Issues trying to listen to an audio book on my MS (MP3)

[kirkbauer]

OK, so I purchased an audio book on CD (Elon Musk biography actually). I used my computer to "rip" the audio CDs to MP3 and then loaded that onto a USB drive, naming the files Disc_01-Track_01.mp3, Disc_01-Track_02.mp3, etc. One thing that happens is most of the tracks run longer than they show they will, but I think that my ripping system must have done some sort of variable bitrate. Not sure if that is related.

The big problem I am having is that every morning when I get in my car the track that starts up is many hours ahead of where I left it. For example, I was listening to Disc 1 Track 12 and the next morning it is on Disc 8 Track 2 (or something like that). It almost seems it was playing sequentially the whole time I was gone. I have tried pausing it when I park but it doesn't change anything.

Any suggestions?

 

[bob_p]

One of the 6.x software releases broke MP3 playing (again).

If the media playback is set to MP3 and you leave the car for a while (especially overnight), it's likely the MP3 will have started playing while you were away from the car - and you'll either be in a different spot in a long MP3 file or you'll be in a different MP3 file.

In the past, this was related to "sleep mode" and disabling that fixed the problem. With the latest software, I haven't found a workaround - other than selecting another media source - though if you do that, I've found it will periodically forget which MP3 file was playing - and you have to manually select the MP3 file when you start playback.

I listen to audiobooks during most long drives (to work and road trips) and used to use .mp3 in my previous car. But with the Model S, I gave up on that pretty early on - and now use audible on my smartphone - which has worked very well. The only problem with that is the inability to do any navigation in the audiobook through the car's controls - that has to be done using the smartphone.

 

[AnOutsider]

Not that it fixes your current issue, but I too use Audible and they have Elon's book: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Audiobook | Ashlee Vance | Audible.com

I can skip ahead and back in tracks using the steering wheel controls.

 

[lomli]

How do you listen to audible? Download it to your phone, audible app, or can you play audible books right from the webpage?

 

[AnOutsider]

How do you listen to audible? Download it to your phone, audible app, or can you play audible books right from the webpage?

Yes, I use the app and stream it via Bluetooth

 

[MrClown]

Like others here I use my phone and bluetooth. Audible works well that way and the steering wheel controls do work for me. I have also gotten books from the library on CD that I have ripped to mp3 to play in the Tesla. You can load those onto your phone and play with whatever player you have on there, also through bluetooth to the car. The Google Play Music app works well and the steering wheel controls work too. I'm sure iTunes would also work.

- - - Updated - - -

An advantage to using the phone is that you can easily continue listening to your book anywhere else too since you probably always have your phone on you.

 

[mknox]

How do you listen to audible? Download it to your phone, audible app, or can you play audible books right from the webpage?

My last car, surprisingly, was an Audible-ready device. I was able to import the Audible DRM licence to the car, then it would play Audible files natively. Seemed a bit silly, so I generally just used the Audible app on my iPhone and used the car's iPod controls to play them.

On my Model S, the only option seems to be to "stream" them via Bluetooth from my phone, but it is a bit clunky because I have to use the phone's interface to call up the books, which is technically illegal when driving where I live. If I start the book before I head out, at least I can "pause" and "play" while underway.

 

[supratachophobia]

Are they VBR encoded? That will throw off a player someone. Also, the continue to play after you've gone buff is still there and it is not related to sleep mode. Could be related to scheduled charging though.

 

[freds]

I am actually working on a windows based ripping program for Audiobooks as I never found what I consider a good one out there, almost at the Beta stage though I keep thinking up of new features to add.

Anyway not doing VBR and the Tesla media player is really brain dead when it comes to the ID3 tag's so that maybe why it doesn't handle VBR encoding well.

Some things that I do are:

1. The track number needs to be at the end of the name and have a space between it and the name.
2. Be sure to turn off random shuffle feature by touching the loop symbol on the player screen.
3. When leaving the car for anything other than a short time period switch to some other audio resource other than USB so it doesn't decide to wake up and listen to the book itself.
4. On returning to the car you can generally click the media selection list button and reselect the USB device to restart the book.
5. If I am going to be away from the car overnight I simply text myself the track number to restart the next day as sometimes deletes it from the media selection list. It will definitely delete the USB entry; if it's two or more days.
6. Don't have a large collection of books or music on the USB stick as it takes forever to do its startup scan and be ready to start the book the next day.
7. If I am not in a rush, I listen though to the end of the current track when I arrive; because if you are away from the car anything longer than a few minutes it tends to restart at the beginning of the current track.


Some of the features that I have baked into my audiobook ripper program are:

1. Combining audio tracks to a user defined bracket of track length as some audiobooks have 99 tracks per CD which is nuts on a 16+ CD length book.
2. Input the book information once and simply keep feeding it CD's during the ripping process.
3. Combines all the CD's as consecutive tracks to a single folder, so no fumbling around changing folders in traffic when you come to the end of a CD.
4. Uses ID3 tags for additional information. Doesn't show on the Tesla player but works on most smart phone players.

 

[1101011]

I am actually working on a windows based ripping program for Audiobooks as I never found what I consider a good one out there, almost at the Beta stage though I keep thinking up of new features to add.

Freds: I'd like to hear more about your progress with this project. Keep up the good work.

 

[bob_p]

The best solution for now is to use a smartphone app via Bluetooth.

I haven't had any problems with the Audible app - though if you want to use ripped mp3 files, a music app on the smartphone (or other Bluetooth device) will work better than the onboard USB music playback.

In my previous cars, I used ripped mp3 files saved on a CD to play audiobooks. I had a tool that split the audio files into fixed time length segments, so I could easily skip through the book by going forward or back through the files (not as good as chapters - but good enough in the few cases where I had lost my place in the book).

With BT support for smartphone apps (any app that produces audio), that has simplified things greatly and eliminated the need for me to rip my purchased audiobooks to mp3 format. And while it would even be better to have better support built in to the car's media playback software - using my phone for audiobooks has worked pretty well - and when I want to listen to an audiobook on my phone, it's pretty easy to have the car select my phone for media input - and to start the Audible app on the phone.

 

[MangroveMike]

Thanks for some of these tips. It's been annoying the hell out of me since the last update. Audible the App looks like the best solution. I assume ripping the books to another format won't help???

Lets hope this is improved in V7 update.

 

[joebevatl]

These problems are still not fixed. REALLY irritating and is something that I mention to people when they ask how I like my car. I've reported this problem to the service people, but they are not software people and don't seem to be able to properly report it or get the software people to fix the problem. Any chance they'll ever fix this?

 

[bob_p]

With my previous car, I copied the audiobooks to CD - and the car's audio player always remembered the current position on the CD.

When our S P85 arrived in early 2013, I tried to shift over to using USB for the audiobooks - and then quickly gave up on that because of the media player's inability to remember the current file/positon - and shifted over to using the Audible app on my smartphone.

Which has actually worked about better - because when I listen to the same audiobook away from the car, I'm at the correct position when I return to the car.

Overall, our major disappointment with our Tesla cars continues to be with Tesla's software. The media player and navigation software are missing obvious features present in other systems, have obvious design flaws, and have obvious bugs. And this really hasn't improved since getting our first car in 2013.

But this hasn't prevented us from purchasing our second Model S earlier this year and our plans to buy a Model 3 (hopefully Q4 this year).