I have a bunch of MP3s which I created from vinyl LPs. They contain ID3 tags w/ MP3 metadata and all. When I play them in, say, Winamp, the artist and track info display fine. But when I burn them to CDs and play them in the car the text info don't show. Is there a way to get this info to display?
Burn them as data files, not CD-Audio files. The CD player is MP3-capable and should be able to read the ID3 tags. I have a MP3 CD in my car's changer and as long as the tags are OK I get the display.
Simple answer to my own question: Windows XP has a built in CD Burn utility (actually built by Roxio I believe) that does a fair job. You can create folders in the staging area then drag & drop your MP3 files into them before burning the CD. Folders make it easier to manipulate the songs using the Prius' built-in functions - on both the steering wheel and the MFD, although the latter is not accessible while the car is moving (unless you have the speed sensor mod). The MP3 CD feature works great. I wish I'd thought of doing this sooner, instead of trying to go down the iPod or MP3 Player path. I do recall reading about this in the manual when I first bought the car, but have forgotten about it. Minor annoyance: the XP tool automatically sorts data files by file name before burning them, hence the order of your tracks are all messed up. But that's a reasonable software design consideration, so I won't complain too much. To work around this, I prepend track numbers to the file names. The trick is to use at least 2 digits, e.g. 01, 02, etc. because numbers are sorted as text. Without the leading zero, track 1 will be followed by 11 and so on. Anyways, so now I can listen to my old vinyls in the car! Each album will have its own folder, and I'll even name the tracks A1-xxx, A2-yyy, etc. so that I can not only tell which side a particular song is on but also listen to them in their proper order! This is especially critical for classical music; you wouldn't want to listen to a symphony with its movements out of order, would you?
Kind of the same note... When I play a CD that I know I have typed in the names of songs/artists, when I push the Audio button, it shows which CD is playing (1, 2, 3, ect.) but sometimes the Track List button isn't lit. I've watched it several times, and even with a CD that hasn't any information on it, it should still light up. Thing is, while playing a CD, sometimes it's on, then after a minute or two, it goes out. Is it the touch-display unit, or the CD changer it self?
First off you can write CD-text to regular audio cd's if you have a capable burner. This will display the artis and title on the main screen much like a mp3 tag. Also much of the browsing gets disabled as soon as you start moving you only have the option to go up and down in tracks and folders and you will only see the file name and folder while moving. So if your track naming isn't set up so you will be in the dark as soon as the car starts to move.
the prius can read both. if you burn as an audio cd with the cd text on, u will see the track names if you burn a disk with mp3 files, you will see the file names displayed, and going into track list, and clicking on file, etc, you can see the name of the song, and artist, etc but this is just another one of those things that the prius won't let you do if your driving faster then 7 miles per hour. the prius will read the mp3 info, but they don't make it easy.
Is there a way to set the MP3 6-CD player in the Prius to Random mode where it reads from more than one MP3 disc? The manual only explains how to set random mode either for one folder at a time or across multiple folders, but only on the same disc in both cases. I can see how this could be real complicated if you have a mix of audio CDs and MP3 CDs in the changer. But thought I'd ask anyway...
no. when selecting random it only applies to that disk, and will not go to another disk until you make it
