after reading previous post about how it is best to get smaller sd cards with less on them to prevent the ballero unit running slow finding tracks, i have recently bought 3 4gb sdhc cards, i have transfered approx 500 tracks onto each however when i put them into my car it recognises i have inserted an sd card but just says processing.................. and then underneath cancel and nothing else happens no matter how long i leave it!! i am not a techno wiz but am i doing something wrong?

after reading previous post about how it is best to get smaller sd cards with less on them to prevent the ballero unit running slow finding tracks, i have recently bought 3 4gb sdhc cards, i have transfered approx 500 tracks onto each however when i put them into my car it recognises i have inserted an sd card but just says processing.................. and then underneath cancel and nothing else happens no matter how long i leave it!! i am not a techno wiz but am i doing something wrong?

Don't know if it's the same, but IIRC early firmware versions of the Columbus, couldn't read the SDHC format. I think on some models this was resolved with a firmware update. Try a normal SD card and see if it's any different, if not I guess it could be the format/bitrate of your MP3 files or the file structure of the card.

Edited 27 March, 201016 yr by uncle bulgaria

If you try just one mp3 track on the card that will test UBs theory. If it does then work I'm afraid it's then down to creating playlists to solve it.

Ah balls, and I've just bought a pair of SDHC cards (one for me and one for the mrs) for when I get my car..

I read - I think on here - that it was best to use SD cards no bigger than 2 GB - presumably because the machine takes too long to process bigger ones. I use two of them - Jessops do a nice little case which keeps them protected.

I've bought 4GB ones, but I'll try and keep the amount on there low

No one has mentioned the speed of your SDHC cards, which is an important factor I think. I have a 16GB Class 6 card and it's full, within 0.6 miles (this is the distance from my house to the local village) it is ready to play from it, that's probably about 2 minutes or so.

No one has mentioned the speed of your SDHC cards, which is an important factor I think. I have a 16GB Class 6 card and it's full, within 0.6 miles (this is the distance from my house to the local village) it is ready to play from it, that's probably about 2 minutes or so.

Mine's a nearly full 16gb class 4 but due to the playlists takes about 20 seconds to start playing.

It's really not that hard to suss the playlists out - in fact, here's the partial text from one called 10cc- Early Years.m3u to aid other people.

As you can see the album folder is nested 9 folders deep so as not to be read by the slow Bolero - only to be acted upon by the playlist m3u file. All playlists are kept in the root directory together with one single (auto-play) mp3 file.

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\10CC - The Best of the Early Years\01 Rubber Bullets.mp3

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\10CC - The Best of the Early Years\02 The Wall Street Shuffle.mp3

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\10CC - The Best of the Early Years\03 Waterfall.mp3

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\10CC - The Best of the Early Years\04 Headline Hustler.mp3

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\10CC - The Best of the Early Years\05 Somewhere In Hollywood.mp3

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\10CC - The Best of the Early Years\06 Donna.mp3

What Dodgy didn't say was that if he's moving between albums it'll probably also take him 2 mins to navigate there whereas with the playlist version it will again be about 20 seconds to start hearing the next album.

If you need any more help then get back in touch.

What Dodgy didn't say was that if he's moving between albums it'll probably also take him 2 mins to navigate there whereas with the playlist version it will again be about 20 seconds to start hearing the next album.

Not so for me anyway, once the SD card has been scanned, I can jump from album to album without fuss, a slight pause of maybe a second or so and that's it. Definitely NOT 2 minutes or 20 seconds!

The playlist idea is great, I might give it a go sometime but to be honest, I'm not overly put off by what I have now.

Edited 27 March, 201016 yr by Dodgy

according to the skoda literature it should accomodate sdhc cards, strangely enough i have put the cards back into my laptop and they are not getting picked up by my pc now! so perhaps it is a dodgy batch (sandisc) i have just been and bought 2 kingston ones so will give them a try and report back, incidentally these are just sd cards as suggested so thanks . fingers crossed

Banjostu - how old is your car as it's probably only been about a year that the higher capacity cards have been able to be used.

I've also rechecked my album to album timings and it is in line with dodgys.

It did seem an eternity when I didn't have playlists though.

Edit:- Typo!

Edited 28 March, 201016 yr by john999boy

I am slowly filling up my 2 GB SD for my Columbus and have around 3000 songs so far just slot the card in and it plays in seconds

2 GB cards can hold 5000 songs

Please except my apologies it was very early this morning and I put to many 0s in

It should have been 300 and 500

Edited 28 March, 201016 yr by skippy41

I am slowly filling up my 2 GB SD for my Columbus and have around 3000 songs so far just slot the card in and it plays in seconds

2 GB cards can hold 5000 songs

The SD card problem ONLY affects the Bolero and not the Columbus!

The £1.5k difference has to bring a few benefits lol.

I am slowly filling up my 2 GB SD for my Columbus and have around 3000 songs so far just slot the card in and it plays in seconds

2 GB cards can hold 5000 songs

Holy Cow! - What bitrate are you using?!!!

Sorry to hijack but 5000 songs on a 2gig card has gotta mean naff sound quality?!

Holy Cow! - What bitrate are you using?!!!

Sorry to hijack but 5000 songs on a 2gig card has gotta mean naff sound quality?!

I have to agree, at my prefered bitrate of 256K for the car I get around 200 songs per 2GB.

I have now converted to using playlists, it was a lot of work with almost 15GB of music to index and create playlists, but I reckon it's probably worthwhile considering I've only just bought the car so I'll get 3 years of time savings out of my efforts

It's now taking roughly 20 seconds to finish scanning and get to the point where I can play my music of choice. I can change playlist/song almost instantly, that's probably down to my Class 6 SDHC card.

Thanks to all those who offered various tips on here