m3u To pla/plp Converter - Free to All

[TBAFROMCA]

I was frustrated, like all of you, in trying to create Playlists on my Sansa e270...but I have a cool lead software developer to assist me in times of trouble.

Here is rev. 1 of m3u2pla.exe

My configuration:

• Sansa e270 in MSC mode (should work in MTS also)
• Use MediaMonkey to create .m3u playlists and move files to the e270 (or use any other program you wish)
• Run m3u2pla.exe - it is a .NET program so it must be installed - only 37K program
• Drag-and-Drop a m3u file to instantly convert to a compatible pla (you can manually rename to plp if you want)
• Browse to a subdirectory and it will convert all m3u's at once > click "Convert"
• Copy the .pla to your e200 "Playlists" subdirectory or if the m3u files are already in the directory - no more actions are required
• Right mouse click in the application window and you can clear the screen or save the log to a text file.

Note - when in "Browse Mode" the m3u files are not listed - just click the "Convert" button and it will run and display the results.

Program works instantly. Please post any suggestions and maybe when can implement.


Help Notes from the application:

This program will a convert .m3u file(s) to .pla file(s)
The original .m3u file is left in place.

The way to do multiple playlists is to browse to a folder that has .m3u files, then press "Convert".

You may also convert .m3u files by doing a drag-n-drop from Windows Explorer to this display area.

Note: Whenever a .pla file is created, any existing .pla file will be overwritten without notice.

The assumption is that you made the .m3u files using your device drive and the mp3 files are in the correct folders. The program will strip any drive references and format correctly. It is also e200 centric because it sets the path to HARP, MUSIC\ instead of HDD, SYSTEM\MUSIC. Future releases may include a config file so you can set this value and use with any MP3 player that supports pla/plp playlists.



Enjoy!!!

Tim

Quote

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
Will Rogers
________________________________________________

Updated version of the program 07.06.06 - Release Notes:

20060706 1.0.2378

Cool new icon- Shepard Fairey "Obey" Icon

Dialog is now non-resizeable (shouldn't have been)

Hid "leading slash" checkbox (default was fine).

Save last browsed location as starting point rather than "my music".


________________________________________________

Updated version of the program 09.21.06 - Release Notes:
20060921 1.0.2455

Removes leading drive letter if present. Apparently MediaMonkey
does this for you. Other .m3u sources do not. Now either style
will get converted to a .pla OK.

[CrowdAds]

[TBAFROMCA]

I see people accessing the post but not leaving any replies. I am interested in your results using the application. Thanks.

[six41]

if only we could make playlists work with MTP mode. thx for the effort. sorry that things are so quiet here.

[TBAFROMCA]

I can switch the USB mode on my e270 to either MTS or MSC and the Playlists display and work fine. I just tend to use MSC because the files transfer much faster from my PC.

[six41]

huh, perhaps i have done something wrong since i have not spent a lot of time on this issue. when i tried to drop a playlist output from your app onto the player in MTP mode it claimed that it was an invalid file type.

[13on]

After moving the converted playlists to my player I cannot see them. They do show up in windows explorer when I browse to the player but only the Go List shows up in the playlist folder on the player when not connected to my computer. I have tried MTS and MSC modes with no luck. What am I missing?

[Todd M]

Originally Posted by six41

huh, perhaps i have done something wrong since i have not spent a lot of time on this issue. when i tried to drop a playlist output from your app onto the player in MTP mode it claimed that it was an invalid file type.

I have the exact same problem. I use MTP mode exclusively and it states it's an invalid filetype (.m3u, .pla, or .plp) and I can't even put it on the player. I can switch to MSC mode and I can then put it on the player, but then I have to wait an eternity while it 'Refreshes Database', and then I can see the playlist, but it is blank after it restarts, whether I keep it in MSC mode or go back to MTP.

I have seen posts where people say they drop-n-drag this onto the player via MM, but I have had no luck in doing so.

What is the workaround for this?

[jeepag]

TBAFROMCA,

This tool is great! It has some limitations, but nothing that I cannot handle. I messed around with my e260 for at least 6 hours trying to put a playlist on the device (MSC and MTP mode), only to find out that Sandisk does not support creating playlists in MSC mode via WMP 10. (and I have an old laptop that does not support MTP over the USB 1.1 interface)

STRONGLY RECOMMEND this tool to anyone that wants to use MSC mode on their Sansa. I figured out the method, and have a couple comments.

* It's not extremely user friendly (but that is not a big deal - read on)
* I had to mimic my file structure on my PC to align with the file structure on the e200. Essentially, I moved all my music from My Documents/My Music/.. to My Documents/My Music/MUSIC/.. This allowed WMP 10 to create the appropriate reference to the file, so that the the e200 would find the file. Otherwise, I got a lot of squares when I went to view the playlist, instead of the name of the song. I fixed this by saving all my files in My Documents/My Music/

I called Sandisk, and also got an unofficial method to create modified .m3u files that the e200 is supposed to support, but was unsuccessful. I will provide it to you all in hopes that someone can debug. I think there is an embedded special character that NOTEPAD cannot save..?

----
M3U support and MSC Mode: (Unofficial)
Make sure player is in MSC mode (Menu > Settings > USB > MSC).
Create/save an m3u playlist file from any application (winamp, media player, etc) Find file through My Computer, right-click the playlist and Open With > Choose Program > Notepad
The first line of the file should be #EXTM3U. You will also see 2 lines of text for each song in the playlist.
Leave the first line alone for each song. For the second line, you need to delete everything except for the filename (which is everything up to and including the last \ ).
Repeat that step for every each song listed. Save the file by going to File, Save. Copy-and-paste or click and drag the m3u file to the Removable Disk Copy all the songs to the Removable Disk by making a folder on the Removable Disk called "Music" and copy the songs into there
----

[mdnet]

Hi,

can someone give a reference of the format of pla/plp playlists?
I have problems finding one on the web.

Thanks,
mdnet

[edbro]

I can't get this to work. I can get the Sansa to see the playlist but it always shows as empty.

I have been creating the playlists in the directories on the player itself. Then I convert the m3u and copy the resulting pla to the Playlist directory. When I call up the playlist, it always shows empty. Why??

Below is an example of one of the m3u's. I can't paste the resulting pla because the null characters do not copy. Is there anything wrong with the m3u or my workflow?

H:\Audiobooks\Donald Westlake - Hot Rock\Hot Rock-6.mp3
H:\Audiobooks\Donald Westlake - Hot Rock\Hot Rock-7.mp3
H:\Audiobooks\Donald Westlake - Hot Rock\Hot Rock-8.mp3
H:\Audiobooks\Donald Westlake - Hot Rock\Hot Rock-9.mp3
H:\Audiobooks\Donald Westlake - Hot Rock\Hot Rock-10.mp3
H:\Audiobooks\Donald Westlake - Hot Rock\Hot Rock-11.mp3
H:\Audiobooks\Donald Westlake - Hot Rock\Hot Rock-12.mp3
H:\Audiobooks\Donald Westlake - Hot Rock\Hot Rock-13.mp3

[sillychilly]

I just got my e250, and I've been trying to make a playlist ever since. My playlists are built in winamp using my sansa as the source drive, and I've downloaded the converter and converted my .m3u playlists to .pla. When I try to access them on my player the playlists show, but are always empty. I've tried manually editing the playlist so the structure is like that of my 'Go List', but it still doesn't work. Can anyone here help? Am I missing a step? I have the latest firmware, too.

Here's a copy of my .pla playlist.

HARP, J:\MUSIC\Afro Celt Sound System\Volume 2 - Release\Afro Celt Sound System Feat Sinead O'connor - Release.mp3
HARP, J:\MUSIC\Alicia Keys\Songs In A Minor\Alicia Keys - Butterflyz.wma
HARP, J:\MUSIC\Alirio Diaz\Unknown Album\Alirio Diaz - Spanish Guitar.mp3
HARP, J:\MUSIC\Anita Kelsey\Unknown Album\Anita Kelsey - Sway.mp3
HARP, J:\MUSIC\Annie Lennox\Diva\Annie Lennox - Why.wma
HARP, J:\MUSIC\Annie Lennox\Nuevo ttulo (129)\Annie Lennox - Cold.mp3
HARP, J:\MUSIC\Boston Pops\Unknown Album\Somewhere In My Memory - Children's Choir.mp3

(tried deleting the 'J:\', but the playlist still shows as empty)

[sansa_user]

Originally Posted by TBAFROMCA

I see people accessing the post but not leaving any replies. I am interested in your results using the application. Thanks.

i was
I was wondering if this will work on Windows 98

[ACDSANSAe260]

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!!!!
I bought my e260 2 weeks ago when I finally decided to get a MP3 Player.....and decided that I was not going to get an ipod! I have been frustrated that I could not get my playlists to show up! I did a google search and came across this forum and decided to give it a shot..........vwala! It worked beautifully........I am now enjoying this thing like I thought I would.

Thank you!

[Dom]

I have quite a few audio tape-style comedy shows on my Sansa and was looking for a way to set the player to shuffle mode in a way that would only play the music. This little tool achieved that perfectly - thanks!

For anyone who wants to do similar, here's how I did it:

• Put the player in MSC mode and connect it to the PC.
• Open Winamp and select 'add directory' and select the Sansa /music directory.
• Delete all of the non-music files (Winamp's good for this as you can select multiple files easily & quickly).
• Save the playlist from Winamp to your e200's /playlists directory and convert the file with m3u2pla.exe.

Works a charm.

[MP3Neo]

Originally Posted by Dom

For anyone who wants to do similar, here's how I did it:

• Put the player in MSC mode and connect it to the PC.
• Open Winamp and select 'add directory' and select the Sansa /music directory.
• Delete all of the non-music files (Winamp's good for this as you can select multiple files easily & quickly).
• Save the playlist from Winamp to your e200's /playlists directory and convert the file with m3u2pla.exe.

Works a charm.

thank you very much! i spend a few hours trying to do multiple playlists (from multiple folders) with other programs but none worked well until i tried this way. i didn't know that i had to do the playlist conversion inside the sansa. i was trying to do it on windows explorer and then sending it to the sansa directory.
now i can finally enjoy my sansa, thanks!

[Zarjaz]

Spent hours trying to get playlists to work with my E270, and then stumbled across your great convertor program. Thanks for solving my problems!

If only Sandisk were interested enough in all the complaints about this issue. My wife has a Samsung player, which allows users to play all music within a single folder on its drive, and very easy creation of playlists on the fly, or from any decent app that has m3u formats.

[TBAFROMCA]

m3u2pla Release Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------20070107 1.0.2563

Added "New Playlist" button - this is intended for creating new
playlists directly on the player without using any other software.

Right now it just creates a playlist per folder, and optionally
copies the resulting playlist to the \PLAYLISTS folder.

A future version will allow file selection from multiple folders,
but for now this is good enough to let multiple people dump
some songs into their own folder, then easily create a playlist
for them.

[Olde Bill]

Originally Posted by ACDSANSAe260

... decided to give it a shot..........vwala! It worked beautifully.

I've been seeing a lot of variations on vwala, wah-la, etc. Is it that I'm a Canuck (English speaking, thank you very much ), or do people really not realize that the work comes from the french "voila", literally meaning "there is" but, in the sense used, more like "Ta da", "Presto", or "Ha!"

Thanks, I needed that mini-rant.

Salut,
Guillaume Ancien

[mark]

I just installed the program, but there's a glitch. It successfully converted a new m3u playlist file I created on musicmatch to a pla playlist file, which I then drag and dropped to my Iriver H10 M3 player (using the UMS trick to allow drag and drop). Well, the name of the playlist showed up on the H10 but the area for the song listings underneath was blank. I noticed that the songs themselves did transfer, as individual MP3's in the "All Music" file. But why didn't they transfer with the playlist to the "Playlists" file? Also, I noticed that while Windows Explorer identified the m3u as a "PLA file" after conversion, in the playlist file itself it was identified as a PLP file. Could that be a problem?

This conversion process is critical to me because I lost all of my playlist files when my Windows XP crashed a few weeks ago. Your program is much better than Easy H10, which does not convert my playlists to PLA (doesn't even recongize the m3u's). But while I was able to transfer back all the individual MP3 files from the H10 to my computer, the PLA files cannot be converted to m3u's (or can they somehow?), thus while I can transfer the PLA's back and forth, I cannot open them with anything but notepad. That means I would need to completely rebuilt all my playlists manually -- and we're talking over 800 mp3's here -- to be able to play them on my computer and to be able to modify the playlists. All I can do now is add individual mp3's to the H10, not add them to any existing playlists. Which really sucks.

If you could help, I'd be much appreciative.

Mark

[mark]

I went back to your original post and caught this:
>>It is also e200 centric because it sets the path to HARP, MUSIC\ instead of HDD, SYSTEM\MUSIC. Future releases may include a config file so you can set this value and use with any MP3 player that supports pla/plp playlists.>>

I'm sure that's the reason it didn't work on my IRiver. Didn't catch it the first time around. Will there be a new config file soon in a new release? All my playlist entries have the HDD, System/Music prefix.