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Topic: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u) (Read 10710 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #25
How can I add "Solved" in the topic title?
How can I do a little change to the topic title, too?
Let me know.


Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #27
New firmware is a joke.
All like before.
Don't waste time!!!

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #28
Yeah, I doubt this fw update is related to these bugs. No new fw for my model either.
Kenwood support have told me that they confirmed the "silence gap" bug and passed it to the design team, but they didn't say anything about a fix yet.

BTW, if you have some reliable way to trigger the "track stops to switch to the following song" bug let me know. Unless I give them the exact steps/conditions to reproduce the bug, they won't work on it.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #29
The company selling you the stereo is just repacking the SOC vendor's decoders, so even if they wanted to help you, they can't actually change anything about how audio decodes.  You're stuck with what the hardware supports. If that isn't good enough, you should buy a different unit.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #30
You might be right. I still want to see what they say about it and if they replace it with something that works properly or give money back. Not sure what rights I have as a customer in a case like this.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #31
If you aren't happy with it, take it back to wherever you bought it and ask for you money back.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #32
A new firmware update came out on March 5th and it seems to fix the AAC "silence gap" bug. At least I couldn't reproduce it anymore, when I tested it briefly.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #33
A new firmware update came out on March 5th and it seems to fix the AAC "silence gap" bug. At least I couldn't reproduce it anymore, when I tested it briefly.
Do you own a Kenwood KMM-BT304?
Does It recognize now all folders/subfolders?
Could you test further?

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #34
Yes, KMM-BT304.
I don't know about the folder/subfolder thing, because I don't know exactly what the problem was.
I can test it, if you give me more detailed steps to reproduce the issue. What's the folder structure (drive root\folder\subfolder\song.m4a)? Is the problem with too many folders or too many subfolders? Does the problem occur when trying to navigate the folders/subfolders or during playback, when it goes from one folder to another automatically?

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #35
Yes, KMM-BT304.
I don't know about the folder/subfolder thing, because I don't know exactly what the problem was.
I can test it, if you give me more detailed steps to reproduce the issue. What's the folder structure (drive root\folder\subfolder\song.m4a)? Is the problem with too many folders or too many subfolders? Does the problem occur when trying to navigate the folders/subfolders or during playback, when it goes from one folder to another automatically?
Folder structure is root\folders(artists)\subfolders(albums)\songs.m4a. The problem concerns the fact that not all folders(artists) are shown: only 180 about 230. The issue happens when I try to browse whole folders(artists).
There is also the trouble that some tracks suddenly stop to switch to the following songs.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #36
So I ran a little test. Since I don't have 200+ folders of music ready to fit on a USB, I converted individual songs into folders, like so: root\[folder with song title]\song title.m4a. In total 203 folders/songs.
What I noticed is that it messed up the playback order a bit, but it did seem to play all of them. Alphabetically, it skipped the first 30 or so, but then those skipped songs eventually showed up somewhere in the middle.
So if I didn't check in the middle I might think that they were gone and that is only shows around 170 folders total, which is close to around 180 you mentioned.
Is this how it works for you too, or are they completely missing and you can't find them anywhere? It is a bit cumbersome to navigate the folders with those buttons, so I don't blame you if you didn't check.

There is also the trouble that some tracks suddenly stop to switch to the following songs.
If you have a reliable way to reproduce this (or specific tracks/albums that always do this) I can try it.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #37
"So I ran a little test. Since I don't have 200+ folders of music ready to fit on a USB, I converted individual songs into folders, like so: root\[folder with song title]\song title.m4a. In total 203 folders/songs.
What I noticed is that it messed up the playback order a bit, but it did seem to play all of them. Alphabetically, it skipped the first 30 or so, but then those skipped songs eventually showed up somewhere in the middle."

You get this because you didn't sort songs. You have to sort them cause It is used fat32 file system on usb pen.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #38
"So if I didn't check in the middle I might think that they were gone and that is only shows around 170 folders total, which is close to around 180 you mentioned.
Is this how it works for you too, or are they completely missing and you can't find them anywhere? It is a bit cumbersome to navigate the folders with those buttons, so I don't blame you if you didn't check."

I've always sorted folders(artists) and therefore subfolders(albums) to get alphabetic order. They lacked last folders(artists) and consequent subfolders(albums): It showed from A to P, and nothing from Q to Z.


Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #40
You get this because you didn't sort songs. You have to sort them cause It is used fat32 file system on usb pen.
Not sure what you mean. They appear sorted alphabetically when I open the USB drive on my PC.

Here you are three albums to test, with and without tags:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ildT1Tq3H9yWJXV8OQ90A5EhsR89Pq21/view
Any specific track that does this? Otherwise it could take me a while.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #41
"Not sure what you mean. They appear sorted alphabetically when I open the USB drive on my PC."

On pc they are sorted cause you use ntfs filesystem(windows), hfs+ or apfs(macos) or ext4(linux) that show sorted songs.
The usb pen you use is formatted by fat32 filesystem that doesn't support automatic sort by itself.

"Any specific track that does this? Otherwise it could take me a while."

I don't rembember exact tracks. In any case, are few.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #42
You get this because you didn't sort songs. You have to sort them cause It is used fat32 file system on usb pen.
Not sure what you mean. They appear sorted alphabetically when I open the USB drive on my PC.

It sounds like your device is playing the files in the order they're listed in the actual file table.  Almost nothing does this since it is very stupid, but sometimes crappy embedded devices are that stupid.  You can test with this software, which can write files to the file table in alphabetical order:

https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/95721/FAT-32-Sorter

If that changes the order they play, then your device is playing files in file table order.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #43
That was it, yes.
It seems the file table gets messed up over time, with writes to the drive. A quick format can help as well. (BTW, typing dir in Command Prompt also shows the file table order.)

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #44
That was it, yes.
It seems the file table gets messed up over time, with writes to the drive. A quick format can help as well. (BTW, typing dir in Command Prompt also shows the file table order.)
Have you tried google drive files?

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #45
No, sorry. I haven't been driving much lately, so I didn't have a chance to play through them. If you know which specific files are problematic it would be faster.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #46
No, sorry. I haven't been driving much lately, so I didn't have a chance to play through them. If you know which specific files are problematic it would be faster.
Most of tracks are affected. Try with tags ones.

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #47
Thanks to the help of Brand I can say 3:10 gaps and tracks suddenly stop bug seem to be fixed.
Now, It remains not all folders recognized bug. Can anyone try?

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #48
Yeah, I've played through 2 out of 3 of your test folders and didn't notice any skips or stops.

I also got around to trying the folders thing and there does seem to be a limit. In my case it recognized 310 (309 ignoring the top one) out of 1080 total folders.

 

Re: Playback troubles(m4a format) on Kenwood car radio(kdc-bt530u)

Reply #49
Yeah, I've played through 2 out of 3 of your test folders and didn't notice any skips or stops.

I also got around to trying the folders thing and there does seem to be a limit. In my case it recognized 310 (309 ignoring the top one) out of 1080 total folders.

Thanks a lot for the feedback.
We are close to the target. Why don't you warn Kenwood again?