H-140 - USB mode?

[Chris H]

I've recently purchased a new stereo that has a USB connector on it, however I'm unable to use it because the second I connect my I-River to the stereo USB mode kicks in and I'm unable to navigate or do anything via the player. Is it possible to allow navigation and playback in USB mode, or is this something that simply can't be changed?

[LinusN]

What do you expect to happen when you insert the USB connector? The only thing the H140 can do with the USB connection is to act as a USB disk.

What is the USB port supposed to be used for on your stereo by the way?

[Febs]

If what you are trying to do is to use your iriver as a source for your stereo and control playback through the iriver, the iriver has a line out for this purpose.  If you'd like a digital connection and your stereo has a TOSlink digital input, you can use the digital line out of your iriver to establish a digital connection to the stereo.  Otherwise, you can use the analog line out from the iriver (which happens to be the same line out jack) to connect to an analog line in on your stereo.

[Chris H]

Apologies, I probably didn't explain myself very clearly. I plug the USB cable into the mp3 player and into the USB port on the stereo system. This allows me to use the remote control for the stereo to control the mp3 player, navigate through directories, find a song and play it, at what appears to be far higher quality than using the line out (the stereo only has an analogue line out).

Sounds good, yes?

However there is a problem, the stereo is unable to read or display ID3 tag information, and even basic folder and file names, so it assigns a number as the folder and track names you have to navigate based on blind luck.

I was wondering if there was any way at all to see using the screen on the player exactly which tracks are being navigated and accessed while it is in USB mode...  I don't imagine so but I thought I'd ask nonetheless. And before anyone flames me I have no idea whatsoever about what exactly happens when the player goes into USB mode so I apologise if you find the question stupid or offensive, it just so happens to be pertinent to me.

The alternatives are use the rather hissy and crackly aux/line-in connection and line out on the I-River, or print out a rather large and weighty book of every folder and track on the mp3 player, a "dictionary" of sorts that explains which number corresponds to which folder. As you can imagine I'm certainly not too keen to tackle the latter as it would pretty much be the work of many weeks to sort that out, hence my exploring every other avenue first.

[bluebrother]

I was wondering if there was any way at all to see using the screen on the player exactly which tracks are being navigated and accessed while it is in USB mode...  I don't imagine so but I thought I'd ask nonetheless. And before anyone flames me I have no idea whatsoever about what exactly happens when the player goes into USB mode so I apologise if you find the question stupid or offensive, it just so happens to be pertinent to me.

this is not possible. If you plug in the Iriver to a usb port it switches to usb mode. USB is handled by a dedicated chip in the player, and Rockbox simply enables this chip. From that point on Rockbox doesn't have control over the player anymore (it just waits until the usb chip notifies it that there was a disconnect).

[GodEater]

At a guess, the Car stereo is expecting to be plugged into an iPod - and thefore to read an iTunes format database. It appears to fall back to this inferior numbering scheme in the absence of such a database.

In either case sadly, there's not much we can do for you.

[Llorean]

Basically, what's happening is that your stereo is using the MP3 player as simply a portable disk, reading the files off it, and playing them itself. What this means is that it really wouldn't matter if you could control the player, as no audio is going over the cable, just data files (the .mp3 files, still as files) that the stereo itself is then playing.

As a note, if the Line/Aux is crackly, you might want to check your cables, as there's really no reason it should be.