using as a usb media player??

hi,

just bought a Sandisk Facet 8gb flash drive with the intentions of using it to store music on to use in the car. However when i put media on the flash drive it appears to go, but when plugged into the stereo the flash drive is read and then the message ‘no files’ appears?

any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

What are the specs for the car’s music player?

hi ed,

what do you mean by specs?

the radio is a jvc kd-r731bt with front and rear usb ports, both work fine with an ipod.

unit is aprox. 21 months old. is it possible due to age that it doesnt support the use of external flash drives?

thanks

I think what Ed was asking is “What audio formats does your car’s stereo support?” Most only support (read: play) .mp3 & (DRM-free) .wma. If you put .flac, mp4, .aac, .ogg, or any other it’s likely your car’s stereo head unit cannot read them, hence the ‘no files’ error message.

And given that you say it works OK with an iPod connected, I suspect the files you have on there are Apple-proprietary ones like the afore-mentioned .aac or .mp4. If this is the case, you’ll need to convert them to a readable format (preferably .mp3) and put those converted files on the flash drive.

yes the files are in .aac format. how would i then go about converting the files, is there some software I need to download?

Yes. There are a number of programs that will do it, free and paid. Personally, I like Winamp but in order to convert to .mp3 format you must pay for their Gold edition ($25). I also believe Media Monkey will do it and a lot of people use that, or Foobar 2000. And there’s probably a whole host of others as well.

Note though, that cross-converting will lower the sound quality of an already ‘lossy’ format. And while I don’t use it, I think iTunes might do it too. I know for the future, you can download directly in .mp3 format, saving the hassle (and lower quality) of converting it again.