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UCONNECT 3 - Possible to Play FLAC audio files?

kaz

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Hello -- I have a JLU with the factory UCONNECT 3, with 5-inch display. I also have an entire music library at home, where all the electronic files are in FLAC format.

Does anyone know if it's possible to play FLAC files on UCONNECT 3? Perhaps using an external devise of some sort?

Any ideas on how to go about this, or if it's even possible, would be greatly appreciated!

-Kyle
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JL MADDOG

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Well the manual for your unit doesn't say if it will or won't and neither did mine. So I formatted a USB drive in FAT32, loaded it up with FLAC files and it plays them just fine. One thing I've learned with UConnect is that it works better with individual digital files vs. folders with files in them.

Just a caveat...mine is an 8.4 and it is a couple of years newer. The 8.4N in my 2017 Ram would not play FLAC.

I'd say get out a USB drive, load up some FLAC and give it a try. Good luck!
 
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kaz

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Well the manual for your unit doesn't say if it will or won't and neither did mine. So I formatted a USB drive in FAT32, loaded it up with FLAC files and it plays them just fine. One thing I've learned with UConnect is that it works better with individual digital files vs. folders with files in them.

Just a caveat...mine is an 8.4 and it is a couple of years newer. The 8.4N in my 2017 Ram would not play FLAC.

I'd say get out a USB drive, load up some FLAC and give it a try. Good luck!
Thanks for the suggestion, @JL MADDOG! I gave it a try, and to my surprise it worked without a problem.

Like you suggested, I formatted two different USB drives in FAT32 format. For one, I just copied some FLAC files directly onto the drive. For the second, I first created a directory with the album name and put the FLAC files in the directory. In both cases UCONNECT found the files, and played them without a problem.

I also tried connecting an external hard drive that's formatted in NTFS. My music is located on the drive with the following structure:

> Parent Directory [Music]
>> Sub Directory [Artist Name]
>>> Sub Sub Directory [Album Name -- FLAC FILES are here]

UCONNECT 3 couldn't find the music on this drive; nor did it identify the directory names using the interface.

I'll keep toying around with the directory structure to figure out what level of detail UCONNECT 3 can interpret. I'll also experiment with FAT32 vs NTFS formatted drives, and report back with what I learn.

I'm totally excited to know that this is possible. Thanks!
 

JL MADDOG

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You might not be able to configure the thumb drive with too many directory levels.

Early versions of UConnect would only give you two levels, i.e., Album > Track. That is what I experienced Ram pickup. Oh, and you could only use mp3 formatted files and there was a data limit of 64GB.

Moving on to my 2017 I found I could have 3 levels:

Genre 1 > Album Name or Artists Name > Track Name

Genre 2 > Album Name or Artists Name > Track Name

Genre 3 > Album Name or Artists Name > Track Name

Data space on the thumbdrive increased to 128GB. However, it was still limited to mp3 formatted files.

I also noted that as more levels were introduduced, search times increased and I would get dropouts or partial playback.

So my solution to that was to not add directories, sub-directories or multiple directory levels. Once I started loading individual files to the thumb drive with no directory structure included playback performance improved dramatically.

Now I just leave the sort and find features alone, set the playback to Random and go on my merry way.
 
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Did you really notice a difference in the quality of playback? How would you compare the quality of FLAC to something like a CD or mp3/wav file?
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