There have been several posts questioning the ability of the CD players to handle home burned MP3's. At least in 2004 they are supposed to be able to handle MP3's according to all the factory publications I've looked through.
That said I know from experience that some players can be very finicky about what types they will play. Sometimes it's the quality, or better yet lack thereof, that keeps a disc from playing properly but more often it's the CD type and the speed of the recording process that gives some units the hibbie-jibbies.

I've always had good luck burning on CD-R's as opposed to CD+R, and I never use any CD-RW's at all. I also slow the recording process down to no more the X4 and sometimes X2 in order to make sure that I get a clean high data burn. I was curious today to see if an older recording I had made back in Dec. of 1994 would play so I tested in it my radio/cd in dash unit and it started right up without hesitation and played clearly and cleanly and it was recorded in the OLD .cda standard used under Windows for Workgroups 3.11 !! If it can play that it should handle any MP3 without any problem.

I wouldn't think that there's any difference between the abilities of the various CD players between different models of the same year such as 2004 XJ8 or 2004 S Type but I'm not 100% on that. Does anyone know about that for sure?

 

We have a 9/01 S Type SE.

I burn music CD's constantly, coz she changes her mind as to what she wants, and I have NO IDEA about the technicalities of it. I insert the CD into the laptop, use "windows media player" and create a "burn list", press the button, and go have a drink or 3 whilst it does its thing.

They work perfectly, as I would expect.

I have also recently figured out doing the same to a "flash drive stick", or whatever they call them, coz the X300 has a Pioneer unit with front USB, which is sweet.

I have thought about fitting something like that to the S type, but all I have found reads like a nightmare task, so it stays as Jaguar supplied it, and having said that, ours is an awesome factory system, best I have had in any Jaguar to date.

 

Windows Media Player's default encoding scheme is .mp3 and I've read where some owners were having trouble getting those files to play.

 

Mmmmmmm.

I have been thinking, which is just plain scary, BUT, the Pioneer CD player in the XJ-S is "about" 1996 vintage, and it also plays what I burn without any hiccups.

Also in the memory banks, we purchased numerous CD's from Fry's in Las Vegas many, many years ago, and they also play perfectly in the cars CD players, which I suppose they should.

I even remember playing a Santana DVD in the XJ-S player once just to listen to the music, sweet as.

As I said before, I am not that technically minded, I press the "play" button, if it works, fine, if not, plan "B" kicks in.

 

I burn mine in Windows Media Player. The CD properties says the file is CDFS.

 

CDFS is the file system and not the file type. CDFS is CD file system for all formatted CD's operating under Windows while file name suffixes end in three letters such as .jpg, .mp3, .wav, etc.

As I said initially most problems with playing back home burned CD's originate with either sub-standard CD's or improper burning methods and recording speeds. Not all CD's or CD burners are created equal, and the same goes for CD players.

 

Thanks RD. looked further and the files are cda.

 

hi, the answer is windows media player or any other it does not convert to mp3. depending on your year of car, but on my 1998 it is good old fashioned CDs as I have read somewhere jaguar did not do mp3.
hope this helps.
or buy an old fashioned tape adapter and plug your mp3 into that and it will charge off ciggie lighter. CHEAPER THAN A NEW CD PLAYER. lol

 

According to the JTIS (available on X350 download link) in volume #4 in a well hidden paragraph states:

"The IHU incorporates a single CD player. There is also the option of a multi changer located in the rear LH (left-hand) side of the luggage compartment. Both systems are capable of playing commercial CDs, CDRs, CDRWs, and MP3 discs. The CD (compact disc) multi changer communicates on the D2B bus with the rest of the audio system."

As for Windows, it is not often used to create music but rather as the vehicle by which we download what audio files we want in whatever format we need. It then can burn a disc for us but in a rather limited number of formats. One of those is CDA which I have played in my 2004 XJ8 without a hitch. If a person has to have MP3s for whatever reason there are any number of pay and free conversion programs that operate under windows.

Anyway this started as a thread simply to clear-up some concerns about the ability of at least some of our radio/CD combos to correctly play self-recorded CDs.

 

So I have tried about everything I can think of to burn an mp3 disc. Windows Media Player, Itunes, Slow Burning, etc.

I have had no luck. Every time I burn a few .mp3 songs to cd and attempt to play it the player in the dash it attempts to play, but all it really does is attempt to play one track and there is no audio.

.cda (The nomenclature for audio tracks on a standard (non mp3) cd.

Doing an internet search, for the following "The IHU incorporates a single CD player." I did find what appeared to be a ranger rover training article.

I am beginning to seriously doubt the ability of these players to play .mp3 discs.

Further, I also looked in the JTIS for MY 2004 XJ, and could not find anything in the search for mp3.

If someone has proof, IE some Jaguar Document, an actual cd with MP3's that work, I would love to see it. :-(

 

Go here and download the file labeled US005 -Electrical and go to page 435. You'll find the quote you're looking for.

http://www.mediafire.com/?x11yhijup29yt#8viyccmusy9t1

These files are a better overall guide then the JTIS which is much more of a step by step how too without the extra things like what a certain component can do. US001 is a table of contents while 002-006 deal separately with different areas of the vehicle. Some of the stuff is well hidden and not well documented. Almost as if the whole series of publications was done by an entirely different group of people with no cross-talk.

I downloaded both the JTIS and all these files and regularly reference both. There are a couple of other things I want to check out tomorrow and I'll try to fill in some more then. In the mean time there is one more thing you can try if you haven't already. That is to switch brands of disc to a better quality. Some players are finicky that way.

 

I'm very enthused by your diligence, and I have read what you are talking about. This is extremely encouraging. I will certainly try some other Audio discs and see if I can make any headway.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

 

Ok still no luck. On my way home I picked up some SONY music cd-r. Attempted burn in my fairly New laptop in itunes in mp3 format at 1x speed.

I then took it a step further and connected a cdrw only drive made in 2004 and also burned mp3 songs at 1x.

Tried both and still the same result. Jag cd player only sees 1 track and no audio...

:-(

 

Hang in there. I've been busy with other projects and haven't had any time to work on that problem. Besides my wife has the Jag most days as I'm trying to rehab to new factory fresh metal knees.

There definitely is a problem and I'm trying to get a handle on the discrepancy between reality and Jaguars insistence that MP3's will play. My current thinking is that perhaps it needs to be seen as an encoding method problem. I've got a couple of audio burning programs that burn differently based on what type of player they're going to be used in, and although I think it's a stretch there may be a key in there somewhere.

The fact that your cd player section will recognize even one track but not others and can't actually put out any audio while playing is a strange deal since under normal circumstances if it couldn't read MP3s at all it shouldn't even read that much.

 

Oh crap I should have asked you this before. Try burning a disc of your downloaded songs with the burn function of Windows Media Player and don't request anything special other than speed. It should burn with a .cda extension. Try and play those in your car and I'll bet they work.

 

ndeangilis: I'm beginning to get a dim idea as to what's going on with the cd/mp3 problem.

First....Windows Media Player can read a downloaded MP3 and convert it from the data file it sees it as to an audio file on the fly. In order to transfer it to a disc that is playable on a device that lacks the 'on the fly' capability it converts if from a data file to a modified (my term) .mp3 defined by the .cda extension so that other players can read the audio data correctly. Strictly speaking .cda is not an audio file format but rather a way to define the MP3 data contained within.

If you look at the properties of the pre-media player .mp3 file you'll see that it takes up something between 3 and 7 or 8 MB of space but when you do the same thing to the file produced by Media Player with the new .cda extension you only see something like 1KB. The file that is burned there is much larger of course or you'd be able to put 700,000 or more songs on one CD-R disc. What we're seeing is just the .cda file property which is defining the contained .mp3 so the player can properly read the audio data and the individual songs that follow. Without that self-contained mini-program if you will the cd player just tries to read the data, unsuccessfully, and goes into an endless loop on the first file it finds.

Have I managed to make this clear as mud? It's just not an answer that fits in a sentence, or at least not one of mine<G><G>

I have e-mailed Jaguar USA in hopes of getting a better answer since after goggling the question it's obvious that this is an international concern that pops up all over the place.

 

Ok:

Here is where the confusion is coming in. Let me preface this by saying I have been in the computer business for 20+ years.

What you are seeing when you refer to .cda is a file representing the audio of a song on a disc. Track01.cda for example, is pointing to a track on a standard audio disc.

Whether you burn it yourself or buy the disc, you would see the same information when looking at it on a computer.

Burning:
In Windows Media player or iTunes, when you burn a disc, you have the option of selecting "Audio CD" or "MP3". If you select "Audio CD" you are in fact telling the computer to take the .MP3 file or other type of audio file you may have in your library .m4a, .aac, etc to convert and burn those songs as digital audio to the CD. This the format you would get if you purchased a cd in the store.

You don't see the raw audio file because of how it is recorded on the CD. You only see the "pointer" that Windows for example, needs to use to distinguish which audio track you are going to listen to (.cda) Further, the .cda file does not even live on the CD. What you are seeing is the Windows software representing how many tracks or songs are on the CD. This is actually done by the software CD driver in Windows.

If you were to select "MP3" in your burning options, then Windows Media or iTunes will take that raw .mp3 file, and burn it as is to the CD, no conversion is done. Because these mp3 files are so small, you can fit upwards of 120+ songs on one regular CD-R disc. .mp3 is also compressed music, so you lose a lot of the audio fidelity that you would hear in an original store bought disc.

Now, regular cd players, (old ones) had no idea of how to process or read an .mp3 file. It does not have the technology to decode the file and play it. So it would say no disc, and typically spit it out of the player - why the jag just spins it or see's one track is unknown.

Newer cd players, dvd players, and most new cars, have the MP3 badge on the radio or changer, or whatever that indicates that is .mp3 compatible, typically these devices will decode the mp3, and display the Meta data that is encoded with the .mp3 so you can see artist, track name, album, etc.

Since the Jaguars don't have any badges on any of their players that indicate .mp3 compatible, and since it really isn't documented anywhere, one would assume it cannot read mp3's, and it certainly can't display any meta data on the screens even if it could read .mp3s, because the audio CD screen is not designed that way, just a disc number for changers, or track number for discs.

In fact, as anyone who has the ACM kit knows, Although it can play MP3 and connect to iPod, it can not show any data on the jag screen as to what is playing, and you have to use the goofy disc buttons to access playlists, etc. Again, the system was never designed to natively support .mp3, so the ACM in this case is just a crappy gateway that will allow you "hear" the songs, and not see them. Jaguar had to do something to deal with the popularity of mp3 player, ipod/iphone etc, and satisfy clients, hence the ACM.

Raw audio on a cd takes up much more space than an .mp3, which is why you can only fit around 20 songs on a CD. .mp3 files sizes will vary based on length of song, and the quality of the .mp3. For example a 92kbs .mp3 is much smaller than a 320kbs .mp3. The 92k will not sound great, but 320kbs, will sound much much better, still not as good as original cd quality.

What to do.

Option 1: Find ACM and Deal.

Option 2: Try the DICE / AudioVox Universal RDS USB / direct antenna connect device. Supposedly, this interfaces between your antenna input, you will probably need the special antenna adapters for the european antenna connector to mate with it, however if it works as advertised, set 87.7fm preset, connect usb or iphone, and it will send the song info via RDS to screen. It comes with a remote to manipulate it. - Audio quality would not be as good as ACM, but should prove to be much better than FM transmitters. I am thinking about trying this device due to its price point.

Option 3: I have no idea if this will work, however. What if I bought the Jaguar factory cd changer (i don't have one now). Add it to my car and make sure it works. Then, find a similar model made by alpine that can play .mp3s and is physically identical for another car maker - BMW for example. I saw a pic that showed how in the back, there is a raised panel/plate/block whatever to connect to the system, jag uses the d2b connector, bmw, uses a different connector, but this extension block looks like it comes off. What if the internal connections are the same, and that back plate is just a converter of sorts. My thought is once jag understands there is a cd changer on the d2b bus, and if that back plate is interchangeable - maybe, just maybe I could play .mp3 discs. 120 songs x 6 cds... 720+ songs, i'd be pretty happy with that solution. No meta data of course, just the ability to play mp3.

probably too costly for a shot in the dark......

To RDMINOR's point - What is puzzling me in all this is the documentation you've come across that says it will play mp3 discs in both the changer and HU. Somehow I think that is being misstated or misinterpreted by Jaguar. Otherwise, .mp3 files would play! There is no such thing as an mp3 disc, unless you make one filled with .mp3 songs....

Yes, you can create regular audio discs with around 20 songs or so depending on song length, using a CD-R or CD-RW type disc, etc and I would expect those to play without issue as a regular audio disc, like I have done already but that's it baby....

:-(

DENSION, BRING BACK ACM AND SELL IT YOURSELF!! AT THE RIGHT PRICE POINT YOU WILL MAKE A KILLING!

-N

 

[QUOTE=ndeangelis;728397]Ok:

Here is where the confusion is coming in. Let me preface this by saying I have been in the computer business for 20+ years.

You stinker<G><G> here I thought that you were an average computer user with very limited knowledge.

Programing and software are not my areas although I make extensive use of it. I concentrated on the equipment aspect of computers ever since I started making a living with them back in the late '70's.

As far as Jaguar's miss-statement concerning MP3s I'd guess that they just figured that a person at home would use a program like Media Player to burn his or her audio discs without really noticing that the mp3s had suddenly become CDAs. We have to remember that back in the late 90's when these cars were designed the small thumb drives were still years down the road, also in their written descriptions they always say..."Both systems are capable of playing commercial CDs, CDRs, CDRWs...and MP3 discs. As you pointed out ALL commercially recorded CDs will report as CD Audio and not MP3 even if the original audio file was an MP3. I also have NEVER had any success using CDRWs.

So, the answer is a yes to MP3 but with a major CAVEAT. IT WILL PLAY MP3s THAT HAVE FIRST BEEN BURNED TO CDAs AS AUDIO FILES, but will NOT play MP3s that are just copied to a disc. The upside is that as audio files 'disguised' as CDAs they have superior quality over pure MP3.

Does that sound about right deangilis ?????

 

[QUOTE=RDMinor;728471]You got it sir!

Its unfortunate jaguar didn't get this right as other cars of its era are capable of playing them or at least having an easy commercially available way of doing it or further, simply giving you an aux option...

:-)

 

deangilis.......you pondered the possibility that the factory supplied CD changers might possibly be used like a normal non-fiber optic unit if the rectangular box through which the optics were channeled was just a de-coder box so to speak that plugged directly into normal audio ports that would be uncovered if the box were removed.

Short answer....NO

I have a changer handy that's going into my wife's XJ8 so I decided to see if you might be right. I must report...no joy. The box is indeed a decoder, or translator, but its' connection to the unit itself is a ribbon cable about 3/4" wide that goes through a slot in the back of the changer and makes its' connections directly inside. Too much hacking and soldering to make work any other way, along with a great risk of burning or shorting out something in the internals.