Thread: RCD510 SD Card

When I got my car I tried using a 2GB card from the Mrs camera. I since purchased an 8gb card from ebay and have found it to work quite well. I did intend on buying the large cards, but 8gb of mp3 music is a fair bit so opted for this size. I find it 'fast enough' to search through but I haven't used the random function so cant comment on that.

Originally Posted by Ooj

I have since found out after taking the car in to the dealers and talking the VW Australia that there was an error in the printed specification and that it only supports cards up to 2GB and there are no firmware upgrades to address this problem. I was looking to see if anyone else has encountered this situation and what can be done about it?

I am pretty sure that the newest RCD510 fully supports up to 32GB SD cards. I myself have an 8GB card and it works fine with a recent RCD510. Older versions were apparently limited to 2GB. See here for more info.

Originally Posted by Ooj

Anyways to cut a long story short, it turns out that the 32GB SDHC card does work and takes few minutes to load every time (these are also the fastest cards you can get). Scrolling through the song titles is very slow as well.

I have one of the fastest SD cards and don't find speed much of an issue. My music is organised in folders with the artist then album name, but I also have a general folder containing several hundred MP3s and find that it takes the unit a little longer (perhaps 10 seconds) to start playing this folder.

Originally Posted by Ooj

The worst part is that the "random" play function does not work very well. It tends to play "randomly" within a few letters before and after the artist title and if there is a large number of songs by the artist, it just gets stuck playing randomly of that artist only.

I tried the Mix function today in my general folder and found that it would "randomly" skip a chunk of songs, but not properly select from any song in the entire folder. This is a disappointment for me also. I can only guess that the feature was designed to be used with a single album rather than hundreds of songs at once.

Originally Posted by Ooj

Anyways to cut a long story short, it turns out that the 32GB SDHC card does work and takes few minutes to load every time (these are also the fastest cards you can get). Scrolling through the song titles is very slow as well. The worst part is that the "random" play function does not work very well. It tends to play "randomly" within a few letters before and after the artist title and if there is a large number of songs by the artist, it just gets stuck playing randomly of that artist only.

I have since found out after taking the car in to the dealers and talking the VW Australia that there was an error in the printed specification and that it only supports cards up to 2GB and there are no firmware upgrades to address this problem. I was looking to see if anyone else has encountered this situation and what can be done about it?

There's nothing wrong with the unit, they support 32GB and the problem is the way you've loaded your music. There are limitations on how many songs you should have in a folder and how many folders you should have and so on. If the naming convention is all over the place you will have problems as well.

Found the following which might be helpful. Describes how to get the Mix function working on your entire library when you have all your music in folders. I also got the impression it might provide a more random selection process.

Originally Posted by vwaudiforum.co.uk

The mix function will only look down a directory structure and not above. You must have something to play as a starting point so, if you put a single MP3 at the top level where you store all your artists folders (which in turn will contain albums and then tracks a further level down) then it works.
Start by selecting the top level track (better make it a favourite ) and hit the mix button and it'll shuffle everything below (assuming you've enable the shuffle sub directories option in the set up obviously)

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I will try changing the directory structure and see how it goes in terms of the "mix" function and speed.

As for the compatibility with larger cards, I intend to get the official stance. VW Australia and 2 dealers have all said that 2GB was the limit for my particular batch of RCD510 and it was definitely an error from the VW specifications. If it was an error then I intend to be compensated in some way and be given an official explanation in writing. I think my unit might be older because the build date of the car was June 09, so seeing as I got it in December, must have been one of the last cars in the initial shipments that came to Australia.

Originally Posted by Ooj

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I will try changing the directory structure and see how it goes in terms of the "mix" function and speed.

As for the compatibility with larger cards, I intend to get the official stance. VW Australia and 2 dealers have all said that 2GB was the limit for my particular batch of RCD510 and it was definitely an error from the VW specifications. If it was an error then I intend to be compensated in some way and be given an official explanation in writing.

Good luck with that, a 32gb SDHC card works in the unit and demanding compensation and an official explanation because you were told it can only handle 2gb is well over the top and unnecessary.

All RCD 510 head units can use 32gb SDHC cards, it was designed and manufactured with this feature.

Originally Posted by Ooj

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I will try changing the directory structure and see how it goes in terms of the "mix" function and speed.

In terms of memory size, I think you've said yourself that a 32GB card works. If you make sure you have a fast SDHC card (e.g. a class 6 or 10 Sandisk card) and have a good folder structure, I think you'll find the load times acceptable. That means the sole problem is with the mix function.

I created a blank music file and put it in the root folder of the SDHC card and found it allowed me to "mix" all of my music, but it still didn't choose music at random. It methodically skips forward a chunk at a time, but at no point does it choose a song far ahead of the current song, nor does it choose a song earlier in the folder structure. Also, using the < button seems to move to the previous song in the structure (not the previous song actually played).

I've read of some others having the same issue on other forums, but haven't found a solution. I wonder how to get a definite answer on this...?

Originally Posted by Ooj

As for the compatibility with larger cards, I intend to get the official stance. VW Australia and 2 dealers have all said that 2GB was the limit for my particular batch of RCD510 and it was definitely an error from the VW specifications.

2GB is the maximum official capacity of SD cards. If you asked about SD cards then that answer is 100% correct.
32GB is the maximum official capacity of SDHC cards. If the device (in this case the RCD510) supports SDHC then it supports SD cards up to 2GB AND SDHC cards up to 32GB.
Pedantic I know but SD and SDHC are different and you need to be clear on what you are talking about and also understand exactly what the other person in the conversation is saying.

Now back to topic. If the RCD510 is the same as the unit called the Bolero in Skodas then it appears that the latest Skoda build cars in Europe have either an updated system or updated firmware that makes the SD/SDHC card start up time almost instant. I assume that this will flow to VW's if it hasn't already. I have checked with my Skoda dealer but they have had no information yest about any sort of a downloadable firmware update.