thread - every time I write a response that seems to be the end

Anyway, make sure your files are either .mp3 or .wmp (I think). As far as I'm aware .aac files (which is what you download from the iTunes Music Store) will not play.

What exactly do you mean with "iPod security"? Do you refer to the fact that (under normal circumstances) it's a one way street from computer to the iPod?
If so, I generally use Senuti (which is iTunes backwards) which is a Mac program allowing transfer back from the iPod into iTunes.

While I enjoy great sound quality using the iPod adaptor I am hugely disappointed with the control options (or lack thereof) in my MY08 RCD310. The top 5 playlists and the complete iPod contents is not particularly useful. Having said that, I discover a lot of music on "Mix" that I would otherwise not listen to . You can always turn the Mix function off when you get to a great album/band and focus on that.

Our new car (MY09 Eos with RCD 510, I think) does have the SD card option (no iPod adaptor), and I LOVE it.

Anyway, happy driving and listening.

Seeya,
Michael

[reverseworm]

really good point - forgot about that. having said that there is a functionality in itunes that enables you to convert aac files to mp3 - i did it for my whole library and it wasnt a big deal. just don't ask how i did it! it is there though....

[Lance B]

really good point - forgot about that. having said that there is a functionality in itunes that enables you to convert aac files to mp3 - i did it for my whole library and it wasnt a big deal. just don't ask how i did it! it is there though....

But isn't AAC better than MP3? I thought that AAC is M4a which is the successor to MP3 and therefore better.

[drbass]

Converting .aac to .mp3 in iTunes is indeed easy and straightforward. All it does is add an .mp3 version of your song(s) to the library which therefore gets bigger. Easy to clean up afterwards, though.

I am pretty certain that .aac is better than .mp3 when encoded at the same bitrate. The issue here is more one of ubiquity, i.e. .mp3 is more widespread than .aac. Haven't checked if .aac play in the RCD510 (off the SD card) but the manual clearly does not mention .aac (or rather, only mentions .mp3 and .wmp, I think).

Seeya,
Michael

[R36 Dreamer]

Converting .aac to .mp3 in iTunes is indeed easy and straightforward. ,
Michael

Could you elaborate on how to do this Michael?

[Swallowtail]

This isn't a bad little tutorial:

http://askbobrankin.com/convert_itun...p3_format.html

Note that if the aac file (.m4a) is DRM-protected it's not as easy, as noted in the article.