jukebox

[eloughney]

Sorry if this has already been addressed but I am so confused. I bought a 2011 explorer and was told at that time I could record my cd's to the jukebox. Problem is I can't find it and neither can the dealer. No matter what type of cd I play the record button never shows. My understanding is you need navigation which I do have but the person I chatted with at ford said I still don't have it. I bought a $45,000 vehicle and no hard drive? Maybe someone here can tell me something ford can't. Unlike most people I still buy cd's. Thanks for any help you can give me.

[Mutnat]

Sorry if this has already been addressed but I am so confused. I bought a 2011 explorer and was told at that time I could record my cd's to the jukebox. Problem is I can't find it and neither can the dealer. No matter what type of cd I play the record button never shows. My understanding is you need navigation which I do have but the person I chatted with at ford said I still don't have it. I bought a $45,000 vehicle and no hard drive? Maybe someone here can tell me something ford can't. Unlike most people I still buy cd's. Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

Does your Explorer have My Ford Touch? If so, you don't have the jukebox feature. Trust me, you're not missing much. You're better off to rip the music yourself on your computer where you can manage the tags and artwork yourself, actually BACKUP the files, etc. Then you can just copy them to a USB thumb drive or external USB hard drive and access them through Sync.

[Coto]

QUESTION: HOW CAN I GET MY MUSIC TAGS TO TRANSFER TO THE JUKEBOX FROM MY CD'S?

I got a 2012 Escape recently with SYNC and full navigation and touchscreen. I did not know until I took delivery that my SYNC system included the JUKEBOX.

I have read many, many postings on this community forum as to why, when a CD is inserted and you record it to your Jukebox, the Artist name, Alum and Song Titles do not transfer to the Jukebox unless you use an original store bough CD. It seems that so many people could not make that work that the result were hundreds of answers stating that the Jukebox is a joke and you should not bother using it.

I for one think that the ability to have hundreds of CD's worth of music recorded to the Jukebox is a heck of a lot better than carrying a carload of CD's with you. But, I did agree that if the song tags either did not transfer through to your Jukebox or, Gracenotes could not find the CD information to update it properly, I really did not want to spend hundreds of hours manually typing in all that information.

I have found an answer. I realize that not everyone uses iTunes and if I did not have an iPhone, I would not either. However, if you use MediaMoney, WinAmp, Nero or any of the many CD burning tools available, you might be able to find a smilar solution within the options settings of your software.

ANSWER: IN ITUNES, WHEN YOU WANT TO BURN SONGS TO A CD, YOU FIRST CREATE A NEW PLAYLIST, DROP IN WHATEVER SONGS YOU WANT REGARDLESS OF THE FILE FORMAT (MP3, AAC, WMA, ETC.) OR IF YOUR FILES HAVE ALREADY BEEN TAGGED, FOLLOW THIS PRODEDURE AND..... THIS ALSO WORKS WITH RE-RECORDABLE CD'S.

AFTER YOU HAVE WHAT YOU WANT IN YOUR PLAYLIST, YOU THEN INITIATE THE BURN COMMAND. A DIALOGUE BOX POPS UP AND YOU WANT TO BE CERTAIN TO CHECK THE BOX THAT SAYS AUDIO CD. THIS WILL BURN ALL YOUR FILES, REGARDLESS OF THEIR TYPE TO .CDA FILES JUST LIKE AN ORIGINAL STORE BOUGHT CD. AND YOU MUST ALSO CHECK THE BOX THAT SAYS INCLUDE CD TEXT. WHEN YOU BURN THE CD, YOUR ARTIST, ALBUM AND SONG TITLES ALL TRANSFER AS DO THE GENRE. SIMPLE SOLUTION. PROBLEM SOLVED. THE ONLY THING i HAVE NOT LEANRED, IF IT'S EVEN POSSIBLE, IS HOW TO TRANSFER COVER ART.

[Mutnat]

It seems that so many people could not make that work that the result were hundreds of answers stating that the Jukebox is a joke and you should not bother using it.

I for one think that the ability to have hundreds of CD's worth of music recorded to the Jukebox is a heck of a lot better than carrying a carload of CD's with you.

 

You're right that it's better than carrying around a case of CDs. Ford added it as a *simple* replacement for a multi-disc changer. Simple being the key word here. This leads to a number of downsides:

1. If you buy your music online through something like iTunes, you have to then take the time to burn a bunch of audio CDs (or one or two rewriteable CDs) which you will likely never use again. If you have a large collection of non-CD music you want to load, this can be tedious. You then have to load this freshly burned CD into your car and wait for it to re-rip the audio into a compressed format on the hard drive, adding more time to the process, when you already had those songs in a compressed digital format to begin with, that Ford won't allow you to load onto the system directly.
   
2. Even if your entire (or bulk of your) music collection is on store-bought or already-burned audio CDs, once you take the time to load them into the hard drive, you have no way to back them up to move to your next car, or to use on your iPod, or your home computer, or anything.
   
3. You have zero control over the encoding settings to adjust for your desired audio quality and file size.
   
4. Artwork is only if your CD happens to exactly match something in the Gracenotes database.
   

For these reasons, I still think 99.9% of people with the Jukebox and Sync features and a home computer should forget they have the Jukebox and take the time to rip their CDs to their computer instead. Why? Because it addresses everything I listed above. You control the encoding process for quality vs. size. You control the artwork. You have a backup copy of the files on the computer, and can further back those up on an external drive, on an online backup site like carbonite, etc. You only ever have to rip those discs once to your computer. Then you copy whatever files you want to listen to an inexpensive USB thumb drive and stick it in your car's USB port. If you change cars, you just move the thumb drive to the new car. If the drive gets corrupted or it or your car stolen, you still have all that music on your computer. If you get sick of what you're listening to, change the files on the drive. It doesn't take long. You have way more storage space available (the jukebox has 10GB for music storage, you can buy as many 16GB or 32GB thumb drives as you want for not much money) which leads to more selection. All around it's a win-win-win.

[Coto]

While I certainly respect your personal choice, I respectfully could not disagree more. I began working with the Internet before anyone I knew had even heard of an email address. It gave me an opportunity to become self taught in many areas, including digital. I've worked with every file type from OGG to MP3. I like to use MP3 Lame just becasue it works in everything. Regarding backups, I have well over 200,000 MP3's at 192kbps or higher so all that is backed up. I keep a library of all my music on 2 external drives. I had an explorer that came with a Sony 6 CD changer and I also had about 10 Cd magazines but I can tell you that changing out Cd's and deciding what you want in your car at any given time got old fast. As for compression, on my Jukebox, I have a button that gives me the option to compress or not. I can tell you that if I record a song to the jukebox that is at a bitrate of 192kbps, in the car with just a bit of road noise, it is very hard to tell the difference between the original and the jukebox recording. Sure, it's a 10GB drive in the car but even at 192kbps, you can still have about 3,000 songs in your Jukebox. If you average that against CD's with 10 to 15 songs per disk, it's like having 300 CD's with you. I don't think the objective is to have every song you ever recorded in your car. I have onlty had this car for two weeks but I am confident that if I do a little trial and error, it would not be that hard to remove the drive and add a 500GB drive or even a 1TB at today's low prices.

 

I find it not much more work to burn a diskful of songs onto a re-writeable CD and then while I am driving, let them record to the jukebox. It's not screaming fast but if you're driving anyway who cares and it will still continue recording while you listen to the radio, satellite, etc. I also was pleasantly surprised to find that if you begin recording a CD and you maybe forget and turn off your car when you arrive somewhere, the next time you turn on your SYNC system, it picks up recording right where you left off. If there are ten songs on a CD and you only have time to record five of them before you shut your car off, it will beging recording track six when you start it up again. I love this so much more than a CD changer or plugging and unplugging thumbdrives. I can still play music that's on my phone but that's pretty much like a thumb drive. Limited space and you have to delete and re-sync new music.

 

I tried everything last week to transfer my imbedded tags and neither the dealer, their SYNC trainers or FORD new how to transfer the tags. I just cranked up my PC and while watching hockey and a few TV shows last night, I burned several hundred songs onto 80 minute 700MB re-writeable disks and today while driving to an appointment and back, I got all of that music on my jukebox with a lot more available space and every single song transferred the tags perfectly. I loooked at all my documents from my car purchase and unless I missed it, I did not see an additional cost for the jukebox. In fact, the first time I called the Ford Sync team, the rep told me if I have a 2012 Escape, they don't even come with the jukebox. I told him it works pretty good then for not even being there.

 

I do not know what bitrate it uses to record to the jukebox drive and I have not yet tried recording in compressed mode but having started in the audio business way back in 1972 when all of my friends and I were all obsessed with what speakers we had and what amp and how far you sit fro mthe speakeers, etc. for me the sound quality is very good. My car came with a 7 speaker system and subwoofer and I have no complaints. I also have a Sony 400 Cd/DVD changer in my home with a 7.1 surround DTS system and I can tell you, picking which of my 3000 CD's to put in th echanger is a bear not to mention what you go through when you finally get the energy and motivation to switch them out.

 

Bottom Line: I can play music from my phone, thumb drive, CD or DVD, HD Radio, Sirius/XM all available at the same time. I think that's a pretty diverse choice. I was additionally surprised to learn you can play music Cd's and movies on the navigation screen if the car is in park. that's pretty cool for a rest in the SUV while you take in a movie. Additionally, I have some DTS pure surround sound CD's I bought when Tower still had actual record stores in my area. I suspect they are still available and they blow away the SACD disks as fars as pure surround sound. You can distinctly hear drums from one speaker, guitar in another, vocals in another and so on. They are the best sound quality sources I have ever heard and to have a car audio system that can decode them is awesome since most home amps do not have DTS until you hit a certain price point. many say DTS capable which only means you have to buy a decoder and plug it into your system.

 

Good old American rock and roll in a good old American car. Ford. Not like Chrysler or GM (Government Motors), Ford never took a dime from the government. Being a Detroit boy, that's meaningful to me.

 

To each his own but so far, everyone that's seen and heard my system loves it. Thanks for your feedback. if and when I learn how to swap out the car's hard drive, I will let you know and then you can take it with you to your next vehicle.

 

Cheers. Sorry if I left any typos.

[fazeelnawaz76]

While I certainly respect your personal choice, I respectfully could not disagree more. I began working with the Internet before anyone I knew had even heard of an email address. It gave me an opportunity to become self taught in many areas, including digital. I've worked with every file type from OGG to MP3. I like to use MP3 Lame just becasue it works in everything. Regarding backups, I have well over 200,000 MP3's at 192kbps or higher so all that is backed up. I keep a library of all my music on 2 external drives. I had an explorer that came with a Sony 6 CD changer and I also had about 10 Cd magazines but I can tell you that changing out Cd's and deciding what you want in your car at any given time got old fast. As for compression, on my Jukebox, I have a button that gives me the option to compress or not. I can tell you that if I record a song to the jukebox that is at a bitrate of 192kbps, in the car with just a bit of road noise, it is very hard to tell the difference between the original and the jukebox recording. Sure, it's a 10GB drive in the car but even at 192kbps, you can still have about 3,000 songs in your Jukebox. If you average that against CD's with 10 to 15 songs per disk, it's like having 300 CD's with you. I don't think the objective is to have every song you ever recorded in your car. I have onlty had this car for two weeks but I am confident that if I do a little trial and error, it would not be that hard to remove the drive and add a 500GB drive or even a 1TB at today's low prices.

 

I find it not much more work to burn a diskful of songs onto a re-writeable CD and then while I am driving, let them record to the jukebox. It's not screaming fast but if you're driving anyway who cares and it will still continue recording while you listen to the radio, satellite, etc. I also was pleasantly surprised to find that if you begin recording a CD and you maybe forget and turn off your car when you arrive somewhere, the next time you turn on your SYNC system, it picks up recording right where you left off. If there are ten songs on a CD and you only have time to record five of them before you shut your car off, it will beging recording track six when you start it up again. I love this so much more than a CD changer or plugging and unplugging thumbdrives. I can still play music that's on my phone but that's pretty much like a thumb drive. Limited space and you have to delete and re-sync new music.

 

I tried everything last week to transfer my imbedded tags and neither the dealer, their SYNC trainers or FORD new how to transfer the tags. I just cranked up my PC and while watching hockey and a few TV shows last night, I burned several hundred songs onto 80 minute 700MB re-writeable disks and today while driving to an appointment and back, I got all of that music on my jukebox with a lot more available space and every single song transferred the tags perfectly. I loooked at all my documents from my car purchase and unless I missed it, I did not see an additional cost for the jukebox. In fact, the first time I called the Ford Sync team, the rep told me if I have a 2012 Escape, they don't even come with the jukebox. I told him it works pretty good then for not even being there.

 

I do not know what bitrate it uses to record to the jukebox drive and I have not yet tried recording in compressed mode but having started in the audio business way back in 1972 when all of my friends and I were all obsessed with what speakers we had and what amp and how far you sit fro mthe speakeers, etc. for me the sound quality is very good. My car came with a 7 speaker system and subwoofer and I have no complaints. I also have a Sony 400 Cd/DVD changer in my home with a 7.1 surround DTS system and I can tell you, picking which of my 3000 CD's to put in th echanger is a bear not to mention what you go through when you finally get the energy and motivation to switch them out.

 

Bottom Line: I can play music from my phone, thumb drive, CD or DVD, HD Radio, Sirius/XM all available at the same time. I think that's a pretty diverse choice. I was additionally surprised to learn you can play music Cd's and movies on the navigation screen if the car is in park. that's pretty cool for a rest in the SUV while you take in a movie. Additionally, I have some DTS pure surround sound CD's I bought when Tower still had actual record stores in my area. I suspect they are still available and they blow away the SACD disks as fars as pure surround sound. You can distinctly hear drums from one speaker, guitar in another, vocals in another and so on. They are the best sound quality sources I have ever heard and to have a car audio system that can decode them is awesome since most home amps do not have DTS until you hit a certain price point. many say DTS capable which only means you have to buy a decoder and plug it into your system.

 

Good old American rock and roll in a good old American car. Ford. Not like Chrysler or GM (Government Motors), Ford never took a dime from the government. Being a Detroit boy, that's meaningful to me.

 

To each his own but so far, everyone that's seen and heard my system loves it. Thanks for your feedback. if and when I learn how to swap out the car's hard drive, I will let you know and then you can take it with you to your next vehicle.

 

Cheers. Sorry if I left any typos.

•  

[Multitask]

Brownies I tell ya

[Muzicman61]

Same exact post, 10 years later under a different user name.  Brownies for sure!!!  Medicated ones I would guess.

[Multitask]

Nah, they should just skip the brownie mix....  ?