Im having a Z130BT installed and plan on using a 16GB SD card as the main source for my music. I have two questions regarding this.

1) Is there a reason this is not a good idea? I have a Walkman not an iPod and figure for $30 I can plug it in and leave it and always have access to all of my music.

2) and more important, is there anything that I have to know about how I save the files to the card to best utilize the search functions on the unit (ie search by song, artist, title, etc)

While we are on the Z130BT can anyone shed some light on these quesitons as well....

1) Does the navigation have text to speech or not? I've seen post that it doesn't but Pioneer's site specifically says it does.

2) If I'm running a nav app on my phone will it play audio thru the unit with the IU51V Cord. This would allow me to run nav even if i decide to when I'm already on the road.

3) I intended to do the bypass but don't want to void my warranty. Is there a way to have it done and not leave any evidence?

Thanks in advance!

I've got 930 and pretty it has the same interface as your 130 for the memory card. I'm using a 32GB card for music/video and love it.

Negative

- There is no search. Makes structing your files/folders important

- 2500 files / 300 folder limit - Didn't really notice with my 16GB card but more limiting with the 32.

Positive

- Fast access and always there

- Video and music on card

- I structured my files into folders by artist abc - defg - ect... creating enough folders to fill the screen without scrolling making for very easy fast access

- Video I sorted by type rather title, Movie, Bike Video, Muisc video ect...

Bypass will allow nav on the road from the unit and audio/video function integrates with either voice direction/pop up or both happening at turn points.

Bypass is only on the harness not the unit so there would be no change of the unit itself.

Thanks zx6rrdan,

So for the music files, are you suggesting I create artist folders in alphabetical order and then save their songs into each folders in alphabetical order? Then my lists will display in alpha order.

Then when I access my SD card it will show all artists in alpha order, if I select The Dave Matthews Band it will then show me all DMB songs in alpha order. Thats what I'm hoping for.

THanks again

Personally, I'd prefer not listening to an album in alphabetical order. Thats why I always name my files with the (2-digit) track number first.

I thinl zx6rrdan was suggesting a hierarchy in your directory tree that avoids having to scroll on the touch screen (which always seems to do wierd things).

Such as grouping artists in an alphabetic range with dir names like a-e, f-h, or whatever makes sense to keep all the artist names on one screen.

Where it gets ugly is when you want to find a particular song title within the albumn that has 15-20 cuts. That's where you realize how nice the HU's iPod interface is. And you can do a lot of this with voice commands.

BTW, IMO SDs larger than 16GB don't add much. They really start to get unwieldly when you have more than a couple thousand songs. And no support for playlists or search. With my iPod, I usually use playlists, not albums. I may have 500 or more songs in the playlist (like 70's, 80's, etc) and just play via random shuffle. I like the suprise of not knowing what is next.

OTOH, any SD is 100x better than a CD. I'm starting to wonder why they even bother including the drive.

Thanks RonS,

Forgive me for my ignorance. This is the first real unit I’ve owned that had anything more than tuner and cd.

I think I’m getting what your saying…

Create folders that have letter ranges (a-e / f-j / k-o etc) so that I divide the alpha into an equal number of segments. Same # as the unit will allow folders to appear simultaneously on screen. This eliminates 45 artist folders for example. Then if I select a letter range I will get a display of the artist just in that range (again trying to limit that to the number of folders ….). Then when I select the artist I get all songs by that artist in whatever order I choose to save them. This is similar to the drill down for multiple numbers on a contact in your phone correct. Letter Range, Contact, Numbers for that contact….Alphabetically makes sense to me because I am more familiar with what song I want than what album it is on for instance or track number for that matter. I think what I really need to do is roll up the sleeves and try some different things with the card.

I agree that what you’re saying about the size of the card makes sense. I have about 12-13 GB of music. Just over 2000 songs. I may add more as time goes but at a very slow clip. Also I have heard that the unit limits folder and file #’s (300/2500 I believe).

Just installed last eve so I’ve enjoyed the unit for all of 45 minutes on the way to the office this morning. Except for a couple small glitches in the Nav I am really excited. I am disturbed that Pioneer’s website advertises Text to Speech in the Nav which it clearly doesn’t have. Far more to be happy about than upset though.

Thanks RonS,

 

Forgive me for my ignorance. This is the first real unit I’ve owned that had anything more than tuner and cd.

 

I think I’m getting what your saying…

 

Create folders that have letter ranges (a-e / f-j / k-o etc) so that I divide the alpha into an equal number of segments. Same # as the unit will allow folders to appear simultaneously on screen. This eliminates 45 artist folders for example. Then if I select a letter range I will get a display of the artist just in that range (again trying to limit that to the number of folders ….). Then when I select the artist I get all songs by that artist in whatever order I choose to save them. This is similar to the drill down for multiple numbers on a contact in your phone correct. Letter Range, Contact, Numbers for that contact….Alphabetically makes sense to me because I am more familiar with what song I want than what album it is on for instance or track number for that matter. I think what I really need to do is roll up the sleeves and try some different things with the card.

 

I agree that what you’re saying about the size of the card makes sense. I have about 12-13 GB of music. Just over 2000 songs. I may add more as time goes but at a very slow clip. Also I have heard that the unit limits folder and file #’s (300/2500 I believe).

 

Just installed last eve so I’ve enjoyed the unit for all of 45 minutes on the way to the office this morning. Except for a couple small glitches in the Nav I am really excited. I am disturbed that Pioneer’s website advertises Text to Speech in the Nav which it clearly doesn’t have. Far more to be happy about than upset though.

I'm not sure if you noticed this particular glitch with the sorting of the files within a folder:

The folders will follow the alphabetic ordering as expected, but the files within a folder are sorted according to the "Date Added". This means if you copy over an entire folder, the order will follow the listing structure it has on the PC (which is typically alphabetical). And when you add more files at a later date, they will be added to the END of the file list on the headunit. In order to re-structure the folder, you have to move the files out of the folder, sort them as you wish, "SELECT ALL" , and then copy them back into the original folder. This may not happen with MP3s , but with MP4 videos, the glitch exists.

In all honesty, the SD slot is not an ideal method to maintain sort music files. Which is why I only use it for movies and YouTube music videos (sorted according to genre). I have a 16 GB stick and it can hold hundreds of videos. Occasionally I copy over a few albums but thats because I didnt feel like hooking up my iPhone at the moment.

I hope this makes sense.

I/W

I'm sure I will have to experiment to see what's best for the way my brain works but I can tell you that I likely would not have figured out the date issue when it comes to sorting files so I really appreciate your input. I could see me pounding my head against the wall on that one!

Thats another advantage of the SD IMO. If at first you don't suceed, it's easy to try again.

You've got what I was tyring to say... I've got the top level folder with directories with letter ranges as your describing and then under that I have artists. Under the artist I put the songs from that arist and only rarley I'll have the albulms folders if I have many and if I like to listen to specific albums. For music most of the time I just have it on random for the entire card about 2200 songs.

In addition I've got about 120 music videos, 10-20 bike vids and 10 or so full length movies.

It'll be all about how it works for you. Have fun

All above,

Thanks much for you help. I built my directory with folders a-e, f- j, etc then artist, album, songs which logically makes sense and is pretty easy to spin through if you know what your looking for, and if not random will work. I was tempted to eliminate albums but then I had artist folders with qty 4 track 01's (if I consolidated 4 albums) so I stayed away from that. I'm sure there is an easy way to rename the files but I don't know what it is. I wasn't going to manually rename 2200 file titles to do that, plus with a limited number of songs on a screen shot you can spin through them easily. Based on the way my files are saved there are some goofy things with the way they are listed (ie some files have artist -song name on the song title but I'll live.

Stayed tuned as I'm sure to have more questions ....

Thanks again,

I too just decided to use SD as the main music source. My X920 and ipod were stolen and the insurance company sent me a new X930 (disappointed because of lost voice control) but they wouldn't reimburse the ipod. I guess the thousands of dollars I pay for insurance over the years wasn't enough

Anyway, I just discovered it loads the files according to date added and I was looking for a fix. That seems pretty ridiculous. I definitely like the ipod interface better but $10 for a 16GB card vs. $150 for a 16GB ipod was an easy choice. And I don't even care for the new ipod. I liked my old 5th gen.

Acme,

I have not experienced this but here are a couple thoughts. I had all of my music ready to go and added it to the SD card at one time so mine is sorted just as I would expect it to be. If it sorts by date added to the SD card, build your folders in your computer's music folder and then rewrite it to the card all at once. (delete card then rewrite entire music library again) This should create a "date added" that are all the same. It will take time but the result is worth it. The second time I did this I set it to write when I went to sleep and pulled the card in the morning ready to go. **

If it sorts by the file created date then I think you would have to copy the entire library and write the copied files same as above. Again I have not had this issue so I think that the first idea should work best. **

I created artist folders that were something like a-d / e-h / i-l / m-p etc. Your specific library will dictate how your folders should be set up. I was careful not to get too many artists in any folder to minimize scrolling, (ie I have 15 artists that start with a & b so that is one folder. I may have only had 8 artist in the c-i range so that is one folder. I put the appropriate artists in each of those folders. Artist folders have album folders. Album folders have albums sorted by track number. **

** All of this is predicated by the fact that your unit has the same functions as the Z130BT which I believe it does. I hope this helps.