jazzphile

Hi,

I recently purchased a 2005 SL500, Black on stone with 19k miles. Moved up from a 2005 E320, then a 2002 S430. The SL500 is a FANTASTIC car...best thing I've ever driven.

Question: I am having a bit of trouble with the DVD drive reading MP3s loaded on to a DVD. Sometimes it skips or I get a disc error.

I have read all of the info on how to properly burn a MP3 DVD on this and the other active forum on benzworld.org. As such, I am burning the MP3s to DVD as a data disc.

I can fit between 500 and 700 songs on a disc depending on bit rate (most of my tracks are at 320 mbs), and the DVD player in the SL500 is able to recognize all of the tracks. It loads rather slowly, which I've read occurs for others as well, but it loads and begins to play fine.

Here is the problem: Sometimes, after a few tracks into the DVD, the DVD player starts to skip during a track, or more properly stated, pause for a second or two, then start up again, then pause, etc. Eventually, it often reaches the point of giving me a CD (DVD) Error. I then have to load the disc all over again. Intermittently, it's really slow read and access time to the next track on the disc.

One of my three discs seems to be better than the other two and I seem to be having less trouble with this disc, but I cannot figure out why since I burned them all EXACTLY the same way, as DVD data discs full of MP3s.

One last thing: I used a "root" folder structure where ALL of the hundreds of MP3s live in the root folder. I did not use an elaborate folder structure where artists or other info are included, so the ID3 tags are very minimal, limited only to song name in the root folder.

What might I have missed here?

My real question: Does one or the other work better....DVD+R? DVD-R? Might that be the answer? I can't remember for certain which these discs are, but I seem to recall that they are DVD-R.

I did try DVD+RW initially and had even worse luck, so I concluded that RW discs were not the way to go. The non RW discs are definitely better.

Thanks in advance for your assistance, and sorry for the long post. Just wanting to include all of the detail for an informed response.

Regards,
Jazzphile

Lee Wireless

I've found that my 05 reacts quicker to a CD than a DVD. 150 songs on the CD using iTunes to burn the MP3 CD is really easy. The DVD takes much longer for the COMAND to get ready to play the songs when you initially start the car. Also, trying to look thru 500 songs takes forever if you are looking for one particular one. Good luck...

bltserv

Try keeping the number of songs on the DVD under 200.
Mine works great. But with 500 songs it takes forever to load and seems to
be a little more flakey.

brian_s

I also recently purchased a 2005 SL. Prior to the SL I had a Lexus that also played MP3 CDs. So needless to say, I thought something was wrong when the disc that played perfectly in the Lexus skipped horribly in the benz.

After 2 trips back to the dealer (mainly for other issue) one of the techs re-burned the CD on to a thinner disc as he claimed that the disc I had burned the music on was too thick. With the disc he burned it now works flawlessly.

I know it is not the best solution, but it is IMHO a small price to pay for such a great car.