Hi Guys,

I have a 2014 A5 Black Edition with the MMI (HDD) system and I've been going crazy trying to figure out how to play video without playing from DVD.

I'm not sure if there has been any previous guides on how to play video content from an SD card but after researching and a lot of :wall: I've managed to get this working and learnt a few things along the way!

As far as I'm aware the car will only read SD cards up to 32gb, this need to be FAT32 formatted as well. For the car to play video from the SD card all video content needs to be formatted in a certain way.

Video settings:

Frame size: 720 x 480
Video codec: MPEG4
Frame rate: 30fps

Audio settings:

Audio codec: MP3
Sample rate: 48000Hz
Bit rate: 320 Kbps

I've found a free application called Free Make Video converter that seems to work pretty well. This application is also capable of downloading and then converting videos to your chosen format.

To convert a video using Free Make Video converter you need to follow these steps.

1. Click video to upload
2. Click convert to AVI
3. Click add your preset
4. Create a preset with the above settings (this will save for quick use in the future.)
5. Choose save location and click convert
6. Enjoy

Hopefully this helps, I've been looking for info on this for ages and couldn't find anything that was step by step.

Excellent step by step, will give it a go.Thanks

 

Hi

I tried this in my 2011 SB with 3G and it didn't see any playable media. The SD card is formatted fat32.

 

Hi

I tried this in my 2011 SB with 3G and it didn't see any playable media. The SD card is formatted fat32.

Don't have my vehicle yet to attempt this myself but perhaps try shortening file names and excluding special characters? Are you trying this with the vehicle parked or in motion?

Did this require VAG-COM tweaks to get it working? I would playing video going down the road would require the same or similar modifications to playing DVDs in motion.

Some general notes;

FAT32 format will limit the single file size to 4GB but your video would have to be quite long to hit that mark with those settings.

There several version of SD cards (SD, SDHC, and SDXC), several bus types (standard, UHS I, and UHS II), and several speed classes (2, 4, 6, and 10) which, depending on the system they are used on, may or may not be compatible for all uses.

Audi sells SD cards: Audi SD card

https://shops.audi.com/en_GB/web/zubehoer/p/audi-sd-card-8-gb-8r0063827f-10

From the description this is an 8GB SDHC, the photo on the Amazon listing shows that it is a Class 6 card, and Audi lists the following A5/S5 models as being supported:

• A5 Cabriolet 2010-2011
• A5 Cabriolet 2012
• A5 Coupé 2008-2011
• A5 Coupé 2012
• A5 Sportback 2010-2011
• A5 Sportback 2012
• S5 Cabriolet 2010-2011
• S5 Cabriolet 2012
• S5 Coupé 2008-2011
• S5 Coupé 2012
• S5 Sportback 2010-2012
• S5 Sportback 2012
• RS 5 Cabriolet 2013
• RS 5 Coupé 2010-2012
• RS 5 Coupé 2013

All that being said I would buy an 8GB Class 6 SDHC card for the best chances of having it work. Larger-sized cards should would as well but SDHC only goes up to 32GB so larger cards will be SDXC type which may not work. The faster Class 10 cards should work as well but I can't tell without testing.

 

Will this work on an A5 that doesn't have Nav or DVD player?

 

my manual says:
Filesystem: FAT resp. FAT32, single partition.
Memory-cardreader: Memory-cards with a capacity of max. 32 GB

 

Hi. I have tried the following
short file names
Smaller SD card
The car is stationary (VIM is enabled too)
MP3 files on the same card ARE recognised and playable.

Still no joy. Any ideas? I have access to the hidden many if that helps.

 

Hi. I have tried the following
short file names
Smaller SD card
The car is stationary (VIM is enabled too)
MP3 files on the same card ARE recognised and playable.

Still no joy. Any ideas? I have access to the hidden many if that helps.

Done some more digging. According to other forums the MMI 3G systems will not support video playback from SD cards, only DVDs. MMI 3G+ systems will play videos from SD cards as well as DVDs. The switch to 3G+ systems came with the 2012 facelift and possibly includes vehicles during some 2011 build-weeks.

The lack of video codecs is supposedly what prevents playback; many users have be able to "play" videos from SD cards but are only able to hear the audio with a black screen. The fact that the system will attempt to play the file makes me think that there's a chance that by mimicking DVD-Video formatting (resolution, framerate, codec, bitrate, and color profiles) one may actually get something to work. The guide in this thread suggests MPEG-4 but DVD uses MPEG-1 or MPEG-2. Try cloning the settings for DVD-Video/Audio data from wikipedia and tell us if you have any luck.

DVD-Video

I will be working on this myself as I have the MMI 3G system in my car that I will pick up next Thursday. I'm not giving up, I've seen videos played on a 1st generation iPod.

 

I've got a few music videos borrowed from YouTube which are on my 500gb HDD plugged into the AMI. These play perfectly. Video in motion also unlocked, though I don't watch when driving!

TP

 

So we can hook up our external HDD to Audi ?
How ?
I have HD Sat Nav, 2 SD card slot.
Have 2 cables which came with the car.
One is to connect iphone. And other seems like USB cable.

So I can use that cable to connect my external HDD ? And get all music, video there.

Also can i download music videos off YouTube and convert them using mentioned converted and put on external HDD. Will it play ?

 

Cheers Batman, I'll give that a go this weekend.

Paul, do you have a 3G+ ? If not what's the setup to get it working?

 

I've got the HDD+ nav (2014 spec) which I think is the 3G one.
TP

 

You can distinguish 3G from 2G by the presence of the joystick on top of the command dial for 3G.

 

Thanks a lot.
Will try this over the weekend.

 

Just to update anyone still looking.

I'm beginning to concede that video from and SD card is a 3G+ and up only feature. I got a lot of the "no playable tracks found" message but one time I did manage to get my files to crash to MMI system. I saw in some other threads where people were able to get audio from a video file but only a black screen, if anyone has been able to produce that result I would still be interested in the settings they used.

I was, of course able to play DVDs. If anyone wants to go that route I highly recommend "DVD Shrink" for quickly and easily putting a bunch of videos on a DVD.

 

I've got a 500gb USB 3 portable HDD which I plug into the AMi socket with the USB cable. The HDD is formatted in Fat32, (I think I used a free 3rd party utility I downloaded, there a loads which will work). Sorted all my music into folders - Audio, music videos, films etc.
the music videos I got by using keepvid you just put the urn of the video in and it gives you an option to download it. Copy to HDD and plug into the car. I've not had any that played yet.

TP

 

mate are you saying you dont need to change the resolution etc as mentioned in the OP or do you do that once you have ripped the videos from Youtube?

I tried to play .avi .mp4 and .mp2 and the only ones that play are videos encoded with mpeg2 (and they need to be 720x480)

Mines is a 2011 (late year) A7 with 3G+ (seems like i squeezed in on the ability to play from SD).

I am just away to buy a AMI cable so that i can play videos from an external HDD like you do.

Cheers

Martyn

 

Example of SD card NOT working in RS5 2011

I have a 16gb old SD card I've been using succesfully to hold MP3s in my RS5.

Recently I decided to upgrade and bought the following:

Lexar Professional 64GB Class 10 UHS-II 1000x Speed (150MB/s) SDXC Flash Memory

This is proving unreadable by the MMI. (I havn't checked if FAT32 but assume so).

I'm not sure if this is due to the size exceeding 32gig or the SDXC version.

Just putting this out there in case of help.

I will buy a 32gb non SDXC and see if that works better..

Regards
Will

 

I have a 16gb old SD card I've been using succesfully to hold MP3s in my RS5.

Recently I decided to upgrade and bought the following:

Lexar Professional 64GB Class 10 UHS-II 1000x Speed (150MB/s) SDXC Flash Memory

This is proving unreadable by the MMI. (I havn't checked if FAT32 but assume so).

I'm not sure if this is due to the size exceeding 32gig or the SDXC version.

Just putting this out there in case of help.

I will buy a 32gb non SDXC and see if that works better..

Regards
Will

You could try to format the card with a smaller 32gb partition with fat32. It would be a waste of such a 64gb fast card though.

 

With EaseUS Partition Master, you can format a HDD, or SD card of any size Fat32. It's free too. I have a 1TB HDD in my 2011 A8 and it works great.

 

I found this which supposedly shows what encoding works on the 3GP.

 

i have only been able to get it to work with mpeg2 up to now, will try another of the listed formats today.

can you post a link to that original document mate

thanks

EDIT**

Got it working with MP4 coded with x264 at 30FPS. Big difference in file sizes too (smaller) than when i was doing it with Mpeg2.

Just hope now it all works from the HDD via AMI cable

 

further update on this

I use "Iskysoft" video converter at home to encode some films using mp4 and h264 but it didnt work, I then used "Any Video Converter Professional" to convert the same file and that worked

When i compared the details of the file converted using "Iskysoft" to the file i converted using "Any Video Converter Professional" here is the 2 media info details (both were converted using h264 and mp4.

as you can see "iskysoft" uses different settings (ones which are not configurable using the program).

Bottom line is i now use "Any Video Converter Professional" and it creates the files which are playable.

hope this helps someone else

 

Hi,

I have just followed your guide and used the same software.

When i convert the video to that format, it does not show any video only play the audio?

any ideas on how to get further?

Best Regards..

Sorry for my perfect english im from Denmark.

 

I'm triyng to use SDXC 128GB with FAT32 on my MMI 3G basic, anyone can help me?

 

hi i converted some video files for my audi a6 2013 mmi3g+ and did like this tread says and i still have black bands on top and bottom and i tried multiple resolutions and its all the same

can someone help pls

 

Hi Guys,

I have a 2014 A5 Black Edition with the MMI (HDD) system and I've been going crazy trying to figure out how to play video without playing from DVD.

I'm not sure if there has been any previous guides on how to play video content from an SD card but after researching and a lot of :wall: I've managed to get this working and learnt a few things along the way!

As far as I'm aware the car will only read SD cards up to 32gb, this need to be FAT32 formatted as well. For the car to play video from the SD card all video content needs to be formatted in a certain way.

Video settings:



Frame size: 720 x 480
Video codec: MPEG4
Frame rate: 30fps

Audio settings:

Audio codec: MP3
Sample rate: 48000Hz
Bit rate: 320 Kbps

I've found a free application called Free Make Video converter that seems to work pretty well. This application is also capable of downloading and then converting videos to your chosen format.

To convert a video using Free Make Video converter you need to follow these steps.

1. Click video to upload
2. Click convert to AVI
3. Click add your preset
4. Create a preset with the above settings (this will save for quick use in the future.)
5. Choose save location and click convert
6. Enjoy

Hopefully this helps, I've been looking for info on this for ages and couldn't find anything that was step by step.

Hi Reni00,

Thanks for the guide. It is working! But quality is awfull

Did you tried other quality settings?

 

Did you get a full screen image with 720*480 movies?
I am asking because I tried many 720*576 movies and they do not fully fit to the MMI display.
I am going to try 800*480 as this is the MMI factory display resolution, maybe we succeed to get a full screen.

 

100% working AUDI MMI+ Video conversion - Best Quality

For 100% working AUDI MMI+ Video conversion - Best Quality - download this 2 programs from following post.

 

100% working AUDI MMI+ Video conversion - Best Quality

h ttp s:/ /drive.google.com/drive/folders/181HWz5S6eLm2_4GgOvtJS8T7YeHD8rUt?usp=sharing
<<remove spaces from the link>>

1. Install YouTube Playlist Downloader and download entire Playlists of VideoClips
2. Install THIS version of Handbrake and convert using UNIVERSAL setting from right side of the program window (Presets - Universal)

Thats it! So simple as that Drive carefully!

 

I kind of gave it up as it takes too much time finding and converting the videos and then some of them dont even work.

 

It won't take too long time. You need an audio-video converter (I am using Any Video Converter, for example) then, copy/paste the link of desired YouTube Video, choose your settings then press convert.
Conversion of a 4-5 min. long Youtube video will take less than 30 sec, you can paste into the program plenty of links, make your settings once, then convert.
The settings I use for conversion are:

#video size: 720x432
#quality : normal
#video codec: mpeg4
#video bitrate: 1250
#frame rate: 25
#audio codec: mp3
#audio bitrate: 256
#sample rate: 48000

Never fails if you do like this, all my video works 100%

 

I am using program iWisoft Free Video Converter setings for my Audi A6 2014 MMI 3G+

Codec: MPEG-2
Size: 720x404
Rate: 25fps
Bitrate: 1500kbps
Ratio:auto (16:9 or 4:3)

Audi Codec: AC-3 Audio
Bitrate: 128kbps
Chanel: 2 Chanel Stereo
Sample: 44100hz

 

Hey, any idea if i can do something to make it working on my mmi 3g low? I've tryed from sd card in many video types but is not working.

 

From what I've read here and on other forums I don't think it works on the 3G low variant. Hope I'm wrong and you find something or figure it out. Best of luck

how to play video from my 32gb sd card on my audi q7.i already format it and set video motion on,but it only play tracks video not showing

The first few posts give great info. I just successfully converted a video using the free version of "Any Video Converter". I found the "Customized MP4 Movie (*.mp4)" option, then tweaked it as follows:

Basic Settings: video size = 720x480

Video Settings: Video codec = mpeg4
Frame Rate = 25

Everything else I left it at the default settings and converted. It played perfectly while sitting in the garage. VIM will be a matter of settings for that feature but that has nothing to do with the file formatting. Hope this helps.