Speeding up Bolero SD, possible solution

[kprida77]

Having got fed up with waiting for the SD card loading of the bolero I thought I'd try a few things and think I've found a way of speeding things up. Long post but hopefully it'll explain it all.

The bolero unit will only scan directories 8 levels deep on FAT32 card. I figured that if it understands FAT32 it must be able to read files from anywhere the FAT points to, just not 8 levels deep. So I did the following.

Having got my music on to SD card in album - > mp3 format E.g.

aic_dirt/them bones.mp3

I created a 9 level deep directory structure and moved all the data in to it, so it became:

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/aic_dirt/them bones.mp3

Now at this point the bolero cannot see the files, you just get an SD card error.

I then created a playlist file "rock.m3u" that contained

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/aic_dirt/them bones.mp3

I saved this to the root of the sdcard. The top level of the card now looks like:

1

rock.m3u

To keep the bolero happy I then added one mp3 to the root (other wise it errors) so we get

1

rock.m3u

test.mp3

Et volia, my class 2 slow 16Gb card suddenly works a lot faster. The bolero scans all the directories down to level 8 and never sees the ~5Gb of files. It only sees the playlist file and single mp3.

The down side to this is you need to create a playlist file(s) to play back your music as it wont be in the list to play back otherwise.

Using this method you can create folders such as rock, pop, etc. Using playlists to access the albums.

E.g

For a card with 2 songs on, metallica and madonna, create dirs pop and rock at the root level, and create play lists for each

Card layout

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/metallica/one.mp3

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/madonna/naffsong.mp3

rock/metallica.m3u

pop/madonna.m3u

metallica.m3u contains

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/metallica/one.mp3

madonna.m3u contains

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/madonna/naffsong.mp3

Bolero will display the pop and rock dirs, going in to the dirs you find the playlists.

I've done this for 1019 mp3s (~5Gb) creating 71 playlist files, each one representing 1 album. On top of this I've put them into a catagory directory (60's/70's/80's/etc) to make it easier to find songs. (For techy types I used a unix shell script to create dirs and playlists)

Result:

16Gb Sandisk SDHC, class 2, ~5Gb of data, 1019 mp3s.

First insert time is now: ~12seconds

Time from pressing selection button to displaying root folder contents: ~4 seconds

Time to hop between folders: ~2seconds.

Hope this all makes sense and helps. I've knocked up some shoddy Linux shell scripts to create playlist files, I'll post them if people want. I'm sure there is bound to be a way to knock something similar up for windows.

Edit:

Just filled my 16Gb card with 15Gb of mp3's. 2626 songs, 195 playlists.

First time insert: ~16 seconds

Root dir listing time: ~5-6 seconds

Time to hop between folders: ~2 seconds.

Edited 6 February, 2010 by kprida77

[john999boy]

I'm sure there is bound to be a way to knock something similar up for windows.

I'll certainly be monitoring this as adding literally 100's of playlists will be very time consuming to do manually.

Mind you, how will it affect Indiana Jones - our 'mix' Guru!

[kprida77]

I've knocked up some shoddy Java code which in theory would run on Windows (needs some tidying though), might make it available if people want it. An m3u file is just a simple list of the full path to the mp3 file so if there are any windows programmers on here it wouldn't take long to knock up an application that scans dirs, creates top level dirs and m3u files.. I would do it but both my PC's run Linux.

[Raglits]

I would do it but both my PC's run Linux.

[GreyTSI]

To generate a rough list to play around with on your pc (need to find the path of your music collection).

start>run>cmd

cd C:\Users\Public\Music

dir /a-d-h-s /b /s > alist.txt

Very useful thread by the way.

Edited 7 February, 2010 by GreyTSI

[john999boy]

I'm most impressed with kprida77 for finding this simple but effective solution to everyone who has a large, well stocked SD card.

Thanks also to GreyTSI for the pointer for getting the {global} playlist file but can anyone come up with a dos script to automatically write the {literally} 100s of seperate albums as playlist m3u's?

Can kprida77 post his linux code to give a windows script writer a head start!

[Phil_P]

I've knocked up some shoddy Linux shell scripts to create playlist files, I'll post them if people want.

Yes please

[kprida77]

The script is at home but as a head start all it does is...

Assumes the card has been set up as

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/<catagory>/<album>/<mp3's>

(I'd of done it artist/album but my mp3's came off my mp3 player and it just had the data in artist-album format :-( ).

The script scans the directory at level 9 to get the catagory types, passing this to "cut" to get the field at position 9, using "/" as the delimiter. This is dumped to file (made debugging simpler).

The file is read and for each entry the catagory directory is created,

So we get something like:

1

pop

rock

chilled

At the root of the cards directory structure.

Having done this I then scan directory "1", only retriving files of type "*.mp3". Starting at directory depth 9. This again gets written to file.

The file contents looks something like

/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/rock/metallica-black/unforgiven.mp3

This file is then read line at a time. Using "cut" fields 10-11 are parsed out so we get

rock/metallica-black

This is used as the basis as the name for the playlist file by simply adding .m3u (remembering to add the extra path to the sdcard information)

The line is then written out to this file using simple echo and redirection (concatination) to file.

E.g.

echo "/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/rock/metallica-black/unforgiven.mp3" >> /mnt/sdcard/rock/metallica-black.m3u

I'll put the script up when I get home. HTH.

[kprida77]

One shoddy shell script. Could be tidied up a bit but it worked for me.

#!/bin/sh

# This script expects the mp3 structure to be in place already.

# /1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/<Catagory>/<Album>/<mp3 files>

# This script should be run from within the root of the sdcard.

# E.g. If mounted to /mnt/sdcard then you should be in the /mnt/sdcard

# before running this script.

# DISCLAIMER: If this script damages or corrupts in anyway I'm not responsible.

# Use at your own risk.

# Create dir structure at the root

find "1" -type d -mindepth 9 | cut -f10 -d'/' | sort -u > /tmp/t

while read line

do

mkdir "$line"

done < /tmp/t

find "1" -name "*.mp3" -type f -mindepth 9 > /tmp/file

while read line

do

FILE1=`echo $line | cut -f10-11 -d'/'`

echo "/$line" >> "$FILE1".m3u

done < /tmp/file

[john999boy]

So where are all the Windows script Bods as this is -

As nobody has stepped forward to show off their windows skills, I've added the playlists manually.

I can confirm that the Bolero is now working as it should have been from new.

Top marks to the OP for realising how to solve the problem that should never have been there in the first place!

Edited 9 February, 2010 by john999boy

[PowerMalc]

Yes,thanks to the people who have put all this together

I still do not understand it

I have put a CD into my laptop and downloaded the content into a SD card. This plays OK on the Bolero

Added another 3 CD's and they play.

What I would like to happen is when I use 'Mix' its mixes across all CD's not just the one it started with.

I have tried putting the first folder (names 'New Folder')with one track on and then separate folders within it with each CD, still does not work.

This is the first time I have used a media device other than CD.

Any help would be appreciated as long as it is simple. What is in post no. 1 is too complicated for me

I have downloaded the CD to SD card using Windows Media Player and each track ends with file type .wma

Edited 10 March, 2010 by PowerMalc

[john999boy]

Not quite OT but you're about to stir a hornets nest writing about the 'mix' function!

The Bolero does not do it as you would expect on such as an ipod.

The mix needs to be turned on first and then it seems to play each album (in a mixed order) before moving on to another album to do exactly the same with that one. I think that there needs to be some 'nesting' of the folders to get it to work as well.

Try doing a search (using Evening Star as the author) and you will find ample info to help out.

[Raglits]

Not quite OT but you're about to stir a hornets nest writing about the 'mix' function!

The Bolero does not do it as you would expect on such as an ipod.

The mix needs to be turned on first and then it seems to play each album (in a mixed order) before moving on to another album to do exactly the same with that one. I think that there needs to be some 'nesting' of the folders to get it to work as well.

Try doing a search (using Evening Star as the author) and you will find ample info to help out.

Not quite. The mix functions plays all the tracks in the folder you are in when you select mix, and then plays randomly across all the folders it has access too.

I have a short mp3 in the root folder, select that, hit mix and hey presto... I get random songs (although it does seem to like playing two songs from an album before moving on more frequently than shuffle on an ipod does...)

So there we go, a simple workaround for something that shouldn't need a workaround

[Evening Star]

Tried it.... It don't work! :p

[Raglits]

Tried it.... It don't work! :p

Are there different firmware levels on the Bolero units?

If so, how do you find out what version you've got, cos that trick works for me... Just wondering if I have a different firmware rev to you...

[Evening Star]

I don't know. I've given up.

I've tried using a WD "Passport" drive with all of the music files in:

1/ A single folder so you have no other folders in it at all.

2/ A folder which just has all the songs from a single artist in so X:\Abba\ (All files)

3/ A folder which is X:\Abba\album(s).

The only solution I've found is to use an Ipod & let it do the shuffling and when you consider an Ipod with a decent amount of storage space (at least 30Gb) is £175-200, it becomes a tad expensive, the Bolero needs a complete firmware rewrite, it's awful.

[Raglits]

I don't know. I've given up.

I've tried using a WD "Passport" drive with all of the music files in:

1/ A single folder so you have no other folders in it at all.

2/ A folder which just has all the songs from a single artist in so X:\Abba\ (All files)

3/ A folder which is X:\Abba\album(s).

The only solution I've found is to use an Ipod & let it do the shuffling and when you consider an Ipod with a decent amount of storage space (at least 30Gb) is £175-200, it becomes a tad expensive, the Bolero needs a complete firmware rewrite, it's awful.

I don't have MDI, the trick I've shown above works for me on an SD card...

[Evening Star]

But the thing is you should NOT have to put in anything other than a SD(HC) card with anything other than music. NO short silent mp3 or other, it should just select tracks at random.

So if anyone from SUK is reading this forum....

PLEASE FIX THE FIRMWARE SO IT SHUFFLES THE MUSIC PROPERLY!

THANK YOU!!

[m0bov]

I use playlists and the MIX works just fine.

[Raglits]

But the thing is you should NOT have to put in anything other than a SD(HC) card with anything other than music. NO short silent mp3 or other, it should just select tracks at random.

So if anyone from SUK is reading this forum....

PLEASE FIX THE FIRMWARE SO IT SHUFFLES THE MUSIC PROPERLY!

THANK YOU!!

+1

[john999boy]

+2.

I just so knew that certain people would rise to the bait!

[Evening Star]

:wonder::think::peek::yes::sun:

[ChrisRs]

I dont understand any of this.

This is what I did:

Copied albums in iTunes and then pasted them into individual folders in my SDHC Card. (One for each Album)

Thats all.

It works fine and quickly

Dont understand what the problem is?

Edited 11 March, 2010 by ChrisRs

[Raglits]

I dont understand any of this.

This is what I did:

Copied albums in iTunes and then pasted them into individual folders in my SDHC Card. (One for each Album)

Thats all.

It works fine and quickly

Dont understand what the problem is?

And if I want to play album by album, that works fine for me too. My beef (and other peoples) is that "Mix" should do that, mix songs from the source, without having to jump through hoops or workrounds to get it working.

If yours does that out of the box, then maybe there's a new firmware level out...and if so, where do I get it from and how do I load it onto my Bolero!!!

[john999boy]

It works fine and quickly

Dont understand what the problem is?

And if I want to play album by album, that works fine for me too. My beef (and other peoples) is that "Mix" should do that, mix songs from the source, without having to jump through hoops or workrounds to get it working.

Don't lose sight of the fact that this thread started off about a workaround to improve the speed of operation of a large, well stocked SD card and has only recently moved on to the 'mix' problem.

Maybe ChrisRs hasn't got a big SD card or it's not fully populated yet and therefore he hasn't come across the inevitable problem?

I don't think the mix situation will get 'ipod' sorted until theres a firmware update.

Maybe, as my SD card is solely on playlists, I should see if the 'mix' function works as it should there then?

EDIT:- Checked it and in that situation it just stays within the playlist (which is a single album) - good job as I'd prefer to have a fast Bolero than a 'mixing' Bolero :|

Edited 11 March, 2010 by john999boy