Okay, maybe I missed the explanation in the Sync book somewhere. How do you get it to just shuffle all songs? I can tell it "shuffle on", but it only shuffles within the context of the previous command. For instance, if you tell it to "play genre pop", and then "shuffle on", and you only have 3 pop songs, it will just shuffle those 3 songs once through...then even more annoying, it plays the last song over and over and over and over and over...hit the advance track button and it plays the same song again. Tell it "repeat on" (presumably to make it repeat the currently active group of songs), and it doesn't seem to change anything. I keep having to remember artist names to get it to play different stuff.

Here is what I expect: you tell it to play something -- an artist, genre, whatever -- and that makes that group of songs the active group. Shuffle on should make it randomly traverse through those songs, without replaying any, until there are no songs left. If it runs out of songs, it stops playing. Repeat on should make it wrap back around and begin again, rather than just stopping playback after the list is exhausted. This is how all previous players I have dealt with have behaved. This is not what Sync is doing.

So I guess I have two issues. One, how to I make ALL songs the active group. Not something I've ever had to do with past music players. And two, is there a way to make it stop playing when it runs out of songs, or at least make it start over, rather than playing the last song in the group repeatedly over and over forever and ever?

 

with or without the elec pack.

I know how with the elec pack

 

Try "Play All".

 

Without.

 

Hm...will try that. The digital lady should give that info when I ask what my options are, but she doesn't. Thank you.

 

REPEAT will continue playing the same songs, if there is only three, will keep playing the three and it will not stop. I have never had it just play the last song repeatedly. Unless there is an update to SYNCH, I do not know of any other way to stop that.

But to shuffle all songs, PLAY ALL, SHUFFLE. if you do just a category or artist, then hit SHUFFLE, it will only go through those in that list.

 

Another Sync question. Took me some time to get the default "line in" to switch to "USB" to try the Itouch. Now I want to use the line in and I can't get the system to switch back. I keeps saying that the USB is in use...and its not.

 

Best thing to do when that happens. Hit the synch button and say LINE IN. I have found the similiar type of issue, it defaults to the last known AUX. Then hit synch button and say USB to switch it back.

 

FYI on the SYNCH USB.

Right now, it can only index 16GB of MP3s, it is not recommended to do more than that, and stated either 10,000 files or 20,000, cant remember. I spoke to SYNCH about a month ago about this.


***** Just contacted Ford Synch***

(From CHAT SESSION)
you: USB indexing of music files, limited to 16GB?
Dan: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Dan: We have seen devices index up to 80GB of music.
you: ok. is there max number of files then?
you: or folders
Dan: There is not a maximum number of files or space necessarily, it is based upon the number of songs as well as the amount of characters within each of the song files.
you: Roger.

Ok, obviously two different stories here, trying to find my original chat with them. I know I tried indexing an 120GB at one point, and it takes a long long time, and did not index fully.

 

Here is my understanding of Sync's limit. Although some information has been published saying the limit depends on average file size and other stuff, I think that is an error. To the best of my knowledge, here is the deal.

Sync has a limit of 15,000 "grammar articles". A grammar article is a song title, an artist name, an album name, and a genre name. So let's say you have one album with 12 tracks. It takes one GA for the album title, one for the artist, one for the genre, and one for each track. 1+1+1+12 = 15 GA's. Now you add a second album by the same artist and it's the same genre and it also has 12 tracks. For that one, it would need one GA for each track title and one for the album title, but it's already got the artist name and genre in it's database. 1+12=13 GA's.

The bigger your collection is, the more likely that there will be some duplicate album titles from different artists (like Greatest Hits) and the more likely that you will have multiple tracks with the same name, although not tons. Anyway, all this variability makes it hard to say just how many tracks Sync will support. It's going to depend on the content of your library. If you've got a ton of one-hit wonders, that's going to eat up more GA's than the same number of songs all by the same artist. The library on my computer has 6147 tracks and has 2789 genres, albums, and artists, although I suspect some of those album titles are duplicates. Even if we assume none of them have duplicate names and none of the track titles have duplicate name -- a false assumption -- that's 8936 grammar articles. In truth, it probably would only take maybe 8800 GA's. Based on a mix like mine, Sync would probably be able to handle about 10,000 tracks.

What happens if you've got 11,000 tracks? My understanding is that after Sync has used up all it's GA's, you can still call up your other music, but not by track name. So you could still hear all your Willie Nelson songs by saying "Play Artist Willie Nelson" but you wouldn't be able to say "Play Track Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" if that song was added after the GA limit has been reached. You'd be able to hear that song because Sync already had Willie Nelson in it's database but there wouldn't be room to store it's track title, so you can't call the individual song by name.

 

Can you switch to radio from Sync, or do you have to press the button?

 

Which button?

Just say "Radio".

 

Only if you have the Electronics Package. I had assumed you could do it with voice control with the Shaker 500, also, but you cannot. With EP, you can use commands like "Radio AM 790" to switch stations. No luck for the EP-less, though. In my view, they should have also made it so you could assign nicknames for the radio stations and call them by nickname.

 

Do you have to push a button to go to voice mode (like you do without the electronics package)? If so, and 'cool factor' aside, why not just push the radio channel button to begin with?

 

Yes, any time you are going to issue a vocal command you must first press the button to tell the computer to listen. As you suggest, voice commands for simple things like switching from USB to radio don't save that much button pushing. With the EP, you can even use voice commands for the climate control, although I don't really see the point of pressing a button, saying "Climate", pressing the button again and saying "Defrost", when you could simply have hit the defrost button.

 

I can't wait till they make it like Startrek! Instead of pushing the sync button I just want to say "Mustang, Play track American Badass"

 

I want to be able to say "Tea, Earl Gray, Hot" and have a cup of it materialize in the cup holder. Only then will I say it is truly like Star Trek.

 

Go one Lancel.............make it so!

 

I think i'm in love with my Sync lady. Sometimes i push the button just to hear her voice.

 

Unplug the USB cable. "Line In" only works when the USB port is not occupied. Remember no vehicle control for your device with Line In and CDs.