m3u To pla/plp Converter - Free to All

[StretchArm]

Thanks, I'll try it tonight.

[CrowdAds]

[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.

[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?

[MusicOnly]

My converted playlists transferred to my e250 just fine (MSC), but my e250 thinks they're empty.

[StretchArm]

Hi, just got around to trying the new version. The only problem I can see is that you've missed this from the release notes.

"Still Works perfectly"

Thanks again.

[TBAFROMCA]

Originally Posted by StretchArm

Hi, just got around to trying the new version. The only problem I can see is that you've missed this from the release notes.

"Still Works perfectly"

Thanks again.

Jon, my lead software developer, has a funny sense of humor.

Also for the Media Monkey users - the easiest way to use is:

Right Click on Playlists > New Playlist > "Name" Playlist > Add Songs

Right Click on the Playlist "Name" > Select "Send To" > Select "Your Sensa"

This will transfer all the songs with appropriate subdirectory names to the Sensa under "Music" and the playlist as a m3u file to "Playlists"

Now run the program pointing to the Sensa "Playlists" subdirectory.

The reason people have blank playlists is they are running the program on their computer drive "Playlists" and copying to the Sensa. The subdirectory structure doesn't match - so nothing displays or plays.

The above method works "every time" in MSC mode.

[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

[SBMongoos]

Do I understand correctly?

1. Create a playlist in MM

1. Copy this MP3s selected to your Sansa (if they're not already loaded)

1. Export the playlist to an .M3u file

1. Use the converter to convert the .M3u to a .Pla

1. Copy the .Pla file to the Playlist directory on the Sansa

I tried this. I have a .pla named Workout. I see it listed under Playlists but no songs show up. I see the playlists already on the Sansa has an extension of .plp (Go List.plp) not .pla. I tried renaming the Workout.pla to Workout.plp but now the Sansa doesn't even display Workout. Odd, it did when it's extension was .pla.

[StretchArm]

Originally Posted by SBMongoos

Do I understand correctly?

1. Create a playlist in MM

1. Copy this MP3s selected to your Sansa (if they're not already loaded)

1. Export the playlist to an .M3u file

1. Use the converter to convert the .M3u to a .Pla

1. Copy the .Pla file to the Playlist directory on the Sansa

I tried this. I have a .pla named Workout. I see it listed under Playlists but no songs show up. I see the playlists already on the Sansa has an extension of .plp (Go List.plp) not .pla. I tried renaming the Workout.pla to Workout.plp but now the Sansa doesn't even display Workout. Odd, it did when it's extension was .pla.

I just use the sync feature of MM to sync my playlists. (I'm using MSC mode)
This transfers the tracks to the music folder and the m3u files to the playlist folder.
MM will can if required rename your tracks, and will update the playlists to the correct path.
I then convert the playlists on the player to PLA files. (e.g. O:\playlist)

[Todd M]

Originally Posted by SBMongoos

Do I understand correctly?

1. Create a playlist in MM

1. Copy this MP3s selected to your Sansa (if they're not already loaded)

1. Export the playlist to an .M3u file

1. Use the converter to convert the .M3u to a .Pla

1. Copy the .Pla file to the Playlist directory on the Sansa

I tried this. I have a .pla named Workout. I see it listed under Playlists but no songs show up. I see the playlists already on the Sansa has an extension of .plp (Go List.plp) not .pla. I tried renaming the Workout.pla to Workout.plp but now the Sansa doesn't even display Workout. Odd, it did when it's extension was .pla.

This is the EXACT same procedure I followed, and nothing. I guess the change that I have to do is transfer the music files to the player when creating the playlist. I am guessing that the reason it isn't showing up with the files is due to the fact that the playlist thinks the files are on the PC and not the player.

Is there a way to edit the playlist to change the directory settings of the playlist to include the songs already on the player? I have 2,200 files on my player, and I don't want to have to transfer music over each time to create a playlist.

[SBMongoos]

Originally Posted by StretchArm

I just use the sync feature of MM to sync my playlists. (I'm using MSC mode)
This transfers the tracks to the music folder and the m3u files to the playlist folder.
MM will can if required rename your tracks, and will update the playlists to the correct path.
I then convert the playlists on the player to PLA files. (e.g. O:\playlist)

Basically it sounds like we've done the same thing. I have all the MP3s I currently have on the player. I assume the playlist file simply tells it to select the songs to play.

Let's see. I can export the playlist to the .m3u file. Then put the .m3u file in the Playlist folder on my Sansa (all while in MSC mode). The use the free utility to convert the .m3u file to a .pla file while on the Sansa correct?

***

I put the .m3u file on the Sansa then converted with the free utility on the Sansa. Shows on the list again but no songs show to play. While in MSC mode I cannot see the Music folder under the drive letter for the Sansa. It has a folder called 'all'.

When I open the files I see a bunch of junk characters.

[xatax]

To anyone with success, please write a HOW-TO, step by step, if possible with screen shots, so anyone can understand.

It would be really nice and this thread wouldn't have been so long.

[SBMongoos]

For whatever it's worth (in regards to building playlists):

I've called Sandisk the today and yesterday and their help was priceless. I'm not used to actually getting anything accomplished when calling support.

I was instructed on how to put a playlist together in WMP10 and sync up with the e260. Since the file structure is the same on the PC as the e260 I would assume the MP3 is simply being over written. There's no way to simply build a playlist itself, you need to build the playlist and copy over the music. I have not seen any duplicate MP3s on the e260. In any case you can name your playlist whatever you want and create however many and it works just fine. If I can figure it out in Media Monkey (MM) I'll use it instead as you can do more with MM. Maybe even WMP11 in the near future.

[StretchArm]

Originally Posted by xatax

To anyone with success, please write a HOW-TO, step by step, if possible with screen shots, so anyone can understand.

I've knocked up some screens (click them to see a larger image) to show what I do using MSC mode
If you only see this folders
folder1.jpg

Then check that hidden folders are shown. (optional)
Edit: Open this dialog from windows explorer tools menu-> Folder Options...
Then the view tab. Click show hidden files and folders.
hidden1.jpg

Now you show see these folders
You don't need to see the folders to sync from MM or use the converter but it lets you see whats on your player.
folder2.jpg

In MediaMonkey I have these settings for my O: drive which is where my player tends to appear.
profile.jpg

To copy the files and playlist to the player I select the playlist and click the sync icon ( I have it on sync selected but you can also use the auto sync in the same way)
sync1c.jpg
You should see the tracks being copied at the bottom.

[StretchArm]

Originally Posted by StretchArm

I've knocked up some screens

You can see the playlist on the player via explorer or MM as an m3u file
playlist1.jpg

Run the converter.
converter.jpg

You can see now the playlist on the player via explorer or MM as an pla file as well
playlist2.jpg

Make sure you safely disconnect as once I just unplgged and and the playlist disappeared (maybe it had not quite finished coverting).

Here are the playlists I used.
Gord1.m3u.txt

Gord1.pla.txt

Hope this helps.

[MusicOnly]

Originally Posted by TBAFROMCA

Jon, my lead software developer, has a funny sense of humor.

Also for the Media Monkey users - the easiest way to use is:

Right Click on Playlists > New Playlist > "Name" Playlist > Add Songs

Right Click on the Playlist "Name" > Select "Send To" > Select "Your Sensa"

This will transfer all the songs with appropriate subdirectory names to the Sensa under "Music" and the playlist as a m3u file to "Playlists"

Now run the program pointing to the Sensa "Playlists" subdirectory.

The reason people have blank playlists is they are running the program on their computer drive "Playlists" and copying to the Sensa. The subdirectory structure doesn't match - so nothing displays or plays.

The above method works "every time" in MSC mode.

I'm trying it now--it's in the middle of copying files--and it looks like it's not working. MediaMonkey is ignoring the directory structure on the source and dumping everything into the root directory of the Sandisk.

[psaux]

I'd gone and written this before finding this thread, and I thought some people might get a kick out of it.... <a href="http://supermario.org/m3u2pla-awk">http://supermario.org/m3u2pla-awk</a>

Personally, while I've got the player mounted I create the playlists with XMMS using the layout that's on the player itself ... then run this script agains the results, depositing the translated playlists directly into &lt;device root&gt;/PLAYLISTS/.

Cheers.

P.S. Should the format header be PLP or PLA? I'd gone with PLP so far and that appears to work.

[MusicOnly]

Yep, the files transferred, but the playlist is blank.

I don't know if this makes any different, but the instructions given leave out a couple of steps on the menus.

If I right-click on a playlist, then cursor down to "Send to..." I get a submenu that inclued "Folder (Move)" and "Folder (Copy)". I cursor down to "Folder (Copy)" and the next submenu is drive letters. I cursor to the E: drive (the Sandisk) and I get the following submenu:
E:\
______
C:
D:
E:[Sansa e250]
F:

Cursor down to "E:[Sansa e250]", and I get
Copy to E:\
PHOTO
RECORD
tmp
VIDEO

"MUSIC" is not on the submenu.

I click on "Copy to E:\" (the others seem obviously wrong) and it starts copying, with the results noted above.



I also tried manually recreating part of the subdirectory structure of my computer's music directory onto the Music directory of the Sandisk. That didn't work either.

I think this means that my existing playlists are useless for the Sandisk.

Rats.

[jwyckoff]

Quoting from a previous post, "Yep, the files transferred, but the playlist is blank."

I'm just trying all this for the first time and ran into the same problem. What I discovered is that there are two ways of generating the .m3u playlist in MediaMonkey and they generate different output.

Apparently, when the Sansa reads its playlists it interprets them as being referenced from the root folder. When a software player such as MediaMonkey reads one, it interprets it as being referenced from the folder containing the playlist file.

So in MediaMonkey the playlist that's generated by right-clicking on the playlist and selecting "Send to -> .m3u playlist" creates a playlist file for PC-interpretation and it won't work on the Sansa. (This is true even when creating the playlist pointing at files on the Sansa, not the PC's HDD.) The playlist that's generated by "synchronizing" to the Sansa has the appropriate view of the world and works after converting it with the m3u2pla program.

A workaround for the "Send to -> .m3u playlist" option is to edit the converted playlist in a low-level text editor (Notepad by itself won't work since it adds some undisplayed bytes to the beginning of the file that make it worthless to the Sansa) and remove the "..\" characters from in front of each path/song entry.

Also quoting the earlier post:
Cursor down to "E:[Sansa e250]", and I get
Copy to E:\
PHOTO
RECORD
tmp
VIDEO

"MUSIC" is not on the submenu.

This is because the "MUSIC" folder (and "Playlists" folder) has the "hidden" attribute set by default. The Sansa doesn't seem to care if you un-hide them but it'll re-hide them when the system restarts. Incidentally, the "Send to -> Folder (copy) option sends the music files to the selected folder, not just a playlist.

Hope this helps clear some things up.