JCMontana

I thought I would try to use some SD cards with my MMI (B&O) but found it couldn't read a 32GB SDHC Sandisk Card. I read online that the MMI won't work with the SDHC cards... but then I read that SD cards only get up to 2GB.
But the Audi manual says the MMI works with memory cards up to 32Gb.
It just occurred to me after returning the card, that I didn't check how it was formatted--I just assumed it was FAT, but maybe that's not the default formatting on the Sandisk cards now. Does anyone know or have any success with this?
thanks

Moviela

The early 2009 cars would only read SD cards. SDHC could not be read. Just to confuse consumers SD cards can be made up to 4GB, and the smallest SDHC card is 4GB. In the real world there were never any real supply for SD 4GB because only a few older cameras and Audi needed them.

The addressing is different between SD and SDHC thus the incompatibility.

The VW technical center only allows specific file types to be used by the Audi reader.

As you have noted formatting is important. The utility formatters on most computers do not format the SDHC cards for best practices. The timing depends too much on the system clock for write cycles and usually results in less than optimum performance.

The Secure Digital organization provides a free SD card programmer. It will format trouble free SDHC cards for you.

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

gunsmoker

The only way the formatting can affect the performance is by which file system is established (nfs, FAT16, FAT32) and what partitioning has been made. If a file system that can support a much larger capacity is selected, then you will have less space available in the flash and the access can be a little slower. The timing of the actual read and write cycles has nothing to do with this. The speed of the flash is auto-detected (e.g. class 4, class 6, etc.) and the host will use the maximum speed it can support. This is not a magnetic media like HDD or floppy where formatting has something to do with physically establishing tracks and sectors. It's just a fixed amount of bytes and it's about what the formatter has written there, not how it has been written.

JCMontana

Thanks for the suggestions. So I did reformat the SDHC card (class 4). I tried all the options: Quick Format (with and without the Logical Address Adjustment option). And the Overwrite Format (with and without). The good news is that I no longer get the media is unreadable message. The bad news is that my files (AAC 320 nitrate) are not playing -- and I get a message that the files are damaged. These are the same files that are on an external hard drive that I used in the glovebox with the MMI.
I'm stumped

Moviela

You might be having a problem with protected files from ITunes not being allowed to play from a SDHC card for digital rights reasons. AAC was developed by Sony, Dolby and others primarily for movie use, but Apple likes it because it is newer than MP3 and addresses shortcomings in that format. Most of the bells and whistles are for making movie sound tracks that fit photographically on theatrical films. Moving Pictures Expert Group adopted it as a standard in 1997. It is everywhere now as MP4.

Audi does allow the file to be read through the AMI because it accepts all things Apple through that port. The SD reader seems to be as unfriendly as possible, though it seems to be designed long after MP4 became popular. German vehicle manufacturers seem always to be behind the technology curve for in-car entertainment systems.

May I suggest you take a song or two and convert to MP3 to try it in the car on the SD port? I know the sound will be technically inferior, but you may find that the sound field in the Audi will not "showcase" the differences to your ears.

JCMontana

Thanks--that does work. The manual says SD cards will support AAC, but apparently not. Pretty annoying, I must say.

Top$

I just posted this on another thread, if it helps


Hi all, A NewBee so be nice

Just to give my experience, i managed, after painful searching, to get an SDHC card to play in my 2011 (61 plate) A4 MMI (think it's a 2g or 3g, but doesnt have the joystick)

I have a HTC one M8 phone and here's how i got my music to play using an SDHC card.

I downloaded an app called Tubemate, to cache mp4 files from YT to phone.
I downloaded an app called MP3 Video converter that then converts the music vids to MP3 format (you have to ensure you select the correct file type as MP3 when converting)
I Saved the converted files to external storage (16gb microSDHC)
Inserted the microSDHC to the SD card adaptor and hey presto, i have the song title and music from an SDHC card!

I know others have been struggling (as I was) in getting an SDHC card with music to work and this worked for me. Im not that tech savvy so others in my shoes might find it helpful
Note: I did ensure the microSDHC card was formatted to FAT32