Mp3 Id3 Tags Don't Always Display When Using Usb

[silvergls]

Does the tag infos appear if the usb is installed on the home computer?

When creating my mp3s I use Windows Explorer to tag each song and album individually. Lots of work but worth it in the long run. As I have the songs/albums saved on my harddrive, I title each track with the artist, album title, yr of release, genre and number them for sequencing reasons. I noticed that if you don't number the tracks or albums, they will tend to playback by alphabetical order. I like to hear them in the order as they were released.

My radio is the GLS model which also has no Nav. In usb playback mode the artist & song title w/ the album info always displays in a billboard fashion. Hitting the info button displays each info individually.

[quantech]

It is starting to appear that this ID3 tag display issue is common with non-navigation factory head units in the new Elantras (and possibly/probably other newer Hyundais that use the same head unit or a similar one from the same manufacturer) since [b]hatchna and [b]someguy both reported that when they tried the same MP3 they also did not see all the ID3 tag information. There's no question the ID3 tag info is correct since it was verified on a couple different computers with different programs and also is correct when played on my navigation head unit. So taking it to the dealership wouldn't do anything since a replacement unit would almost surely yield the same results. Only fix for this would be a firmware update and good luck ever seeing that happen. Unless there are serious bugs/flaws in a unit (or if enough customers complained about an issue or issues) they will probably never release a firmware fix. I don't see any other way of editing the ID3 tag information so that it would display differently or correctly in your non-nav units either.

The only display issue I've ever seen with any of my MP3 files is when special characters are used it will usually just omit the character altogether, leaving a blank space, since it has no way of displaying characters with umlauts, for example. I have a Motörhead compilation on my one USB stick and when it displays Artist information on my screen it shows as "Mot rhead" because there is an umlaut over the second "o" and the firmware in the unit apparently can't accommodate anything other than the standard 26 characters in the English alphabet. I would assume on a European-based head unit it would be OK since umlauts are fairly common, especially and most predominantly in German.

Only thing I can think of offhand might be the encoding rate of the MP3 itself. Although it apparently plays fine in all of our stereos, whether nav or non-nav, perhaps the bitrate might have something to do with it. It's a longshot but I wonder if that same MP3 that synath posted was encoded in several other different bitrates would have any bearing on what ends up being displayed. According to Tag & Rename, synath's MP3 is encoded at 189 kbs using VBR encoding. If possible, maybe try to get the same song encoded in CBR at say 256 or 320 and see what happens? Or even CBR at 192 kbs. This shouldn't matter, but who knows? I believe the owner's manual said something along the lines that the factory stereo is most compatible with CBR MP3s and that VBR encoded MP3s could be problematic. I haven't had any problems with mine playing or displaying ID3 tag info for MP3s that are either ABR, CBR or VBR in a different range of encoding rates. One thing I do know is make sure all your MP3s are at the 44.1k Hz frequency sample. 48k Hz frequency samples sometime can cause issues with various MP3 de-encoders found in portable players, home DVD units and the like. For instance, I have a stand-alone MP3 rackmount music server made for DJ use at home and it refuses to play any MP3s that are encoded at 48k Hz. Synath's MP3 is 44.1k Hz though so this isn't the cause here.

[hatchna]

When I get home from work, I'm going to try and redo the tags in synath's MP3 and see if it displays properly after that. I wonder if it is an issue with the tag itself, like what I experienced with my MP3's before re-tagging them.

[synath]

QUOTE (Quantech @ Jun 3 2011, 04:35 AM)

Only thing I can think of offhand might be the encoding rate of the MP3 itself. Although it apparently plays fine in all of our stereos, whether nav or non-nav, perhaps the bitrate might have something to do with it. It's a longshot but I wonder if that same MP3 that synath posted was encoded in several other different bitrates would have any bearing on what ends up being displayed. According to Tag & Rename, synath's MP3 is encoded at 189 kbs using VBR encoding. If possible, maybe try to get the same song encoded in CBR at say 256 or 320 and see what happens? Or even CBR at 192 kbs. This shouldn't matter, but who knows? I believe the owner's manual said something along the lines that the factory stereo is most compatible with CBR MP3s and that VBR encoded MP3s could be problematic. I haven't had any problems with mine playing or displaying ID3 tag info for MP3s that are either ABR, CBR or VBR in a different range of encoding rates.

Quantech nailed it. I re-encoded the MP3 in CBR 192 and magically the tags work. It's kind of irritating that it's finicky about that, but at least I know what's going on now and I can fix it. Now I just have to figure out an intelligent way to go through my collection of MP3s and re-encode the problematic ones...

Thanks for the help!

[someguy]

I will just live with it if this issue comes up, at least you figured it out though.

[synath]

Well, it looks like it's not as simple as that after all. I did some more investigating. I wrote a script that sorted out all the MP3s that are VBR and I put some on my USB drive and played them in the car and some show the tags just fine. All I know at this point is that re-encoding the one file that didn't show all the tags in the car fixed it so that it would, but I don't know what about that fixed it or what was wrong to begin with. I'll keep investigating... If re-encoding is the only way to fix them, then fine, but I'd at least like an easier way to determine which ones need to be re-encoded. Sitting in the car with a notepad and pen writing all the song titles down for hours doesn't really appeal to me ;-).

[hatchna]

QUOTE (synath @ Jun 3 2011, 02:35 PM)

Well, it looks like it's not as simple as that after all. I did some more investigating. I wrote a script that sorted out all the MP3s that are VBR and I put some on my USB drive and played them in the car and some show the tags just fine. All I know at this point is that re-encoding the one file that didn't show all the tags in the car fixed it so that it would, but I don't know what about that fixed it or what was wrong to begin with. I'll keep investigating... If re-encoding is the only way to fix them, then fine, but I'd at least like an easier way to determine which ones need to be re-encoded. Sitting in the car with a notepad and pen writing all the song titles down for hours doesn't really appeal to me ;-).

One thing you could try before re-encoding the mp3's is re-doing the tags. I used a free program called Mp3Tag to fix mine from last night. Might be worth a shot and could save some time in the long run over re-encoding. Just a suggestion.

[Primacywolf]

I wish there was a way to have the ID3 tag info default to on. This has to be a simple setting change in the firmware or a hidden setting. Has anyone found a way?

[Luminary]

Howdy. I'm new here, and thought I'd way in on the conversation, because I'm also kinda annoyed at Hyundai's strange logic regarding the ID3 tags.

I'll let you guys know if I find any solution to the problems everyone is experiencing. I'm using a 16GB micro SD card in an adapter, plugged into the USB slot, and my tracks are synced to the SD card using MediaMonkey.

The problem I'm experiencing are as follows:
1. The ID3 tag does not display by default when the SD card is plugged in.
2. When you press the "Info On" button in the bottom right corner of the LCD screen, the ID3 info for artist etc is displayed, and will continue to be displayed as each new track is played, but if you fast forward to the next track, the "Info On" switches to "Info Off", and you have to manually switch it on again to get your ID3 info.

This is extremely annoying and very unsafe, since in order to get info on what's going on, you have to fumble with switching the "Info On" button on as you scroll through each track using the steering wheel controls. Very bizarre.

My solution so far is to use special variables and track filename renaming techniques to provide the artist, album, and track info in the filename and folder structure itself, since these are always displayed.

I'll let you know if I can work anything out, but it's retarded that the system works the way it does.

[Em-squared]

Luminary.