How to create and use music files and playlists on 2014 E350
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2014 e350, 2009 sl 550
How to create and use music files and playlists on 2014 E350
I bought a new Mercedes in mid-September 2013 and began to try to put music on my audio system. It’s not easy. I joined this MB owner’s forum and found a lot of owners had similar questions about loading music and how to create and use playlists – but no good answers. Therefore I hope the following will be useful to at least some owners.
My 2014 E350 Sedan was manufactured 6/30 in Germany. The Audio System can store music on a 10 GB MUSIC REGISTER (MR), an SD Memory Card or a USB Drive. It is maddeningly slow and frustrating to try to load the MR from CDs. Since this is the only way to populate it (based on the documentation) – I have given up trying to use it. Instead I use a 32 Gb SD card and a mini 16 Gb USB drive (about ½” long). The larger varieties of USB drive stick out too far and a good bump could ruin the USB socket.
I used Windows Media Player to put mp3 music on my SD card and USB drive, and to create playlists. There are a couple things useful to know about creating a library on your computer on the SD Card. The following discussion comes from the cited reference.
http://lifehacker.com/5788839/how-to-add-unsupported-removable-drives-to-windows-7s-libraries
Have youever noticed that you can't add certain removable drives, such as SD cards andsome USB drives or hard drives, to the Libraries or even index them? Go toLibraries and right click on Libraries, select New/Library and give it aname—Removable Drives for example. Right click it and hit Properties. There'sthe magic button "Include a Folder". Unfortunately it doesn't work—ittells you you can't add an SD card or whatever because it's not indexable. Theway to do this is to go to a known location on your hard drive—C:\ perhaps—andcreate a folder called Camera Card, or whatever.
Thenstart the Computer Management program (Search the start menu for it) and clickon "Disk Management" in the left-hand sidebar. Right click yourremovable drive and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths". Click Addand select "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder". Choose thefolder you made earlier (e.g., C:\Camera Card). Nowif you look in the C:\CameraCard folder you'll see the contents of your SD card.P
Now, ifyou right click your new Library you made earlier and add C:\Camera Card to it,it'll work! For each removable resource you want to index or search create anew folder and go to Computer Management to make it addable. Note, of course,that the resource needs to be available to Windows for you to see the files. Ifyou put the camera card back in the camera, Windows won't be able to displaythe contents. The previously indexed contents however remain good next time youinsert the drive.
I created about 28 Gb of music files on the SD card and more on the USB Drive. Pretty easy, but somewhat boring. When I created my playlists, I found I had to save them as .m3u files. I could not get the .wpl or .asx file type playlists to work, nor could I get any playlists to work with non-mp3 music..
Having followed these guidelines, which were discovered by a lot of trial and error, I have enjoyed near problem free music listening. Occasionally, when I try to call up a playlist, the audio system can’t find it. I have found if I switch to a different media (e.g. SD card to USB Drive) using the COMMAND Disk button, it “gets well” and everything works again.
I hope this is of use to other MB owners. It’s a shame that in such a fine automobile it should be so difficult to use the audio system MR – it’s more or less useless.
My 2014 E350 Sedan was manufactured 6/30 in Germany. The Audio System can store music on a 10 GB MUSIC REGISTER (MR), an SD Memory Card or a USB Drive. It is maddeningly slow and frustrating to try to load the MR from CDs. Since this is the only way to populate it (based on the documentation) – I have given up trying to use it. Instead I use a 32 Gb SD card and a mini 16 Gb USB drive (about ½” long). The larger varieties of USB drive stick out too far and a good bump could ruin the USB socket.
I used Windows Media Player to put mp3 music on my SD card and USB drive, and to create playlists. There are a couple things useful to know about creating a library on your computer on the SD Card. The following discussion comes from the cited reference.
http://lifehacker.com/5788839/how-to-add-unsupported-removable-drives-to-windows-7s-libraries
Have youever noticed that you can't add certain removable drives, such as SD cards andsome USB drives or hard drives, to the Libraries or even index them? Go toLibraries and right click on Libraries, select New/Library and give it aname—Removable Drives for example. Right click it and hit Properties. There'sthe magic button "Include a Folder". Unfortunately it doesn't work—ittells you you can't add an SD card or whatever because it's not indexable. Theway to do this is to go to a known location on your hard drive—C:\ perhaps—andcreate a folder called Camera Card, or whatever.
Thenstart the Computer Management program (Search the start menu for it) and clickon "Disk Management" in the left-hand sidebar. Right click yourremovable drive and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths". Click Addand select "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder". Choose thefolder you made earlier (e.g., C:\Camera Card). Nowif you look in the C:\CameraCard folder you'll see the contents of your SD card.P
Now, ifyou right click your new Library you made earlier and add C:\Camera Card to it,it'll work! For each removable resource you want to index or search create anew folder and go to Computer Management to make it addable. Note, of course,that the resource needs to be available to Windows for you to see the files. Ifyou put the camera card back in the camera, Windows won't be able to displaythe contents. The previously indexed contents however remain good next time youinsert the drive.
I created about 28 Gb of music files on the SD card and more on the USB Drive. Pretty easy, but somewhat boring. When I created my playlists, I found I had to save them as .m3u files. I could not get the .wpl or .asx file type playlists to work, nor could I get any playlists to work with non-mp3 music..
Having followed these guidelines, which were discovered by a lot of trial and error, I have enjoyed near problem free music listening. Occasionally, when I try to call up a playlist, the audio system can’t find it. I have found if I switch to a different media (e.g. SD card to USB Drive) using the COMMAND Disk button, it “gets well” and everything works again.
I hope this is of use to other MB owners. It’s a shame that in such a fine automobile it should be so difficult to use the audio system MR – it’s more or less useless.
Last edited by rshorack; Oct 16, 2013 at 11:56 AM. Reason: to make small typo corrections
