USB Drive MP3 Playing

[vfr_rdr68]

Hey all,

I might have missed this somewhere but checked in this section as well as Interior Section.

According to the manual you can download songs onto a USB Drive & be able to play them by plugging the drive into the USB cable. Has anyone tried this? What format do the songs need to be in to do thi?

[manxman]

Hey all,

I might have missed this somewhere but checked in this section as well as Interior Section.

According to the manual you can download songs onto a USB Drive & be able to play them by plugging the drive into the USB cable. Has anyone tried this? What format do the songs need to be in to do thi?
I hate to send you to the children's playpen, but you will probably find your answer on a competitive site- I just bought a few flash drives for another purpose, but will try one of them in my Fit too. Anyway, go to www.fitfreak.net
I have seen several discussions in the "Ice" forum concerning flash drive formatting. If you get good info., please let us know what you found.

[VillageIdiot]

I have seen several discussions in the "Ice" forum concerning flash drive formatting. If you get good info., please let us know what you found. Please simplify your explanation so an idiot can understand what you are talking about.

[manxman]

Boy, Dee, if other people insulted you they way that you do, I would delete their posts, and get them banned!

But to the point, I have been using an MP3 player for the last few years, and use the "Rhapsody" MP3 sales and archiving program/web site to buy and store my music. My player is an 8-gig "Iriver Clix". When I buy new music, I import it into my Rhapsody library. Then I connect the USB cable to my player, and to the computer, and on the Rhapsody home page, I drag and drop the music onto the MP3 player icon. The music downloads into the player, and I play it through a 1/8" stereo cord plugged into the player and the Aux. port on the Fit's stereo.

What I will try soon is to plug a flash drive into the computer's USB port, and see if the Rhapsody program recognizes the drive as a destination to transfer data (songs) from the library. I assume that this will work easily. What I don't know is, when I plug the flash drive into the USB cable in the Fit, will the songs play according to input from the stereo's controls? At the present, I change songs with the controls on my MP3 player. I am hoping that the stereo controls will allow me to switch from track to track, or fast forward and reverse, between the library on the flash drive.

I will try to find time to experiment tomorrow. Will add to this post any info. that I find out. BTW, I bought a 3-pack of HP brand 4 gig. flash drives for $29.99 from the Costco web site. The exact same deal at the same price is also on Amazon.com. Reviews of the HP drives were very good. There are much higher capacity drives available- I have seen 160 gig. flash drives, but the prices are pretty high for the larger flash drives. If finding your way around the contents of a flash drive is difficult using the Fit stereo controls, it would be better to have less memory than to have more on the drive.

[vfr_rdr68]

Village - What I was asking was pretty much spelled out by Manx - according to the manual you are able to play mp3's from a USB Drive by pluggung it in directly into the USB connector in the glove box. I was just curious if there was a specific format (Apple has a diff format than the rest) that the music files need to be saved as.

TIA & thanks for clarifying Manx

[manxman]

vfr, and VI----

I just opened my Rhapsody program, plugged a 4 gig. USB flash drive into my computer, and dragged/dropped 3 complete albums onto the flash drive. Will see how it works in the car in a few minutes- will add results here.

EDIT:

"If at first you don't succeed, read the manual (RTFM):p"

I plugged the flash drive in, pushed the CD button, and nothing at all happened. Flash drives play through the disc circuit. Then I found this in the owner's manual:

"Only AAC format files recorded with iTunes are playable on this audio unit". Also, manual recommends drives with 256 Mbyte memory or higher.

So, my entire MP3 library will not play because the data is the wrong format, and not recorded from iTunes. I wonder how much Apple had to pay Honda to get this exclusive arrangement with the Fit audio system!!

As long as you use iTunes and the AAC format to collect your music, your system should work with a flash drive.:rolleyes::cool: But-- I vaguely remember reading some fitfreak posts complaining that the stereo controls don't work the same for flash drives as they do for a connected Ipod- no track info is displayed on the screen with flash drives as it is with Ipods.

I'm glad that this issue came up. I was watching Ipod prices with the idea of buying one, and "transferring" my MP3 library to it so that I could keep the Ipod in the glove box, out of sight, and use the stereo control to play it, instead of keeping my present MP3 player Velcroed to my sun viisor and clicking its controls to change the music tracks. The info. here just saved me the cost of an Ipod, because obviously I can't use it to play the recorded stuff in my library. Aand, apparently I can't even re-record my CD's onto iTunes and transfer them that way.

Dave

[vfr_rdr68]

Dave,

Thanks for all the work and your findings. At the end of your post you say you've given up on an ipod b/c your music library is incompatible. I know this has been an issue with itunes/ipods in that you're unable to convert from the AAC format into another. However I thought you were able to go from another format into AAC format by dragging those files into ITunes.

Another option, although not the favored one, if you still have your actual CD's, you are still in luck. All you need to do is download Itunes - free of charge even w/o owning an IPod - and re-record your CD's with the ITunes program open.

[manxman]

Thanks a lot for your info!! I had deleted iTunes from my computer a long time ago because I never thought that I would eve use it, except for the rare Podcast install instructions from various Honda dealers regarding installing accessory parts (like the JDM arm rest/console for the GD3). I decided earlier, after posting my flash drive info., to reinstall iTunes so I could explore it to see if I could do what you just said that I could. Thanks for letting me know. I will now fill my spare time by recording 20 year's worth of CD's onto iTunes, and transfer those to two 4 gig. flash drives.

Oh wait. I still don't know how well the flash drive data will work with the Fit audio system. I will try just one CD transfer throgh iTunes onto the flash drive for a test. If it works, then I will repeat all of the labor to get the CD's re-recorded- again

I don't know how I would transfer recordings from the Rhapsody program into the iTunes program, bur I will explore that.

Thank you for this latest info., and for your original question. I had been meaning to try the flash drive media storage/play back for the last couple of years.

Dave

[VillageIdiot]

My problem is that I am not familiar with the terminology so I really don't understand any of this stuff. I wish my wife's 15year old granddaughter lived closer because she would understand this stuff.

[manxman]

My problem is that I am not familiar with the terminology so I really don't understand any of this stuff. I wish my wife's 15year old granddaughter lived closer because she would understand this stuff.
Just tell us what term you don't understand, and we can at least give you both a definition, and links to visit for more info. The "flash drive" that we have been talking about is also called a "thumb drive"- about 1/2" wide X 1/4" thick X 2" long. One end has a male USB connection, that plugs into a USB port on your computer. It works like a miniature hard drive for data storage- MP3 music files in this particular case. It can also be used to store photos, or any other kind of data.

Flash drives are very cheap compared to other types of stand alone hard drives. These are today's version of the now obsolete "Floppy Discs" of a decade ago, used usually as temporary storage of info. that is recorded from one computer, then transferred to another computer just by plugging the flash drive into each computer.

Another example: I just bought a new Blu Ray DVD player because the player that I got for free from Amazon when I bought a HDTV was not upgradable. Blu Ray DVD movies will continually change in format as movie producers make use of improvements to the Blu Ray disc format. I bought an early release copy of Inglorious Basterds, and it would not play at all on the Blu Ray player that was the freebie from Amazon. The new player is from Samsung and is upgradable. If a disc in the future won't play, I will go to the Samsung site, plug a blank flash drive into my computer, and download a "DVD Player Firmware Upgrade", record it onto the flash drive, then plug the flash drive into the USB port on the back of the DVD player. The upgrade info will record onto the DVD player, and the player now has the latest programming to match the newest DVD movies.

So, just ask when you get lost. I may not have your answer, but someone here will. And age is no excuse- I am older than you, and I don't have a granddaughter.

[manxman]

FYI for anybody--

I didn't know this when I copied my entire CD collection, through my computer, onto the Rhapsody web site/music store/archive, and then transferred that library onto my MP3 player, but apparently in downloading iTunes back into my computer, the reinstallation automatically transferred that library of over 1,000 tracks into iTunes too.

Now, as a rookie user of the iTunes program, I find that I can convert those music files to the AAC format required to play them on the Fit audio system, but I have not been able to get the reformatted files to record properly on a flash drive and play in my Fit.

I will keep fighting with it and post if I have any success, and pass along the methods that worked if any of them actually do.

[Bohemian]

Old thread I guess, but it is misleading. No need for iTunes or AAC. Just use a FAT32 formatted USB stick and WMA or MP3 (no copy protection) files and all is good.

[sooznd]

this may have already been solved--but you can download .mp3, .mp4 or .wma (windows media) files onto a flash drive. WMA takes up more space, so you can fit many more mp3 or mp4 formatted songs onto the flash drive.

I tunes drove me crazy, too. I had a Zune player which I really liked much better--easier to download songs. My son insisted I get an ipod, so now I bought a 16gb nano--personally I think its a lot easier & cheaper to get a flash drive--it sounds the same in the car. You can copy your cd files to you computer, then copy those files onto the flash drive. Stick the flash drive in the the usb connector and the Fit knows what to do!

Now if only I could figure out how to play my albums in my Fit...... ;)

[vfr_rdr68]

Thanks for the info Bohemian - I copied my itunes files onto a USB and was able to play it that way, unfortunately many of the songs I downloaded are "protected" and will not play in this manner.

Or I guess I can stop being so lazy and buy a male/male connector for my ipod and plug into the Aux jack.

[Blackbeard]

Back to the original question...has anyone successfully used a non-Apple Flashdrive and connected it to the USB adapter and had it work? I have used various flashdrive MP3 players, and my current favorite brand is Samsung, but my Samsung MP3 player was not recognized by the Fit. I do not want to put ITunes on my Windows computers ever again and will just burn multiple MP3 discs to listen to instead of using ITunes.

Thanks,
Keith S. :{)>

[sooznd]

any flash drive will work beautifully--does not nbeed to be apple formatted- you can have songs in mp3, mp4 or windows media format. However I could not get my my Zune or a Sony MP3 player to work when connected to the usb. Only the Ipod will work there.

[Blackbeard]

That the only way to connect to the USB port is with an Apple product which can only be loaded with Apple software?

I realize I can connect a cord to the aux-in and run my songs from the MP3 player, but I was hoping there was a Windows product that would connect to the USB port so I could keep it hidden and move between songs with the radio controls.

Keith S. :{)>

[sooznd]

No- with a Flash Drive--it is neither apple or windows product, you do not need an mp3 player at all.
You can navigate between songs using the radio controls with a flash/thumb drive. Copy you music files from your computer to the flash drive.
I guess I don't fully understand your question. You cannot use any other brand mp3 player ( i.e Sandisk, Sony, Zune, etc) other than Ipod, but you can use any flash drive.

http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/bplD9yYALZgHdxxmRPGhip1boNC6MBL01UPWbjH9PMVRg2FBy4 3lNzREWMLcKj6EfeqM7089XSQz-Cv7zqbr-kV1H1gwkoHV_eXbENeEBgYW_Z8U1fQwH_KMXwgTDlRoGKSpa6s li6Ou1DIIpU0qy3HLgEake2BC__qkOO-V_gLtfIktO3uIDeHvdwMAhUVzcurC

[Blackbeard]

Thanks Susan,

Sorry for being dense...my MP3 players also function as flash drives, that is why I was confused. I guess the MP3 software messes up the connection.

I will get a plain flash drive and load some songs onto it. What size works best for the Fit? If it is too big it might be a pain to find songs, etc. I would probably rather have two smaller units that I could switch out rather than a larger unit that I would leave hooked up and not change.

Any tips for naming song titles, adding MP3 tags etc for the Fit?

Thanks,
Keith S. :{)>

[sooznd]

gotcha--Sorry I never even thought of using an mp3 player as a flash drive.
I have a 4gb flash drive that works well. I would think a larger one would work, too.
You can jump from folder to folder and from song to song.
I named my folders with the artist name and then list the titles of the songs.

Real easy to edit on a computer.

My files are in both .mp3 format and some songs are in .m4a (those were copied from I tunes I think) I had a Zune and then copied a friends ipod collection onto my zune--the files have been translated several times, but now they are out of itune format. I have no idea how I did this, though.

[Bohemian]

If your mp3 player works as a removable storage device (i.e. like a flash drive when plugged into usb) you should be able to use it just like a flash drive.

[Blackbeard]

I could not find any flash drives at the house, although I know I have a couple somewhere...I had accidently formatted an MP3 player before, and thought maybe it would work as a storage device, so I formatted an old broken (glass display) 0.5G MP3 player hoping it would be compatible but it wasn't. My dad has some flash drives laying around and is coming over today and will bring me one.

Thanks for you help Susan. I will let you know when I get it working!

Keith S. :{)>

[Blackbeard]

Success!

My dad brought over some generic USB flash drives, and I ordered an 8G one. Copied the songs that I had put on the formatted MP3 player-and it worked! Now I need to organize it so I can find songs faster. Not sure what order it was playing the songs, maybe date order?

Thanks for your help!

Keith S. :{)>

[sooznd]

Woo Hoo- glad it worked! 8gb should have you set for some long road trips :)

As far as I can tell there is no random shuffle like on an Ipod, but if you put the flash drive in your computer, you can order the songs however you like--by alpha sort, artist, genre.

[Bohemian]

There is TRACK Random and FOLDER Random. Depending on your head unit it is in the owners manual. Default is alpha by folder then track.

[melliefit]

i am very confused i just purchased a new 2010 honda fit... trying to get a mp3 player to work.. it is a fat32 file system...976 MB... it recongizes it but then does not play any of the songs on it... my other mp3 player says unsupported so i tried this one and that is what happens .. can someone please help!!

[Blackbeard]

i am very confused i just purchased a new 2010 honda fit... trying to get a mp3 player to work.. it is a fat32 file system...976 MB... it recongizes it but then does not play any of the songs on it... my other mp3 player says unsupported so i tried this one and that is what happens .. can someone please help!!

able to get any MP3 players to work, only generic flash drives.

[manxman]

I use only an MP3 player through the AUX jack. But, IIRC from many other posts on the various Fit forums, in order for flash drives to work with the Ipod connector in the glove box, the music files have to be formatted through Itunes. Generic MP3-4 files don't work through the Ipod connector. Since I have not done this myself, I have no idea if what I just said was written correctly. Good luck!

[Blackbeard]

I use only an MP3 player through the AUX jack. But, IIRC from many other posts on the various Fit forums, in order for flash drives to work with the Ipod connector in the glove box, the music files have to be formatted through Itunes. Generic MP3-4 files don't work through the Ipod connector. Since I have not done this myself, I have no idea if what I just said was written correctly. Good luck!

Generic MP3 files do work, only not on an MP3 player (I even formatted one and it would not work).

If you put the files on a plain flash drive (No MP3 Player software), they work just fine.

Flash drives are slightly cheaper than the MP3 players as they do not require any controls or software.

Keith S. :{)>