Bert’s Media Player 9.0 2018.39.6 Initial Observations
I’ve now had V9 for a few hours, becoming acquainted with the new UI and taking MP USB through my previous testing regime to understand what may have changed. Following are my initial impressions for your consideration.
CAVEATS
- My MS has an original MCU1 with AP1. For those MS and MX owners with a more recent MCU and AP, I suspect you won’t encounter the same UI responsiveness issue I mention below. Additionally as with V8.1, you’ll likely have more memory available to MP USB than I do, so should be able to maintain more tracks and tag data than I do, but only time will tell.
- I suspect much of what I say will apply to M3, but IDK. Certainly UI considerations will vary.
THE NET, COMPARED TO V8.1
- All new UI; Some will like it, others won’t — especially the way the UI favors full-screen Nav and over views (energy, camera, phone) always replace MP at the bottom of the CID when you pull those up.
- Less physical USB device types and data formats are supported
- Less audio encoding formats are supported
- ID3 tag usage remains problematic
- The mini-album artwork generated by the MP 8.1 UI and seen in some of the standard listing views has been eliminated
- Some USB views have changed the way they sort, display and playback tracks. Folder View will be more problematic for some owners.
- The UI has some idiosyncrasies with a button that scrolls off the screen, and not retaining it’s place in a list when returning from drilling down through folders/albums
- There is still no M3U playlist support. I’m over it.
- Most settings, such as Dolby and Equalizer were retained across the update. My formerly lost recents and favorites came back again after the installation.
- There is new MP documentation in the on-board manual (Owner’s Manual / Using the Touchscreen / Media and Audio). It sadly still does not provide many specifics beyond physical device formatting.
WHAT DOES WORK
Physical USB Device Characteristics & Formats
- USB devices formatted as FAT32 are supported. FAT & NTFS have been deprecated in V9, and you should never use exFAT remains.
- I did not try my collection of USB flash drives (see upthread), but my Kingston 2GB USB and Patriot XT 256GB sticks, as well as my always-in-my-MS PNY Elite 480GB USB 3.0 SSD work fine. Of particular new note in Tesla’s V9 documentation is the statement that “flash drives only” are now supported.
Audio (Encoding) Formats
- AAC, M4A Lossy, OGG Vorbis, WAV, MP3, FLAC work. I did not try the myriad of bit rates and option combinations within each format.
- AIF appears to have been deprecated with V9.
- Same as with 8.1:
- M4A (Apple) Lossless shows in the interface, but displays "Loading Error" upon playback. WORKAROUND: Convert and use my preferred MP3 VBS format in your Tesla — less space, no sound quality difference, and better compatibility with V8.1 (and 9?).
- MWV will not show in the interface. You should have migrated to a more current format long ago.
- FLA will not show in the interface. WORKAROUND: Rename and use FLAC as the filename extension.
- M4V will not show in the interface. If you are trying to playback true Dolby Surround sound, you’ll have to find another compatible format or container that works — I’ve not done that research myself.
- PDF (digital booklets) will not show in the interface. IMHO that's a good thing.
Basic ID3 Tagging
- ALBUM (title) - used correctly
- ALBUMARTIST - not used, but IMHO should be as discussed upthread
- DISCNUMBER - STILL not used, which IMHO remains a basic design flaw as discussed elsewhere
- GENRE - used correctly
- PARTOFCOMPILATION - not used
- TRACKARTIST - used correctly, perhaps to a fault (making Album View almost impossible to use with supposed duplicates if you have compilation albums)
- TRACKNUMBER - not consistently used; Oddly appears in only parts of the interface despite the column heading being displayed
- TRACKTITLE - used
Album Artwork
- I re-tested both JPG and PNG album art in 100-bit increments from 300x300 to 1500x1500 embedded in both M4A and FLAC files. All combinations worked successfully.
- Note: Some previous reports indicate other graphic standards work. I’ve not tried any others myself given the overwhelming propensity of JPG and PNG these days.
- Note: Present MP displays a max image size ~300x300 pixels
- Note: I suggest storing a single image imbedded within your encoded track as the "Front Cover". My limited tests with multiple Front Covers or using some of the many other Album Art variations allowed in the specification, is only the first "Front Cover" will be used by the UI and others are properly ignored.
- Note: The mini-album art sometimes displayed in some V8.1 lists, is no longer part of the V9 UI. IMHO, that’s a good thing if it speeds-up scan time and reduces memory to be used for more important things.
"A", "An", and "The" are correctly displayed in fields such as ALBUM or TRACKTITLE, but ignored when sorting tag data per convention. Great.
Two USB devices containing supported media works well. To swap access within the new UI, touch USB at the bottom right of MP, then touch the change button under “USB” on the left side of the menu and you’ll know what to do from there.
PROBLEM AREAS (Design Flaws or Bugs)
- M4A (Apple) Lossless encoded files show in the interface, but continue to then show "Loading Error" upon playback
- Sort Order within the interface remains problematic
- Songs View
- Sorts only by TRACKTITLE
- Needs a minimum secondary sort on ALBUM or ALBUM+ALBUMARTIST
- A Track heading appears in the UI, but not the actual TRACKNUMBER for each line
- Artists View
- Sorts by ARTIST, then ALBUM
- Then correctly displays and sorts tracks within ALBUM by TRACKNUMBER
- DISCNUMBER+TRACKNUMBER would be even better
- IMHO and discussed upthread, it would be better to use ALBUMARTIST in lieu of ARTIST across the UI
- Albums View
- Sorts by unique ALBUM
- NOTE: Sorting instead by ALBUM+ALBUMARTIST would reduce the problem with inappropriately merged tracks in a single album (e.g. “Greatest Hits”, “Christmas”, etc.) and seemingly duplicate compilation albums where ARTIST tends to vary by track.
- Then correctly displays and sorts tracks within ALBUM by TRACKNUMBER
- DISCNUMBER+TRACKNUMBER would be even better
- NOTE: This or Artists View is what you should be using in V9 when you care about playing back tracks in proper TRACKNUMBER sequence. Where today’s interface will still fail you is on multi-disc albums.
- Genre View
- Sorts by unique GENRE, then presents a list by TRACKTITLE
- A Track heading appears in the UI, but not the actual TRACKNUMBER for each line
- Folders View
- CHANGE FROM V8: Sorts by TRACKTITLE or Directory name (with directories sorted at the bottom)
- Directory names should always be presented at the top of the list per standard convention
- Within a Directory, the UI then sorts the list by TRACKTITLE
- A Track heading appears in the UI, but not the actual TRACKNUMBER for each line
- IMHO, since Folders View is primarily intended to be filename/directory-structure-driven, opposed to tag-driven like the other Views, as Tesla did with V8.1, they should use only alphanumerically-sorted directory and FILENAMEs when sorting, with directories at the top by convention; not mix file structure naming with ID3 tag data to sort titles as it does now. Tesla’s V9 design choice is just too confusing for any audiophile or someone that cares.
- NOTE: IOW, because of this change, if you want to maintain the correct track playback sequence within an album, the fairly-standard V8 workaround appending DISCNUMBER+TRACKNUMBER in front of filename will no longer work. Instead you have 2 options:
- Use the Artist or Album View which uses TRACKNUMBER. You’ll still have a problem with multi-disc albums, but otherwise this looks to be your simplest choice.
- Append DISCNUMBER+TRACKNUMBER in front of TRACKTITLE for every track. The ugly drawback is you’ll see x-yy in front of every track title in the UI and alpha sorting will not be very useful in Songs View, but you will preserve multi-disc album handling. You just have to decide what’s most important to you.
- In summary, DISCNUMBER and TRACKNUMBER are not used together for proper sequenced display and playback of multi-disc tracks within the UI. This compounds the sort order issues when attempting to playback tracks of a single album composed of multiple discs.
- Improper Handling of Compilation Discs:
- Tracks with the same ALBUM (title), but different ALBUMARTIST (such as "Greatest Hits" or "Christmas") will display tracks co-mingled from multiple albums in parts of the UI
- NOTE: Unlike some here, I DO NOT want the PARTOFCOMPILATION tag or other more obscure variants to be adopted by Tesla. Rather, given how non-standard the definition of a “compilation album” has become over the years, Tesla should simply use ALBUM+ALBUMARTIST to distinguish between unique albums across the UI. IMHO it solves the problem for the most people with the least amount of effort.
- Erratic and sometimes almost unusable UI responsiveness, especially when changing views or coming in/out of Folder View. It can take several seconds when you touch or swipe up/down on the MP window, and your actions will stack, back-up, then run all-together after some point if you don’t wait for each action to happen first. I suspect MCU1 is approaching the CPU limits of the present V9.0 UI without some desperately-needed coding refinement, but we’ll need feedback from MCU2 owners to pin down an opinion. I do know that number of tracks and tag data does not seem to impact this issue (going from 7K to <100 tracks had the exact same problem in my MS).
- The “< BACK” button near the top left of MP USB scroll lists disappears as you scroll down in the list — meaning, you have to scroll back to the top of the scroll list first, to then go back up within the UI menu/touch structure. It’s just a poor UI design choice, where the button needs to move up into the static MP header. Tesla, are you listening please?
- After drilling down in the menu or touch structure, then using “< BACK” to return, the UI does not always remember it’s place in a vertically scrollable list and instead returns to the top. It’s difficult when you’re in a long list and just wanted to go back to the next item.
- Creating a root directory named “TeslaCam” on the same USB device (to use that new functionality), causes the USB Scan process to never end, or inserting a 2nd USB device with a single TeslaCam root directory, does the same.
NOT YET ENCOUNTERED WITH 9.0 (it’s too early to declare anything)
- Stuttering
- "Lack of Randomness"
- Phantom "EF1 200MB" device sometimes appears as the 2nd USB device, when nothing is attached
- Unexpected Scan / Rescan / Unexpected CID Hang or Reboot
- HOPEFUL WORAKAROUND: Keep the number of tracks and related tag data down; after reducing phone contacts and Nav history
- Searching -- both verbally and via CID work as I remember them with only rare use.
- Feeling like I'm in the Tesla Twilight Zone
BERT’S MP V9.0+ FEATURE REQUESTS
...and yes, since this thread is specific to USB, that's all that is in my list. If we expand to "Infotainment", my wish list would be quite different.
- Document what is and is not supported just like all other auto mfgrs do for their Infotainment systems, USB and media player access
- Implement Automatic Volume Leveling (AVL) or Automatic Sound Leveling (ASL) as most other major mfgrs provide with their premium sound systems
- Provide an option to limit music searches to only USB (non-streaming) sources
BERT'S WORKAROUND
I need to live with MP USB V9 for awhile, and have not completely finalized what’s best for me given the (much worse) changes Tesla has made purposely or not with sort sequence in some of the Views. Where I am now is:
- I almost always use the built-in USB Views opposed to Folders View. It’s what I built my workaround procedure posted upthread around. All except perhaps one of those tweaks the automation provides still give benefit for me over where V9 is today.
- I really don’t want to stare at DISCNUMBER+TRACKNUMBER in front of all my track titles all the time if I don’t have to
- I listen to my USB music on random within genre or artist most of the time, but occasionally care about proper track sequence playback esp on broadway/soundtrack albums. Fortunately most of those albums with “storylines” are not of the multi-disc variety, so:
- I’ll continue using Album or Artist View to access albums I want to listen to in sequence, just accept for now that my smaller number of multi-disc albums will have tracks out of sequence with V9.
I don’t see a good way to workaround Tesla’s latest USB sorting challenge and my present conflicting desire. Things will change with MP over time, so we’ll see where we both go. If I come up with something different or a better process for myself, I’ll post back.
SUMMARY
The UI will take adjustment time. Like the old V8 UI with the top icons that disappeared to make way for more of the top panel, I’m not so sure I see huge benefit with the new pop-ups and needing to drag the MP UI up and down as much is necessary. I guess it’s fun, but it is especially difficult in less-responsive MCU1 vehicles like my 3 year-old, and takes a lot more time with my eyes off the road to deal with the UI, especially when it’s not immediately responsive. The glitz of the new UI is fine, but foundational/functional USB updates that have been lacking for years would have been my preference if I had been asked.
Good luck. Happy USB Listening! I look forward to your observations and any corrections to my initial observations.
