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More => Old Versions => Media Center 12 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: uniqbtrfly on July 10, 2007, 12:28:45 am

Title: Importing m3u playlist saved to a flash drive
Post by: uniqbtrfly on July 10, 2007, 12:28:45 am

Sorry if this is repeated, but could not find info on searching.

I saved serveral playlists from my desktop in m3u format to a flash drive. I want to import them to my laptop. Am not being very successful. It tells me 0 files were imported. Why is this so difficult, do I need to have special settings in my options to do this?

Thanks

Title: Re: Importing m3u playlist saved to a flash drive
Post by: 221bBS on July 10, 2007, 10:50:34 am

From what I know m3u just links to your music files. If you transfer the playlist to your laptop no files will be imported or be played unless you import the music files into your laptop and have the same directory structure.

Title: Re: Importing m3u playlist saved to a flash drive
Post by: thorathome on July 17, 2007, 02:54:53 pm

I have a bunch of M3U playlists I would like to import into MC.  The music files the M3U playlists refer to are already available in the MC library. 
Can MC import those M3U playlist files and turn them into MC playlists?

Thanks.

Title: Re: Importing m3u playlist saved to a flash drive
Post by: thorathome on July 18, 2007, 06:20:31 am

OK, I just figured this out. 

The M3U playlists are simply text files - ordered lists of complete directory/filenames to play.  Read and edit them with Notepad.  (Start->Run->notepad)

The music files referenced in an M3U playlist have to be in the directories specified in the M3U playlist.  So Step One is to make sure that's true.  If not, move the music (MP3) files to the directories the M3U files say they're in.  That may mean copying music files from your flash drive to the proper hard drive locations or editing the M3U playlist file (using notepad) to reflect the current locations of the music files.  If the music is on your flash drive, edit the M3U file with the right drive\directory info for your flash drive. 

Step Two is setting up Windows to recognize the M3U playlists and play them using MC.  While in MC, click to Tools->Options->File Associations.  Then check the Playlists/Audio Playlists checkbox.  This tells Windows to open MC when you click on a M3U playlist file.  (You may have to close MC and reboot after changing this setting.)  Now that Windows knows what to do, simply 'open' the M3U file (double-click) and it will start up MC and put the listed music files into Playing Now.  You can now save that playlist in MC normally.

Hope this is helpful.