So I've tried burning a few CDs of MP3s, and I noticed that the Pioneer system doesn't always read all of the songs that are on the disk...am I burning it "wrong" somehow? (Using a CD burner in Windows XP) Is there any way to ensure it reads every dang song?

Also, sometimes it cuts a song off halfway...the same disk plays fine on other PCs I try it on...

maybe you pressed the "random" button ?

maybe you pressed the "random" button ?
No, it's not the order that's messed up...I have a burnt CD w/ 40 mp3s, it finds 24. And a disc w/ 10 folders, it finds like 7.

That's odd. There may be something wrong with the unit in your car. Talk to the service department at your dealership. Better yet, talk to your salesman. The service guys probably have no idea what an MP3 is and your salesman will probably have an easier time explaining it to the service guys.

So I've tried burning a few CDs of MP3s, and I noticed that the Pioneer system doesn't always read all of the songs that are on the disk...am I burning it "wrong" somehow? (Using a CD burner in Windows XP) Is there any way to ensure it reads every dang song?

Also, sometimes it cuts a song off halfway...the same disk plays fine on other PCs I try it on...
Mine has a similar problem. I used Roxio to burn MP3s so I can say it is not specific to your software.

I've had similar problems, but never the same tracks or even the same spots on the disc. Even tried different burning software. The one thing that did seem to help, at least where i made my first mix CD that played ALL the songs was using a CD-RW instead of a CD-R. I don't know why and i haven't tried another one yet...

I've only burned about 200 Mp3 cd's in the last couple of years so I think I know where some of the problem lies. It's going to be a combo of a few things but the most obvious is the fact that WinXP uses Joiet file ssytems when burning. This is normally not an issue but if the file name has any kind of ' " ! , or ? there is a good chance the MP3 player will overlook it. This is mainly due to most MP3 players requiring ISO 9660 (short 8.3 char: example Toxic.mp3 or long up to 256.3 (256.3 takes specific programs to make it work and most of the time is not read).

In iso 9660 long or short the chars ';:"? <>and % are switches for file names. Without going into massive detail I can tell you that specific chars. like' and ?" % completely screw up most MP3 players as they are looking for a switch, usually a path or specific command. Windows and most burner programs default to Joiet and thus anything not alphanumeric either gets skipped or ignored, Heres my fix's and I've yet to have one song missed (though I have had entire disks just not work).

1. Don't use the XP burning software unless you really really have to have it on a disk right now. Use a good burning program like Nero, or an advanced version of Roxio or Burn Now. Set the file system to iso 9660 long and to relax ISO standards, Joiet as a secondary file descriptor is not a problem(search the help area in the program to find this) some burning programs will not allow you to change the file system, my suggestion is live with it or get a new burning prog.

2. Do not burn above 12x speeds. Your burner will vary the speed it is burning at in different areas of the disk. this can mean the inside of the disk is burned at 4x but the outside edge may be at 24x. Unless you have a killer burner pretty much anytime you burn above 12x the lazer does not burn deep enough into the medium to make a 'solid' burn. This can cause problems when reading (a part in a song or the whole disk)

3. Remove all punctuation from the name. ( ":;'<>,./?!@#$%^&*()-=) take um out, replace with spaces if needed)

4. From what I've seen (because I haven't seen much of our xA in the last week except the underside of the dash putting the autostart alarm in this weekend) the stock pioneer unit only handles somewhere between 8.3 and 12.3 chars in the name. it may skip songs with more than 32 char long names. If you have a bunch of MP3's that are the Artist - Album name - track number - track name.mp3 shorten it up a bit. It doesn't take too much to make a folder.

5. Use good cdr's. I've found the Black Maxells are nice and pretty much any TDK disk. Those 50 for $3.00 cdr's at Office max after rebates are like that for a reason. I've got a buddy at work that bought a ton of these no name cdr's and burned all his mp3's on them (about 40 cdr's, every single one of them rusted and destroyed it's self. (gotta love swamp coolers)

6. Check your bit rates, some of these mp3 players will not do variable bit rates. (Vogg Orbis encoded mp3's (this is kinda common for 'downloaded mp3's) Most won't play 64kb/s and below or anything above 320kb/s mp3's (if your using 320 bit mp3's just play the cd' your not really gaining any space buy using half the normal bit rate.)

(My experimantal stage: later tonight if I happen to see the scion I'm going to try a DVD-/+R with about 2000 songs on it to see if I can get it to work, prolly a lost cause but woprth a shot.)

I've given up on burning cd's for my truck and moved on to an 80 gig hard drive but for the xA I can't see doing a touch screen as I found it a little bumpy and with my girls nails she'll trash the screen pretty quick.

Hope this helps.
Erik

Thanks for the detailed information!

What a P.i.t.A, though.

Someone should smack Scion/Pioneer with a clue stick about their "target demos"...how do young'uns listen to music today? MP3 players. Put in a damn audio jack in! (I'm not looking for a full integration like BMW has w/ iPod...jsut something that'll work with every handheld if you have the right wire.)

I agree that a nice input jack on the front would be big improvement. As to the original question, the deck also can't see mp3s if they are too many subfolders down. I can't recall the exact number, but I don't go more than 1 folder down and have no problems.

ex: Artist/Album/song.mp3 will work, but Year/Genre/Artist/Album/song.mp3 won't.

I think it's 256 traks in a folder is it's max. I'm still messing with the dvdr to see if I can get it working.

Yeah, I might take a disk I know doesn't get all read, and then change one thing at a time in terms of the names and folders. (I never go deeper than one level, and had problems with one burnt CD that had everything in the root...)

Actually, I have a theory about what might be most important: the length of the file name. Here's a cool set of Mp3:
http://www.barnofhell.com/sounds/saskrotch/Nintendo_Breakz_Volume_One.zip
(Old NES songs with a LOT of drums added...)

Anyway, about half of the 40 songs in that loaded...just dumped into the root directory. And about half the songs had titles of more than 64 characters ....
I'll bet you that's what it is. I don't know if that's just filename, or path + filename. I'll do some experiments and report back here.

If that's the main difference it'll be a lot easier for us than all the good suggestions from EExA... still might be some other stupid limits like 256 songs or whatever...

(Heh...and goes along with the stereo's annoying way of only displaying the first part of long titles...other stereos, like the iPod, are smart enough to scroll to display the whole name.)

Man, they didn't do TOO badly with the stereo (IMO, though I'm not an audiophile) but they were a few steps away from making something really cool. Not good if they're trying to get a jump on the after-market crowd.