Does anyone know how you load and what formats of music you can load into the HD? Also what options are there for playback can you sort by artist or shuffle etc.? I am picking mine up this week and would like to get ready to load the music.

 

The only way (that I know of anyway) to lead music on your HDD is to insert a CD into your player and it will automatically record it. You can sort by artist/album but I am not sure if you have the shuffle feature....

 

So I assume no mp3 or itunes data cd will work just regular CD?

 

According to the owner's manual, only audio CD will burn to the HDD -
"• Only standard CD-DA (44.1 kHz, 16 bit stereo PCM digital sound data) discs can be recorded to HDD.
• Digital music tracks, such as MP3, WMA, AAC, etc., in CD-R or DVD-R cannot be copied to HDD. Likewise, digital music tracks recorded to HDD cannot be copied to CD-R and DVD-R."

And yes, you can shuffle a playlist or the entire HDD -
"• Random
[Shuffle Button] -Plays all tracks on the HDD in random order."

 

Yes, only an audio CD (not an MP3 CD) can be ripped to the HDD. Basically, we're talking WAV files. You can take the digital files and easily burn them as an audio CD using Windows Media Player, itunes, or other software of your choice.

One major recommendation would be to burn the CD with CD-Text, meaning I shift over from Media Player (which doesn't support CD-Text out of the box) to itunes to burn the disc. The CD-Text allows the audio CD to rip to the HDD with the album and track titles. Trust me - you want that.

You can search the HDD by Artist, Album, Track, Playlist Genre, or Record Date. You can also set the playback to random (same as shuffle)

You can only play an MPs/AAC/WMA CD in the disc player. Actually, I use a USB flash drive (32 Gb for $25-30) which works great and obviously holds a lot more music than a 700 Mb CD-R. As another note, the system views the folders by creation date. You may want to download a sort folder software to organize the folders in the order you want.

 

I just picked up my '13 RDX two days ago and went to Best Buy that night for a new 16 gig flash drive. Got home, loaded it with 14 gigs of stuff I ripped from CD's over the years and... "Unsupported Format" when I plugged it into the USB port in the car. It's a PNY flash drive.

What brand do you have and do you ever have issues with unsupported errors or skipping? There's other threads floating around on this site about file system (supposedly it has to be FAT32, which my PNY flash is) and it might just be a bad brand. It was $15 so if I have to go out and get a new one, so be it.

 

Yes, you can only load from CD. However, that might include loading from a CD full of MP3s, and that's a lot of MP3s. Once you set up music search, you can search by artist, song, album, genre. You can do the same using SBV (Search By Voice).

 

To be honest, I never bothered downloading song on the HDD and use a USB stick instead. I am still sooooo annoyed by the poor software they have implemented.

Aware that I am repeating myself but:

1. Why is the "random" mode when playing a USB stick is not that random after all...I can often predict which songs is going to play.

2. Why when you have it on shuffle mode and decide to just use your dial to select one song on your own that it automatically disengage the shuffle mode?

3. An irritant is that I have about 250 folders on my USB stick and if I am playing songs from Artist in folder 220 for example, and would like to play the songs from artist in folder 200, you would think that by selecting the folder option, it would show the folder I was at and allow me to just move the dial a little to go to folder 220....but Noooo, they make you start at the folder 1 and have to spin that dial all the way down to 220 even though you are so close to it already. And why could they not allow you that you could go backward and go from folder 1 then backward to say folder 250, 249, 248 etc...Its only direction from folder 1 to folder 250.

I wished Acura would implement a software upgrade but given this 4th gen is about to be replaced, I am aware that it will never happen. That is why I often play my MP3 player instead. I much prefer using the USB because it display the song information but the software is soooooo ass backward that I get so pissed off at times. Come on Acura...surely you can do better.

 

Weather stop holding back and say how you feel.

Seriously I feel your pain, I've only had my RDX for a little while and I am already hoping for a software update due to the same little issues that you described.

 

I got that at first. I don't think it's the hardware that's the problem, but the filesystem type. I created an NTFS partition on my 16GB drive at first and got that error message. I reformatted it with a FAT32 filesystem (because FAT16 maxes out at 4GB partitions), and it reads fine. Of course the software still sucks, but at least it reads it. I recommend doin the same.

 

I thought it was me. I tried playing my 16GB thumb drive on shuffle and it kept playing the same 6 or so songs over and over. Yeah, as a Software Engineer there's all sorts of things I would have done. For instance, what if the << and >> and buttons would go 10 back or forward on whatever list was on the screen, or let you use the down/up buttons on the steering wheel as well as The Big Black Knob to scroll through lists.

And good luck on your collection of DVD-A disks to hear 5.1. Amazon charges about $35 for most of them.

I have a feeling I'm going to be playing whatever I want with my iPhone over bluetooth, or at least when my XM runs out. https://acurazine.com/forums/images/smilies/whyme.gif

(thanks to kmad5 for pointing out that it sucks even worse than I thought in that only audio CDs can be copied to the HDD, 12 or so tracks at a time!)

 

will a memory stick work with music from Itunes library or do I have to reformat the music.

 

mp3 or m4a will play without any reformat.

Good luck, Jim

 

Just got our RDX yesterday and all ready befuddled by the HDD. So you can load mp3 and m4a files on a USB, plug it in and it will play but if you want to load music to the HDD you have to convert those files to a wav file, burn them onto a CD, and then load it onto the HDD? Is that right?

 

Yup. Remember that this is not a failure of technology, but a failure of our legal system. They're trying to prevent you from having multiple copies of music you may not have paid for, to the best of their abilities. That means the only way to get music onto the hard drive is loading it CD by CD. I'm not wasting my time with that. Why bother when you can get a thumb drive of the same capacity for like $25 and put whatever you want on it? If the voice commands for playing an album/artist/song worked better, I might go though the effort, but they're pretty unreliable.

 

Okay, that makes sense. So one more question if you don't mind.

If you load all your music on a thumb drive & hook it to the USB can you still control the music through the steering wheel buttons?

Second part to that how do you create/manage playlists so your thumb drive/ RDX don't play songs at random? Figuring you have 3k-5k songs of all music genres but you only want to hear classic rock songs?

 

You can also burn music using Windows Media Player. I burned an album to CD using the default WPL format and the HDD recorded the songs when I played the CD in the car.
However, the Album name was the only thing that transferred; Track names did not upload. (Manual title entry is required)

 

Here are some answers to your questions.....

1. The answer is yes. You can skip to the next track using the steering button feature and if you have the tech model, there are some voice activated command that will work too.

2. I would create folders on your USB stick.....That is what I did, a folder per artist so each songs are grouped by artists and a separate folder.

Hope this helps...if you have any other questions, let me know.

 

After lots of tinkering I think I like just using my ipod the best. HDD seems useless or too tedious to load. The ipod functionality is great through the nav screen. I ended up just buying an extra ipod off ebay that I leave in my RDX all the time. Works perfect.

 

Just bought a 2013 RDX base model. It seems Acura has fixed some of the annoying issues when playing music from USB drive. For example, it will resume correctly now, not just the right song and folder but the correct instance when you last played it. Also you can go folder browsing is now in an infinite loop. You can go 1-250 and then to 1 or 3,2,1, 250.

As mentioned here, the sort folder does not sort it by alphabetical order but rather by creation date. What about tracks in a folder or in an album. I have one album and song 1 is list as "01 track 26" and the last track as "26 track 01". I've checked the creation date and the songs are created(ripped) from CD in the correct order. The other 200 or so albums seems to be working just fine.

What sort folder windows software did you guys use to automatically change the creation date to match the alphabetical order? Does the Acura software sort according to date created or date modified.

I've created playlist folders as well as category folders and artist folders. Sometime when renaming album from Fields of Golds to Sting-Field of Golds doesn't help since it seems to pull the album name from the mp3 id tag.

 

Regarding the comment "folder browsing is now in an infinite loop" by aquaholik, does anyone know if there is a software update available for older 2013's?

 

^^^ I would like to know that as well...that has been my BIGGEST annoyance with the RDX and even my TL. If there is a software update, I want to know how to get it.

 

Really, if you guys have 50 folders, it doesn't go 1...50 and back to 1 once you move past 50. Or if you go folder 3,2,1 it doesn't jump back to 50 automatically?

Also the random is totally random(one folder or all folder). I can manually skip to the next random track and it still stay random. Mine was purchased in March 2013.

I solved the folder sorting problem by dragging the folders to the USB stick in the order that I want. So I start with Playlist-A(driving), Playlist-B(classical), Playlist-C(favorites), etc then followed it by Artist A-Album 1, Artist A-Album 2, Artist B-Album 1...etc. It solved those greatest hits confusion like which artist's greatest hits.

 

Thats really organized! I just have my music alphabetized A-Z. I found a freeware program on-line that will re-sort the flash drive that way no matter what order I put things in originally. However in the RDX when you get to say, ZZ Top, it won't continue to A, you need to scroll back.

I plan to check with the dealer to see if there are any software updates.

 

aquaholic...So just to make sure, what you are saying is that when you display the folders on your USB stick, you can scroll the wheel and go backward? For me, if I am playing folder 200(for example) and I want to manually select folder 210....the logical thing would be to just move the wheel from 200 to 210 (ten folders away right?!?)...NO!! If I am on folder 200 and want to display the folder to select, it will show the list from the beginning (folder 1) and have to scroll the wheel all the way down to folder 210 which is ridiculous.

I am sure that I could manually change folder without having to display the whole list but if I am playing folder 200 (for example and this is Artist "XX" and I want to listen to artist YY which I am not sure which folder YY is in, the only way I can do this is by displaying the folders and scrolling alllllll the way until I find it.

Another gripe....If I have my USB on shuffle and I decide to manually select one track, why does it automatically stops the shuffle feature? Once the shuffle is on, it should stay on unless I select it off! That is sooooo annoying....I hear a song from an artist I like so I decide that I want to listen another track from that artist so I just move the wheel a bit and then....the shuffle feature is now off and have to start all over again to reactivate the shuffle feature.

You know, this level of STUPIDITY by a company like Acura is mind boggling! I often wonder how they can develop a drivetrain as sophisticated as SH-AWD and can't get an auto-shuffle or a USB stick to work as it should! Maybe I overestimate how well engineered these cars after all *lol*

 

It is probably because you guys have the tech package and I have the base system. If I have 150 folders and the last folder is 150: ZZ Top - greatest hits and I am playing a song from there, I hit the big Tune Select Push button and it will show 150: ZZ Top - greatest hits in the middle of the display and folder 149 above it but it won't show folder 1 below it. But with one click clockwise, folder 1 and 2 will appear.

So if I am playing a song from folder 100 and want to go to folder 110, I would push the center knob and foldet 99, 100, 101 would be display and it would take me ten click clockwise to get to 110. I wouldn't have to start from folder 1 every time.

As far as random all folder, I can manually select the next random song and it will stay random. But if it is randomly playing the Eagles and I want to stay in that folder, I would have to push the big knob once and it will show the Eagles folder. Then another push to view the songs in that folder and I turn the knob to the song that I want. That will kill the random all folder.

 

Well you can blame Acura for not testing for these quirks before putting it into production but the real blame should go to Panasonic, the manufacturer of the radio.

 

Same thing happened to me. I tried two USB drives and both were 'unsupported' no matter what I tried. I reformatted in fat32 with tons of different options and they just wouldn't work. Neither had any encryption or protection or anything.

I just bought one of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/16G-4G-2GB-4GB-8GB-16GB-USB-2-0-Flash-Memory-Thumb-Stick-Drive-Fold-Pen-Devive-/370788969443?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item5654beabe3
Off of ebay and it was cheap and works perfectly. I got a 16gb one. I have access to all my music with no hassle now and am loving it.

So anyway if anyone else is wondering what USB drive to buy and you don't want to waste your money just buying new ones hoping you get lucky...try one of these...

 

To answer my own question, I asked my salesman at the dealership. He checked with the regional tech rep. The tech rep advised him that there is no software update.

Oh well.

 

I've a 2013 RDX, and I generally find the Tech and NAV system to be rather clunky. I bought it for resale and the other features that come with the tech pkg. I prefer the NAV on my iPhone, it works great.

Anyway, I've not used the HDD yet. It seems to me there are some issues, but mainly I wonder if Acura thought to support play lists -- which is a standard format. Yes, you can create folders (and there are problems with that), but who the hell wants an HDD full of 100's of songs that can't be organized in some standard fashion?

As for Acura saying there is no fix. Call them back, harass them and insist on a fix. That's what I would do. It's a luxury brand and they should be more responsive than that.

 

How can I download a DVD audio into my hard drive?
How can I download DVD Audio and load it into my Hard drive?

 

No can do, my friend.

 

Just picked up my 2015 RDX yesterday. The music option I like the best is hooking an iPod to the USB port. All the information comes over the link and it shows the upcoming playlist. I am in the process of uploading some instructional CDs to the hard drive to see if that works. So far, happy camper.

 

New owner and waiting for my RDX to come in. Question... what happens if you're playing a CD and its ripping it to the HDD and you turn off your car in the middle of a song? And what if the HDD is full? Will it just start overwriting or stop ripping altogether? Thanks - great forum!

 

I believe that when the HDD is full, it starts overwriting the oldest songs. Also, when you turn off the car, the ripping stops (of course) and later picks up where it left off, though I don't know what happens to the song that was partially ripped. My guess is that it gets overwritten when starting up again.

Gregg

 

Question to board:

I am considering a '15 RDX with Tech Pkg. According to the Acura site the HDD will hold 3500 songs. These are loaded from a commercial music CD. But the HDD only has a 15 GB capacity. Obviously these song file formats are not .WAV files.

Am I correct in saying that the commercial CDs are encoded in .WAV file format and if so, to what are they changed by the HDD as 3500 songs would require about 120 GB, not 15, if the files are .WAV?

Thanks.

 

New here. Just bought another 2017 RDX with tech package. My previous let me skip CD and MP3 recorded files on the screen.It just plays random recordings. I pressed the random button but it doesn't go to the in order of the CD or MP3. This one is not letting me do so. I called Acura/Honda they were NO help. As well as my local Honda dealership. Can anyone help me with this? I'm sure that it is pretty simple. Thanks!