Hoonose

Excellent info here!

Personally I am finding less use of my song collections and more use for Pandora.

NostraD

Touché, "Stentplacer"! --- While I hope to never experience a massive heart attack (Low BP, No Cholesterol or any other meds... so far) or grace the entrance to your Cath Lab with my presence... If I do someday find myself there, I'll be sure to have a maxed-out 128GB SD card in my left-hand pocket, loaded with every single one of my pristine and perfectly programmed MP3 music files... All 14,022 of them... which will provide you with just about 40 Days of non-stop listening pleasure!

Stentplacer

^^^ Glad to hear all is well! I'm so jealous. I wish I could get something like that to have in the Vette. I guess I'm stuck with XM and Pandora Pro.
Best Regards!

c5eddiem

That is agreat question. I have been asking it on the forum for over a year. I also asked GM Customer Support and they opened a case to study it.

I have changed a number of tags in the mp3 file using an editor, but had no luck even with almost every field saying "audiobook" or "podcast"

The final response after over 50 emails back and forth with various support people...(and I quote), "It's working as designed". So apparently it's not designed to recognize Audiobooks or Podcasts even though there are menu choices in the software by "design".

They did thank me for bring the issue to their attention and said it would be noted for future versions of the software. They also hinted that even if fixed, the fix would be for future years and would not fix it for my 2014.

I would be interested in hearing whether it has been resolved in '15 or '16 models.

... and if you're listening to an audiobook, don't hit the button that looks like a radio on/off button. It will mute the book you're listening to, but keep on playing it silently. So, when you hit it again, you may have missed a chapter or two.

It's OK... just "working as designed"

NostraD

Just a quick note to mention that I updated my original post to reflect that center console SD slot has been removed and is no longer available in 2016 models, as well as confirming that the info provided remains accurate, updated, and should also apply to 2016 owners now forced to utilize the USB ports in the console and/or behind the Infotainment display.

Good Luck!

Boiler_81

One additional myth which keeps coming up is the PDR is limited to 32GB. This is not the case, the limitation is Windows will not format a card larger than 32GB in FAT32 natively. To format a larger card in FAT 32 requires a third party utility.

NostraD

Agreed & Correct! I currently run a 64GB SD card for my PDR. --- The same formatting issue holds true for the console SD slot, which is why the 32GB limit myth comes up there, as well. When time allows, I'll update my OP with that info and links to some online tools for SD formatting in FAT32. Thanks.

xwing

Very disappointed that 2016 has no SD card slot. Since it also has no CD player, how do you play music (other than radio)? Do you have to have a USB stick plugged into it all the time? Or does it have any other storage capability?

SCB

Yes- there's a USB behind the screen and two more in the console, plus you can stream from your phone or any Bluetooth device. If they never had the SD card option, I don't think anybody would miss it.

Hoonose

A cheap and easy USB thumb drive does MP3's out the yin-yang. It has to be in to play, but they are very small in physical size. These days I mostly do Pandora on my cellphone via Bluetooth to the cars radio. It is now all automatic and comes on without any input from me.

Boiler_81

There is no real need for the SD card for audio, the USB ports work just fine. I recommend a low profile USB drive.

It's my belief GM eliminated the SD for music because people were confusing the music slot for the PDR slot and vice versa. There are several threads on the forum related to this confusion.

Cur

I have a 256Gb card, 6400+ minutes of recording available!

firemon

Well done and thank you

defaria

Why would you want to use Pandora and be subjected to the constant commercials?

SCB

You can get the commercial-free version of Pandora for $4.99/mo.

Hoonose

And the fidelity can be awesome if set up correctly.

05XLRtoC7_San Diego

WOW! That is a huge SD card.
Which program did you use to format it? Which brand SD card are you using?
Does it take a while to index it every time you turn on the car?

My 32Gb SD card is pretty slow to load (~20-30 seconds), but much, much faster than my 80Gb iPod classic (a few minutes).

xwing

I can't understand why anyone would pay a monthly fee for music. Not to mention the annoyance of having your cell phone suck down battery power and having to set it up every time you drive.

I understand that USB is an option. But it seems such a kludge to have to connect a USB stick 24x7 in order to listen to music. It certainly doesn't seem very "professional", but I guess it's the only option.

Woodson

A USB stick is dirt cheap and you just plug it in and forget it. I'm not understanding the problem.

Hoonose

This past year I gave up listening to my 20 year music collection/Android, as well as Sirius/XM in favor of Pandora. I had free Pandora for about a year, I now subscribe. The fidelity is much better than the others. With my Android, the car automatically starts Pandora without any input on my part. We have Pandora on the PC, on the Sony DVD/TV in the main part of the house. My wife and kids all share the account, they use iPhones.

I copied all my Android music to a cheap USB, as simple as that is I never use it.