I installed my MP3 player today. To be honest with you, it was a pain in the ***. Probably because I coundn't believe I was disassembling my dash and worried that I would scratch something. The posts regarding the installation process all were a big help.

Now to my question. I only have Media player 9 and Roxio 5 Basic (without Mp3 CD creator). To test out my new player I simply used Windows (XP), and Moved MP3 files to CDR. It worked fine. ID tags showed on my RX8 display screen.

I noticed that the MP3 player had the ability to "group" Mp3 files together to give the allusion of multiple CDs. You could actually press the "Disc up" or "Disc Down" button, and it would say disc one two three etc. I would assume with the proper software make a MP3 CD with for example; CD1 Pearl Jam Ten
CD2 David Gray Whit Ladder
CD3 Dave Matthews Busted St

Under the CD Categorie have the complete album of tracks.

For those who have been tooling around with the Mp3 player, Does this sound correct to you? I dont have software to make a Mp3 CD in this manner. Can anyone recommend any?

B-Nez??

 

I think from what I've read, that the "disk" groups are just seperate folders on the cd. Try making a cd w/ the songs in their respective folders and see if it works.

-JiM

 

That's exactly it. Create different directories on your PC, drop in your MP3's and burn. So you can name your virtual "CD" albums anything. Like: Band name or Fast Driving or Classical, etc.

 

Yes, the Disc Up/Down advances successively through the folders AND SUB-folders. What I do is create a folder for artist X, then creste subfolders for each album. Et cetera...

What I have not tried yet, is the Random play. Curious to see if it shuffles the whole CD, or just the current subfolder...

 

Only the current subfolder. Wish it was the whole CD but it's not a big deal.

 

not sure I understand correctly. I have several folders, with mp3's in them. I have additional folders (sub folders I guess) with in the first folders. My MP3 playet is only recocnizing the first folderds....not the sub folders......any thoughts?

 

I have two tangential questions for you:

1) Is there a 1-second gap between songs as some have reported

2) Is it annoying?

 

[list=1][*]It's more like 0.5 seconds[*]Only if the original tracks were designed to run together, a la Dark Side of the Moon. In most cases it's not even noticeable, since most albums have gaps between tracks already.[/list=1]

 

hey eccles........I assume your ID tag nightmare is over? Also, what sofware do you use to burn mp3's?.....thanks

 

I wish! No, my player still steadfastly refuses to recognise any directory (album) names, ID3 tags or CD-Text information. This despite trying disks burned both on my PC and my wife's Mac, and original retail CD's with CD-Text info, and despite these same MP3 CD's displaying perfect tags on our portable RioVolt players.

I'm waiting to hear back from the guys at Mazda South, who were going to contact Mazda's Tech Support line to see if this is a known problem. I strongly suspect I'll be getting a replacement unit.

As for software...

For MP3 ripping, storing, manipulating, playing and burning I use J.River Media Center. I love the control it gives me over my extensive MP3 collection (the wife and I are in the process of ripping our entire 500-plus CD collection to MP3's), the fact that a single licence allows me to install multiple copies on my home and work PC's, and that it comes with a server function that allows me to listen to my MP3's from my server at home while I'm at work, and serve them up via wireless LAN to our TiVo so we can play them through our main home audio system.

But mostly I love the control it gives over our collection. When I want to blow another CD for the car, I just select the "Random Favourites - one data CD's worth" smartlist and click Burn. Want to listen to a random selection of tracks that we haven't listened to in over a year? No problem, there's a smartlist for that, too. And a whole lot more.

Try the 30-day demo; I reckon you'll be impressed.

(I have no connection with J.River other than as a satisfied customer.)