UKC

You will probably have better input options, such as bluetooth or USB, on your "modern car", so this may not be relevant to you, but...

I was in a similar boat and for just a few quid bought myself a little gizmo that transmitted audio from any device into radio signals that can be picked up on the car radio. Worked fine and I was happy driving around locally, but then I got horribly lost in Barcelona and almost missed a flight, and similar confusion in other places. Turned out the gizmo was interfering with the satnav and it was giving me hopelessly confusing directions, until I twigged and turned off the transmitter. Forewarned is forearmed!

So, you have 3 options, really.

1 - depending on connectivity, you can connect a device such as your smart phone/iPod/USB stick/whatever to the car by way of either a cable or Bluetooth, the car head unit will recognise it and you can use the car controls to play the music. If it's a smart phone, this should also give you phone control for calls, possibly also navigation.

My car has an iPod dock in the glove box, but I've never used it, because...

2 - My car has 2 SD card slots behind the head unit screen, one of which has a load of my MP3 files on it, the other has stuff for the kids, so they don't accidentally end up listening to anything with dodgy language. Basically, you have to rip your music collection into a digital format (MP3, WAV, etc) and then put that onto a card and plug it in somewhere. Number of tracks you can get on the card depends on bit rate you ripped them at. It's a bit time consuming, but if you bought the CDs on Amazon, you can just download the MP3 tracks.

Beware of filename lengths. There were a number of my tracks that weren't appearing on the play list in the car - eventually, the penny dropped that the ones not appearing had very long file names of the sort of format "01 someone and the somethings - long name of track (featuring someone else) (studio version).mp3" and the car could only handle a certain number of characters.

It also tends to order them alphabetically, so if you want them in a particular order, you'll need to prefix with a track number.

3 - plug some sort of transmitter into your phone and then pick it up as a radio station - not sure about the current legality of this in the UK. You won't be able to control it via the car controls, don't get caught fiddling with the phone while driving.

The best option for you is going to depend what inputs there are on your car's radio which could be used.  But you haven't told us what type of radio or even car you're talking about.  If you post that information (Car make, model, and year, plus the type of radio if you know or can find out) then you'll get better answers.

And a related question: do you have your music on your iPhone, and do you habitually listen to it that way? If so, then it would make sense to set it up so the car just acts as a big speaker for the phone.  If on the other hand you don't, then other options might be better.

My sympathy, we purchased a new car a few months ago and when I asked the salesman where to put the cd's he looked at me very old fashioned.

Some years back I was given an iPod for Christmas, being me it was never used but I found it, put some music on it from computer (after much swearing) and plugged it into the car.

Appears this is so old fashioned it is also incompatible. We listen to the car radio, anything else is beyond us!

I was in the same boat about 4 weeks ago.  

1x 32gb sd card bought. I've put about 50 cds on it as mp3s using Windows Media player.  Its now about a quarter full..  Ive run out of steam to convert the  cds. 

You can fit a Lot on one sd card.  

Mine also has USB, a jack plug and Bluetooth connectivity. 

Means I can use my phone for audio books from our library using overdrive.

Do you need full instructions on ripping cds?

If you are technophobic to the extent that you don’t have your music already in digital form then this is either an opportunity to digitise it (“ripping” CDs)  or a chance to see if the car has a 3.5mm jack input so you can go all Heath-Robinson and plug a portable personal CD player into it

or consider fitting an aftermarket car stereo with CD player.

How many CDs is 'loads'?

If you are thinking about ripping them, you will only want to do it once. You will want to do it perfectly. Which means ripping to a lossless format (able to reproduce perfectly the track as it appears on the CD), rather than a lossy format (only ever an approximation to the CD). So that means FLAC or ALAC formats, rather than MP3 or APAC. Once you have ripped CDs, you can get a media library manager to transcode to a lossy format is storage space is at a premium.

As others have said, a modern car is very likely to have a Bluetooth connection. This will allow you to connect your smartphone to it (wirelessly), both to play music from your phone, and to make hands-free calls.

This process will also give you the starting point for streaming audio at home, and taking your music with you...

Of course, I'm assuming you have a smartphone...

Read the OP again but properly this time

Music on a CD is already in digital format.  Ripping a CD is not digitising it.

Yes, that is correct, but I _think_ that although redundant and wrong, my phrasing has become accepted (or is it only used for converting analogue music?)

Yes, that is correct, but I _think_ that although redundant and wrong, my phrasing has become accepted (or is it only used for converting analogue music?)

I've got a golf - SD card reader in head unit takes cards up to 32gb - but it also has a USB plug thingy that will take a stick up to 64gb. All my MP3s are on a stick in folders I created. Plug it in and head unit sees it as a 'source' and allows you to navigate the folders etc.

I've also got a newer Passat and it has 2 SD slots, one has the Navi card in it, the other takes 32gb 'normal' SD cards, or 64gb fancy ones. Just look in manual and see what the maximum size card that can be used is and go for that.

As others said, keep your file names and file structure sensible as there will eb a limit to how many depths it will accept - but probably several so you can have one file, with a file each for you, wife, kids, then each of those has a file per artist, then a file per album or whatever.

Well done. Have a lollipop.

Phrase just used for converting analogue to digital.

I will get back to you guys as soon as I know exactly what the cars "guts" are like (Sd card slot for instance. Thankls so far though

Call me old-fashioned (you will, and you'll be right) but I like to press some big buttons and get the music I want at the time that I want it and without crashing or breaking any laws. That seems to be less and less likely with every generation of ICE. 

Kind of agree - but then I recall trying trying to manually tune a radio as you moved from one region to another, or faffing in glove box for a cassette, or changing a CD.....

Most current systems will play radio far easier than an old system. And on the VAG group head units at least, navigating folders, or selecting one of a few favourites radio stations etc is still easier than faffing with cassettes or CDs or tuning.

All about how distracted you allow yourself to get. If you don't feel comfy doing things on the move put radio on and leave it on. Or select an album from SD card before setting off then let system keep playing until you get to destination - it'll just keep going, moving onto next album constantly.

Any solution that doesn't work and allow control via head unit does seem to me to be risker and also a faff. I definitely don't want to stream from a phone and try to control music from the phone. However if the control of the external device (phone, MP3 player or whatever) can be done from the head unit controlling it that may be no better or worse than anything else.

If its like my 2016 fabia (and the 2013 one I had before) then yes.

iPod...? Slot...?

That's a bit old skool these days. Wireless connectivity is now the thing.

The sales person described the usb port on our car as an iPod slot too. I think its become a bit of a generic term.

What year is the yeti? Recent ones have USB and sd I think.  

Have you found briskoda forums yet?  

Okay. What it probably means is that the salesman doesn't understand. That's pretty usual for car salesmen, I think.

On your VAG group head unit pressing forward or back seek buttons on the wheel or head unit flick between tracks on your phone.

I would strongly disagree tho that the folder system on the head unit is remotely safe to be used on the move - you might as well use you phone

It'll be a VAG head unit on a yeti.... usually at least 1 sd card slot, a usb connection (for streaming from a phone/iphone) bluetooth audio (so you don't have to plug the phone in and it can stay in your pocket)

You being smug, presumptuous, judgmental and redundantly unpleasant seems to be the thing these days

Are you worried I'm stealing your gig or something..?

I've not intentionally been any of those things on this thread. I think you're reading more into my comments than is present.

Have I done something to upset you recently?

[edit] Oh, right; I missed the bit about the OP owning a smartphone, and gave you a lollipop for pointing out my error. I thought you were being fairly petty and childish, and a lollipop might cheer you up.

I think the consensus is that you need to get your music off the CDs and onto a computer somewhere, where you can then copy it to usb, SD, phone, etc.

Doing that can be done painfully or cleverly, I used iTunes to copy my CDs, it could automatically name the album's and tracks for me, so that's something to look for (don't know if Windows media player does this?), the format is important too, some I copied went to an apple only format, so had to be converted to MP3 later, which is what I'd suggest you start off with.

TBH, you could really use a teenager, is there one that you could bribe to copy the CDs? There may be a local company that'll do it for you too.

I have just discovered by doing a quick google that ripping your own CD's to listen to, in the car, is illegal in the UK.  You can legally make a copy for backup purposes but you ain't allowed to transfer that to a storage device to listen somewhere else that is not a physical CD player.  I'm guessing that even palying that backup copy with your computer is illegal too.  That's crazy.

You could rip your CD's but there is an awful lot of faff involved.

There is another option, which is just as grey as ripping your own CD's but involves a lot less faff.  You could go to a Torrent website and download a digital copy of the CD that you own.  People will say that this is illegal.  But then so is making a copy of that very same CD and listening to it in the car.

Never mind legality, my argument against torrenting would be that it's REALLY not the solution for a technophobe!

The law against ripping CDs for personal use will never be enforced.

Ripping CDs will be a faff but something like Windows Media Player should make it fairly straightforward. The first few CDs might take a while but he'll soon get into a rhythm. Windows Media Player will give you a choice of file formats to rip to. MP3 isn't technically the best audio quality but it's got the widest compatibility so unless you're particularly fussy about sound quality, it's probably the best option.

Rip one CD and then try listening to it in the car to make sure that it works and you're happy with the sound quality before you commit hours to a task that you might have to repeat if you've got something wrong.

The advice above about ripping to a lossless format for storage/backup and then converting to a more convenient format for playback isn't necessarily wrong but it's certainly not the way to go for a technophobe.

If the car actually does have a connection designed for iPods, a secondhand iPod off eBay might be a good idea. Just check which models it's compatible with first. If using an iPod, you'll want to use iTunes for CD ripping instead of Windows Media Player.

Certainly my ipod does NOT play in the new car (Toyota Aygo), plugs in etc. but not compatible, so maybe best to borrow one first to trial before purchasing anything.

You download one piece of software, install and then practically forget about as it does its job.  You then go to a website and put the name of the album into the search-box and then choose download.

Its not really beyond the realm of a technophobe. 

As for legality, getting that digital music from either a ripped CD or a torrent site to the SD card, iPod, phone or tricorder is grey.

Or buy a car with a CD player. 

I found that ripping my collection of 2500+ CDs was a time-consuming, physically painful process. I am very glad that I chose to rip lossless, as I couldn't face the prospect of having to do it again, having realised that I really wanted files as good as the source CD. I have friends who ripped to lossy formats, and now regret it, but can't face the re-ripping task.  I am trying to save anyone that grief.

Using a media library isn't that hard. It will do the transcoding for you, and will sync files to players.

There are media manager/player apps that will even rip and compress to two formats at the same time; JRiver, for instance.

The OP is using a computer, and posting on a forum; they can't be that technophobic, and, if they want, they will find people are very happy to help them learn to use the tools.

You're oversimplifying, though. First you have to choose which software you're going to use, which isn't without pitfalls (utorrent, for example, used to be widely recommended but started making some fairly dodgy decisions). Then, finding a torrent site that isn't blocked by your ISP will be challenging. You'll need to find a suitable proxy, which will probably add its own pop-up ads. Once you've searched for the album, you'll get lots of results. Choosing one that will have the content you want in a suitable quality requires judgement, with a lot of weird new terms to learn. More obscure albums might not be available at all or might not be actively seeded by anyone. You might get a letter from your ISP warning you about illegal file sharing. There are no teeth behind the current scheme, it's just a series of increasingly strident warnings, but it would still be off-putting. After all of that, you'll have a whole mix of different file formats with a whole mix of different naming conventions and a load of superfluous text files and images advertising release groups and other torrents. You'd have to convert them all to file formats that the car will play and do a load of sorting if the lack of consistent structure and naming bothers you.

But almost everybody would agree that ripping CDs that you already own, for your own private use, is entirely morally justifiable and I'm not aware that anyone has ever even made an attempt to prosecute for it. Acquiring them by peer-to-peer filesharing, on the other hand, would be widely regarded as immoral and people have actually been prosecuted for it, with some quite substantial penalties handed down. The strategy seems to have shifted away from being punitive in recent years but it's still not something I would cheerily encourage somebody to do, let alone a self-professed technophobe.

I basically agree with you, and it's what I would do under the circumstances. I'd also recommend it to somebody else if they either really care about sound quality or are enough of a geek to value the elegance of doing it that way. I just don't see any indication that either of those things describes the OP. It's still a good idea to raise for his consideration though.

The bit I did read in the OP is the bit about being a music collector with loads of CDs. IME, music collectors are concerned with sound quality. Admittedly, a car is not a great place to be concerned about sound quality...

As you say, at least we've warned the OP, and he can choose.

May I ask how much storage space would have been required for so many CD's?

You can make backups.  Its just illegal to use those backups, which sort of defeats the point of making a backup unless you use that backup to create a new CD.  You would then have to prove to "The Man" that you legitimately created a backup CD because your original copy bit the dust ,and you were exercising your right to create a duplicate.

I of course always follow the letter of the law.

You're being alarmist and your advice is poor.

Numerous 'cease and desist' emails are received by bit torrent users.

But I am not aware of a single action ever having been taken against an individual who has ripped CDs which he/she already owns.

I don't think you're correct about this distinction anyway. As I understand it, it's making the copy that is illegal, regardless of what you do with it. In any case, the law is irrelevant because nobody has been prosecuted or sued for breaking it and the government has made it clear that they don't agree with the law's existence and would prefer there to be an exemption for individuals to make private copies of legally owned media. They actually enacted one until it was struck down by the High Court. Suggesting that ripping CDs could plausibly get you into trouble whilst simultaneously recommending downloading torrents is laughable.

I'm being alarmist?

I just mentioned Torrents and got told that the sky would fall down if you use it.

I'm just saying that its just as naughty to rip a CD, put it onto a device and play it in a car, as it is to download a torrent, put it onto a device and play that in a car.  Both ways are illegal in the UK.

That's not alarmist and neither is it poor advice.  It happens to be UK law.

Neither of which have I ever done.

Physically? Quite a lot. They're in the loft, in boxes.

Digitally? About 1.5TB

As for the issue of the legality of ripping, the record companies have said that they have no intention to prosecute people who buy a CD, rip it, and use the digital copy. But you have to keep the CD.

You are, as usual, wrong

http://www.audioaffair.co.uk/blog/digitise-cd-collection/

Or that blogger is wrong...

I wouldn't use digitise for that meaning, because, as an electronic engineer, digitise means to convert analogue to digital.

Other people might use the term in a different context, but I'd consider it an incorrect use.

My 2010 yeti had a proper 3.5mm jack hidden in the cubby hole between the front seats. If the OP has this then his simplest solution is an iPod and a cable.

That's a badly titled article. When music is stored on a CD, it's already digitised. The author of that piece needs to have a more objective look at what they've written before they let it out into the wild.

You think teenagers are capable of understanding CDs? Ha ha ha ha.

It's also confused about what a NAS is. Not many NAS devices have built-in CD drives for ripping.

The question was whether the term was used in that way, not whether it was technically accurate.

Are you absolutely sure about that? I thought the law had changed (around 12-15 years ago) to say that for personal use, it's fine. Or maybe it's more wooly, as the other poster said, record companies won't pursue you for it. 

I kind of looked into this well over a decade ago wrt to making CD compilations of various songs I liked ("various artist" discs, I guess) to give to friends. I am sure I managed to convince myself that it was legitimate. I might have been kidding myself. 

It was some massive posturing over-reaction from you, responding to some comment of mine, on some other thread. I've forgotten the details already and I am over it. 

I'll hazard that you are a lot more like me than you are comfortable to admit

I'm pretty sure I don't do massive posturing. I have a vague recollection of being pissed off with you for having an unnecessary dig at Lemming or mypyrex. But I'm sure that was weeks ago.

I'm glad you're over it. I generally don't remember individual interactions, or allow them to spill over to other threads, and I don't take much notice of who I am replying to, but if somone takes a pop at me that I think is unnecessary, I'll return in kind. Hence your lollipop here.

I gave your lollipop a sincere “like”. I had actually written a nicer post simply pointing out that the OP had stated he had an iPhone 4, but it was badly written so Inwent for the short version. Sorry

We’re all good, let’s make peace. 

Also, I give mypyrex and The Lemming quite a lot of positive support yet most people don’t notice that and only see the “prodding” which in my mind is minor banter that should be like water off a duck’s back for those two stalwarts (whereas when I give positive support, it is much bigger even if neither of them often acknowledges it)

I'm glad you enjoyed your lollipop.

Don't you think you're being a bit unrealistic to expect people to remember the nature of all your past interactions with other people?

I barely remember my own interactions, let alone those of others. I pretty much respond to each post in isolation, barring a couple of individuals, and I don't really want to add you to the short list of 'people to avoid'.

Maybe they don't see it as 'minor banter', and have chosen not to engage with you? I don't remember the details, but if I had a go at you, it wouldn't have been for something I thought was 'minor banter'.

It is peaceful at paranoia towers, which is why your outburst here was something of a surprise. I'm happy for things to return to a peaceful state.

No, the blogger's wrong.

'Digitise' means make it digital, like miniaturise means make it miniature. CDs are a digital format. If you rip it lossless it is just a transfer of data from one storage media to another.

The blog was not correct about digitise in any sense of the word.  Back to schoolwork for you.

As above, it's about whether the word is used as shorthand for CD>other-digital.  It is, and widely so. Everyone knows CDs are digital(ish).

No my point was what I originally said.  Digitised is widely used to mean CD>-other-digital.  Lion Bakes denied this.

There is.   Many CDs are AAD or ADD so there is an analogue stage in their production.  Even with DDD, you go: 

performance(analogue)>recording(digital)>mastering(digital)>storage(digital)>amplification(either)>loudspeakers(analogue)>outer-ear(analogue)>nerves-to-brain(digital).

so saying things are one or the other doesn't make much sense.

So do I, 'rip' is widely used, 'digitise' is sometimes wrongly used, as you demonstrated.

It makes perfect sense, unlike all of the above.

You are flogging a dead analogue horse here.  A physical CD contains a shed load of 1's and 0's.  It does not have any analogue storage like a vinyl LP.

Would you say that all hard drives and solid state hard drives are also analogue because there would have been some sort of analogue stage during the research and design of the product?

For the nth time, I know that and agree.  I'm making two separate points:

1) "Digitise" is widely used more loosely than the narrow technical meaning to include ripping CDs.  You can argue this incorrect if you want, but language being what it is, you will be spitting in the wind.

and, entirely separately

2) While CDs store music digitally, if you want to do anything useful with it, there is always at least one analogue element to things

Neither are really important.

Just because something is used loosely, does not eventually make it correct.

You are like the captain of the Titanic claiming you did not hit an iceberg and even if you did it is not an issue.

You got it wrong everyone can see that, but you are in denial.

Isn't that a river in Africa?

What did I get wrong?

Sandpaper doesn't have sand in

Tarmac is mostly asphalt or similar

etc

Bullshit always has been and always will be, bullshit!

Whe you claimed that converting from one digital music format to another digital music format is digitising.

No I haven't. And I've repeatedly pointed out I haven't. But carry on.

I said that digitising refers to converting from analogue to digital.  

In your 18:14 Sun reply you said I was wrong.  So either you think it is digital to digital, analogue to analogue, or digital to analogue.  Or you think it is none of the above.  Pray do tell.

I'd get looking for an old radio cassette player; looks like this discussion could run and run...

You also said (my emphasis) "Phrase just used for converting analogue to digital."

To which I replied "You are, as usual, wrong" and gave you one example of very many  google throws up.

None of the above, as I have just explained for about the 5th time on this thread, I was pointing out you were wrong in your claim about how the phrase is used..

You point to the word being used incorrectly and use that as proof!  Then when challenged you continue to dig your hole.  You sound like the drunk propping up the bar in pubs across the country.

Yes.  If you are unable to grasp the idea that words are quite often used to mean things that don't correspond with "correct" usage (whatever that means), I can't help you.

I have just checked and yes I was the first person to refer to “ripping CDs” as “digitising”

I now feel like someone who has triggered a global war by accidentally spilling a bit of someone’s pint 

Well you live and learn. I'm in a hire van at the moment and just noticed there is no CD player. Just a card slot and Bluetooth. 

On the subject of luddites my business partner passed away last year and he had the same van as me but when I got the van back I found he had removed the CD player and replaced it with a tape deck.