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[BullishDad]

Recently, I purchased a car stereo that plays MP3 CDs.  I've been busy creating CDs from MC to play in the car.  With about 100 tracks on a CD, I've been trying to figure out how to best organize them.

My conclusion is that folders in the Artist/Album format work best.  I'd like to move to an album and play it in the original order of tracks.

I've run into some problems.  Even if the queue has everything in perfect album order, when I burn the CD, the tracks will be listed alphabetically within the album.  The workaround is to use the Track#/Name format, but this uses precious space on the display and makes it harder to view the name.

Is this an MC problem or a Windows problem?  

[LonWar]

Unfortunately the car radio does not read Playlists... that would be the only way, other then using #-Name...

[BullishDad]

Actually, my unit can read up to 5 Playlists, so I could use that function for album order. However,  I was hoping I could burn the disk so that the order would be the same as the burn queue.  I'm not sure why the tracks get alphabetized within the Album folder.

Maybe MC can have an option to leave the order non-alpha within the folder.

[GHammer]

It does.
Once you get to Burn CD choose Options.
CD/DVD File naming
Custom
Check the box Prefix the list order to the CD filename.

[jleerigby]

Your car radio reads the disk in a similar way to how a computer operating system would read it.  It's just a bunch of files on a data CD so it's listed in alphabetical order because there is no other means to determine the order of the tracks (unlike a conventional CD that has a table of contents).

As mentioned the only way to do it with an MP3 player is to prefix the filename with the list order, which MC can do automatically as GHammer quite rightly points out.  This is useful when burning a compilation of various tracks as you can drag them around to your preferred order.  When burning an album you may as well stick with the track#-name method, which is effectively doing the same thing (but is not dependant on you ordering stuff correctly on screen).

[BullishDad]

Thanks GHammer and JLee.

I've come to the conclusion that Track#-Name is the way I'll go for most of my disks.  On compilation disks, I may use the Prefix option under Custom.

I was hoping to avoid having the track# or prefix number displaying on the unit when viewing the filename.  At least now I know I wasn't doing anything wrong when the tracks were playing back in alpha-order.

[GHammer]

That's a function of the OS used by the player. Files can be written in any order. The display/list of files is usually alpha by the OS however.
The only way around that is to do as MC does and number them. Then the OS has to list and play them in your order.

[MGD_King]

BullishDad,

I do the same thing, give the file name the track number prefix. I also add the year to the folder name (album) so that my player plays the albums and tracks in the order that they were released. If not, they will play back alphebetically.

As far as the display is concerned, I'm just changing the file/folder names on the burns, not the ID3 tag info or the files locally on the machine. MC makes it so easy to do. Go to options when you burn a disc, and then click on the CD/DVD Filename and CD/DVD Folder name options. This is one of the coolest features that I love about MC.