Sd card & itunes

[Gtiain]

Is it possible to transfer your iTunes library onto the rns510 with an sd card? If so will it organise the music like in iTunes, ie track name, album etc?
Thanks for your help.

[Norbreck21a]

No. The way that itunes organises the library is unique to itunes. The RNS would just see a mass of folders with Artist names etc and play them in order.

So long as the files have tagged name files complying with id2v1 or id3v1 format, (which is all files properly imported into itunes that show track and artist names), then it will display the full text, ie. track playing, album and artist etc. on the RNS Screen and the highline dash display (if you have it).

Other than that, you also have to contend with the fact that most itunes purchased music is in .m4a format which the RNS won't read. Your better sticking with .MP3's for the RNS to maintain compatibility, however this may mean that you have to convert your files into .mp3 ?

Also, music videos and general videos (which in itunes are normally .m4v types)  files won't play on the RNS.

You can however in itunes, right click on an album and click "copy" from the drop down menus that appears, then in Windows explorer, paste into you SD card (assuming the files are in mp3 format). Doing it this way means that even on a complication album where the individual tracks are spread across multiple folders of your itunes library, they all get pasted into one folder of your naming.

[Gtiain]

Thanks for the reply. So as long as I convert the music (not bothered about films) to mp3 format I should be ok? What is the difference between mp3 & mp4? Does the quality deteriorate?

[Norbreck21a]

To be honest, the perfectionist may say there is a difference, but to my ears, so long as I convert to mp3 and no lower than 160kbs, then they sound terrific and just as good as the ogiginal in itunes.

What I and a lot of other people do is organise the SD card and HDD as follows:

Root directoy of the SD card - New folder called "MUSIC" (or what ever you like)
below that in this folder create some sub folders. I have created - "COMPLIATION ALBUMS, FEMALE ARTISTS, MALE ARTISTS and GROUPS.

I can then put the complete albums that I copy into anyone of the above categories, which makes searching for an album easier.

[Gtiain]

That's a great idea. Can this be easily done when the sd card is in the computer or do you organise once the music has been transferred onto the rns510? Thanks

[Norbreck21a]

Thats were it becomes a little tricky. It depends on what type of RNS you have. I have a verison "B" running firmware 1100, and with with this my RNS only support s 2gb SD card maximum. The newer RNS firmwares (2600 onwards) support 32gb SDHC cards. The reason I mention this, is that with my 2gb card, I can obviously only transfer a small amount of music to the RNS at a time. With the 32gb RNS, you can fill up the HDD in one go.

I try and mirror the file and directly structures on both card and RNS. I creat the folders on the SD card on the computer, create the sub folders as indicated, and then start filling up the card with albums.

The thing I have to watch is that if for instance, I already have a folder on the RNS (say, MUSIC/FEMALE ARTISTS/KYLIE MINOGUE, and I already have one of her albums in that folder on the HDD say, FEVER, then if I insert a SD card with another album from Kylie, I can't just copy the whole Kylie folder over as it will overwrite the folders and albums already contained within. What I have to do is highlight the new Kylie album on the SD card, click [COPY], the HDD will then open, I then browse to the MUSIC/FEMALE ARTISTS/KYLIE MINOGUE folder (where there will already be an album), then click [CREATE FOLDER HERE]. This will then copy the new Kylie album to the existing Kylie folder on the HDD (if you follow) ?

Now, if your device supports the larger cards, then you can create the whole folder structure at your lesuire on the PC (or Mac), then just insert the SD card and either forget about copying the music to the HDD and just use the SDHC card, or if you do want to move all the music over to the HDD, just select the root [MUSIC] folder you created on the SD card, and copy to the root of the HDD.

That's the beauty of using a root folder called music, in that the RNS will only let you select one folder to be copied at a time, so if you had your music spread out over the SD card in no particular order, it would take you forever to copy everything. Having the Root folder of [MUSIC] allows you to still only select one folder (the root MUSIC folder), but everything in that folders (all the sub-directories) get copied at the same time.

Just don't forget that if you can use a 32gb SDHC card in your RNS, the HDD only has just under 20gb capacity for music, so you can't copy everything across.

Sorry for the long winded post, but it was kinda difficult to explain in just a few words.

Hope this helps you ?

[Gtiain]

That does help greatly thankyou. Mine is version b aswell however my system is going to be fitted tomorrow by mortygttdi hopefully so as of yet I don't know what firmware or whatever it will be running. And as you may have gathered this is all new to me so just trying to grasp the basics!
Thanks.

[Norbreck21a]

If Darren is fitting it tomorrow, you couldn't be in better hands. What he doesn't know about the RNS-510 isn't worth knowing.

Top bloke as well 

[Gtiain]

Yes hopefully, I said earlier in theweek I'd go round at lunchtime tomorrow, but not heard anything since. I think I'll just turn up. Yes I've heard nothing but good things about him.
 Thanks