HI Mike

On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:39:27 +0100, Mike Barnes
wrote:

In uk.d-i-y, Mathew Newton wrote:
On Jun 14, 7:51 pm, Mathew Newton wrote:
On Jun 13, 5:28 pm, Adrian wrote:

So can an mp3 file have 'tracks' within it ?

No.

Actually, perhaps I should've been a bit clearer here. An MP3 file
could have multiple 'songs' in it but there'd be no 'digital
divider' (for want of a better phrase) to identify them as individual
tracks - each would just flow one to another (with possibly some
silence between them depending on the source).

No doubt someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there
are digital dividers on CDs either. There's some sort of digital index,
presumably at the start of the CD, which indicates to the player how far
in each "track" starts, and that's it AFAIK - nothing "between" the
tracks because there is no "between". The silence that you usually
(don't) hear is actually part of each "track".

You're actually right here -
I only know about the cd thing because I biult a piece of kit to an
Elektor design that played the tracks on a cd one at a time - and
waited for a trigger befreo playing the next one...

(application was to play hymns one-at-a-time in a Church - but
that's not important right now)

The TOC (= table of contents) on a CD gives the information about
'start' and 'end' for each of the tracks on the CD.... but the data
recorded on the CD is actually just that.... data....

'Quiet bits' as in the grooves between tracks on an LP are just 'bits
of silence' encoded into the CD....

It seems that this TOC is what's missing from mp3 'album' files...
unless I've misunderstood it again.... ?

Found a Creative Zen V today in the local town - and had great fun
filling it up with music from various sources. Just need to place the
order with Maplin for a couple of modular amplifiers and then we can
play music in the car again ... great !
Apparently it'll also tuen analogue music into mp3 - haven't had the
chance to test this yet....

This'll do until we get a 'proper' mp3/cd/usb/sd 'head' sorted for the
car.....

Does anybody know if this unit can _play_ mp3 while it's charging from
a USB conection. Doesn't seem to work at the moment - but maybe that's
because it's a real usb connection from a PC - rather than one that
just supplies charging volts ?

Thanks
Adrian