Newbie to Honda & Jazz - how on earth can I get my mp3 music files to work?!

[guest6636]

Hi to you all!

I am taking delivery of my first Honda next week, a brand new Jazz SE.  My current car has an aux-in jack - I spend most of my travels listening to my vast mp3 collection on a Sony Walkman.  When I asked the lass at the Honda dealer's how do I connect my Walkman to the set-up in the Jazz given that there was no aux-in jack  The salesperson told me that I would need an adapter in order to listen to the Walkman through the "head unit"............... 
My emails to Honda UK asking how to listen to mp3 via the Walkman has elicited the "helpful" response of 1) ask the dealer 2) link to pdf version of Jazz brochure - so I am still in the dark.............. 

Any advice anyone is able to give to a Jazz newbie and to someone who is the typical UK Jazz buying age (blush blush) & who is not "tech-y" would be most welcome..............do I use the cable used to charge the Walkman indoors and put it into one of the usb ports (that gives an idea of how in-tech I am!!)?

I have a feeling that my wish is not possible so then it may come down to transferring the music files to a flash drive but an internet search seems to show problems with this, e.g. does it have to be a particular manufacturer's flash drive??  If it boils down to using a flash drive will I find the music selection process as easy as I find it on the Walkman??

Many thanks for reading the above drivel, hope it makes sense!

[peteo48]

Can't really answer too much of this but, on flash drives, they work perfectly well in the USB slot of the Mk2 so there shouldn't be any reason why they shouldn't on the Mk3. I transferred most of my favourite CD tracks to a flash drive and it works fine.

[guest1372]

then it may come down to transferring the music files to a flash drive

Yes that's about all there is to do - place mp3s onto a blank flash drive, any brand 16GB or 32GB should be OK.  You can put them in folders if you wish, sometimes naming them with initial numbers helps playback in the order you wish.  Doing this on an Apple Mac may require an extra step to clean up some hidden .dot files that can upset selections in the car.
--
TG

[andruec]

If you play from a flash drive does it resume from where it last got to? Does it start playing automatically when you switch on? Does it support FAT32?

The manual seemed to suggest that it didn't automatically start and that it always just played from the beginning in alpha numeric order. I'm also guessing that it only supports FAT16 which will limit the number of tracks you can have.

I'm just curious as for myself I have an iPod touch. That starts as soon as the infotainment unit has booted and of course resumes from wherever it got to. It also has album shuffle although that cost me 75p on iTunes store.

[John Ratsey]

If you play from a flash drive does it resume from where it last got to? Does it start playing automatically when you switch on? Does it support FAT32?

Yes to automatically resume and I think yes to FAT32. I found the best place to put the flash drive in the Mk 3 Jazz was the USB socket at the bottom of cubby hole under the arm rest.

[guest6112]

I put a USB drive with music in the armrest socket, it is fat32 straight off a Windows computer. Works perfectly.

[guest6636]

Thanks to all for your quick & helpful responses - 

So if I've understood correctly my Walkman won't work to put the music through the Connect "head unit" even if I "plug it" into one of the USB ports or the HDMI port by a suitable cable?

Ta muchly

[andruec]

So if I've understood correctly my Walkman won't work to put the music through the Connect "head unit" even if I "plug it" into one of the USB ports or the HDMI port by a suitable cable?

I don't think anyone here has specifically said that. What model is it?

An aux socket is an analogue input. That is it carries the electrical signals that ultimately just go through to the speakers. It's 'old-school' technology. A Walkman from the 1980s could only be connected that way. However yours supports MP3 which means it is at least partly digital. If a USB or HDMI cable exists for your model there is a reasonable chance that it will work after a fashion with the Honda infotainment unit. In fact thinking about it there must be something like USB for it - how did you get the music onto it in the first place?

It may only work like a simple thumb drive (in the same way that if you attach a smartphone or a camera to a computer it may only look like an external drive) but that ought to be enough to get music playing. You just might not be able to control the music via the Walkman controls or make use of features that it normally offers like album  shuffle or artwork. Butt it could save you the cost and hassle of buying a flash drive.

Then again flash drives are cheap. If you think you might want to use your Walkman outside of the car then getting a flash drive to leave in the car may be a good choice.

[guest6636]

Andruec

Many thanks for your explanation, most helpful in giving me understanding as to what the difficulties may be; sadly I like the ease of using the Walkman, e.g. the bookmarks I've set up on it  (its this model by the way and yes I use its cable to hook it up to the laptop to both charge it and to load it with music:-
https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/walkman/nwz-e580-series )

I like the ease of the bookmark facility (essentially various lists of favourite music) and the ability to easily "rewind"/advance tracks - perhaps I will find it as easy to do this with a flash drive but presumably from the Connect screen?  I have a small flash drive so I'll put some tracks onto that ready for collecting my shiny new vehicle on Tuesday and keep my fingers crossed!

Many thanks for your help and explanations! 

[andruec]

Bookmarks are going to be right out. To the infotainment unit your Walkman will just look like (if anything at all) a collection of files. Whoever wrote the software for it (Pioneer I think) might have implemented wind/rewind but I don't know. Hopefully the other users here can comment on that. They could potentially have implemented all the functionality you currently have but I have my doubts. In any case you'd have to recreate your bookmarks for the infotainment unit since it wouldn't know how to get them from the Walkman.

The only music players that the infotainment unit actually 'recognises' and can start a more detailed 'conversation' with are Apple iPods. I have one of these and I can control it with the infotainment unit the same as I would the player itself. I even get artwork displayed on the screen. Unfortunately that requires paying the 'idiot tax' inherent in purchasing Apple products. My excuse is that I had specific requirements that no other device seemed to offer namely:

* Automatic play on start.
* Resume playing from last position.
* Enough storage to hold my entire music collection.
* Shuffle by album.

What annoyed me was that when I had to replace a failing iPod classic it turned out that album shuffle was no longer standard and required me to install an app from the ITunes store. Cost me an extra 75p 

That was for the Mk2 Jazz head unit though. I have wondered if maybe the Mk3 infotainment system was more functional. It's too late for me anyway but if my Apple kit fails it'd be good to know I could just revert to a flash drive.

[guest6636]

Thank you Andruec for further clarification/explanation - I too have resisted the Apple clutches thus far - I will have a go with the flash drive but it may be that an ipod gets my ££££'s at some point if I can't "tolerate" the way in which the Jazz's infotainment system works and the bullet points/reasoning you have eloquently described are in fact just what I want my "music collection" to do - which it seems is not possible via a flashdrive.

Ta very muchly again

[guest1372]

myplaylist.m3u
classics.m3u

m3u playlists should be recognised and if your PC music program does not save playlists in this format they are easy to create in notepad, they are just text files listing the tracks. i.e.

TrackOne.mp3
07.Some_song.mp3
Artist\Song.mp3
composer\album\track.mp3
artist\album

This last line would play every track in the folder 'album'.
Album art thumbnails embedded in mp3 files should get picked up automatically.
--
TG

[andruec]

But are they actually supported by the Infotainment unit? I'm just perusing the manual and it doesn't fill me with any confidence. Pages 285 to 287 don't say much other than how to navigate the directory tree and select a file. I stand to be corrected but the impression I get from the manual is that the Infotainment unit provides a minimalist music player. It can find what appear to be audio files and it can play them. There's no indication that it can do anything else.

[Graham Dicker]

I use a flash drive sometimes but the frequent rebooting of the unit means it keeps forgetting where it left off playing and starts again from the beginning. It is annoying to the point of being useless.

[andruec]

What version of software are you on?

I'm on RC4+latest App Centre.

My infotainment unit hasn't put a foot wrong since I upgraded the App Centre. It always boots up within a couple of seconds of starting the car and has never crashed while in use. The good news is that if you already have RC4 the App centre updates can be applied just by connecting the car to wifi and going into App centre. It's no harder than updating any other computer software.

Of course it might be the flash drive support causing the reboots. I mostly use the IPod support with occasional Bluetooth streaming for long journeys when I'm using my phone's satnav.

But in all honesty I'd say my infotainment unit is now working as it should. The UI is still a bit ugly but it's reliable and stable.