m3u To pla/plp Converter - Free to All

[StretchArm]

My 'how to' post above shows you how to see hidden folders all the time.

However if you use MM sync to copy tracks and playlists you don't need ot be able to see the folders.

To me the send to method seems to be more coplicated than the sync one. Syncing transfers the tracks to the music folder, the m3u to the playlist folder. Then all you need to do is run the converter.

[jwyckoff]

Originally Posted by StretchArm

My 'how to' post above shows you how to see hidden folders all the time.

That's true for Windows Explorer and the left pane of MediaMonkey. However, MediaMonkey still won't show the hidden folders on the "Send to" menus. But I haven't found any reason to use the "Send to -> Folder (Move/Copy)" items so this is largely a moot point.

Originally Posted by StretchArm

However if you use MM sync to copy tracks and playlists you don't need ot be able to see the folders.

To me the send to method seems to be more coplicated than the sync one. Syncing transfers the tracks to the music folder, the m3u to the playlist folder. Then all you need to do is run the converter.

I Agree. Last night I was simply exploring the different options and finding out what worked and didn't, and why. Having to manually edit the converted playlists to make them work with the Sansa is too tedious for normal use and with the methods you pointed out, "Synchronizing" files and playlists simultaneously is by far the way to go. I only posted to help explain why some users seemed to be having difficulty while others were up and running right away.

[MusicOnly]

Is there some way to successfully convert playlists (without having path issues) without MediaMonkey?

Despite the efforts of those in this forum (which I appreciate) my experience trying to import and sync with MediaMonkey has been nothing but frustration.

I have an m3u playlist with 131 songs on it. After I scanned the directory in MM, only 27 songs--the last 27, but numbered 1 through 27--show up on that list in the Playlist node. In the My Computer node, the same playlist shows all 131 songs.

I tried syncing to my Sansa--and I was careful to drag the My Computer version of the playlist to the Synchronize to Portable/Audio Devise button. MM starts with song 104 (meanwhile displaying "1 of 131" "2 of 131" etc). When it gets to the last song on the list, which MM refers to as "27 of 131", it stops.

I converted the playlist I wanted to .pla.

So, what's on my Sansa? According to Windows Explorer, a subdirectory in the root with the last 27 songs on the playlist WITH THE NAME OF A TOTALLY DIFFERENT PLAYLIST! (I don't know what's in the Music directory; it doesn't show up in Windows Explorer even though I have "Show hidden files and folders" checked.)

According to the Sandisk itself, it has the playlist I transferred, but only those 27 songs.

There are also three playlists I transferred, one successfully, a couple days ago. The successfully-transferred one is now empty.

I think the technical term is "WTF?"!

I've seen some posts on the MM forum indicating people having problems with importing m3u lists. It appears that there is no way to tell MM to import a specific playlist; you can only scan a directory. Judging by the MM forum, the scanning process has problems.

(Btw, none of this involves my steam-powered Windows 98 computer--I connected my Sansa to my wife's XP laptop.

[psaux]

Originally Posted by MusicOnly

Is there some way to successfully convert playlists (without having path issues) without MediaMonkey?

I don't see why not. Personally, I've yet to even connect my e270 to a windows box in the first place (and thus no media monkey... whatever that is.) ....

If you can make your playlist in winamp, <b>playing the files from the player itself</b> (You may need to be in MSC mode to do this ....), and then translate your playlist from an m3u to a pla, then it should either 1) just work, or 2) need a small amount of search-and-replace (notepad, wordpad, what-have-you) magic on the m3u prior to conversion.

Personally, I just slap my music onto the sansa in MSC mode, generate my playlists using the winamp "work-a-like" (yeah right...) XMMS (using the files on the e270 itself), and then run the script I'd posted earlier ( http://supermario.org/m3u2pla-awk ) which just goes through and substitutes "HARP, MUSIC" for the entire path up to, and including, the "music" directory on the sansa. This just plops down my pla in the PLAYLISTS directory, with the paths nicely remedied, and I'm done.

You really should be able to do the same process, or something very similar at least, on windows.

[StretchArm]

Originally Posted by MusicOnly

I have an m3u playlist with 131 songs on it. After I scanned the directory in MM, only 27 songs--the last 27, but numbered 1 through 27--show up on that list in the Playlist node. In the My Computer node, the same playlist shows all 131 songs.

Is the playlist ok i.e does it map to tracks that are still in the same location?
I tested creating a playlist with some bad tracks and the import only worked for the good tracks. In My Computer it show all tracks by when I tried to play the bad one they grey out and it moves on to the next good track.

I converted the playlist I wanted to .pla.

Open the m3u created by the sync and pla files in notepad and see if how many tracks they have and if the paths look ok.

I've seen some posts on the MM forum indicating people having problems with importing m3u lists. It appears that there is no way to tell MM to import a specific playlist; you can only scan a directory. Judging by the MM forum, the scanning process has problems.

I've never had any problems with MM and m3u's. To import you rescan the folder it's in. There is a list of file types to scan. Once scanned the m3u should appear in the MM playlist imported m3u playlists folder.

[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

[MusicOnly]

Originally Posted by psaux

I don't see why not. Personally, I've yet to even connect my e270 to a windows box in the first place (and thus no media monkey... whatever that is.) ....

If you can make your playlist in winamp, <b>playing the files from the player itself</b> (You may need to be in MSC mode to do this ....), and then translate your playlist from an m3u to a pla, then it should either 1) just work, or 2) need a small amount of search-and-replace (notepad, wordpad, what-have-you) magic on the m3u prior to conversion.

THAT WORKED (even on my steam-driven W98 computer). THANKS!!!!

[MusicOnly]

Originally Posted by StretchArm

Is the playlist ok i.e does it map to tracks that are still in the same location?
I tested creating a playlist with some bad tracks and the import only worked for the good tracks. In My Computer it show all tracks by when I tried to play the bad one they grey out and it moves on to the next good track.

That accounts for only the 27 songs playing.

It doesn't, however, explain how I ended up with FOUR playlists with names of existing playlists) each of which had the same 27 songs! So at the very least MediaMonkey is screwing up the names of the lists.

I've given up on MediaMonkey. Even if I could solve this problem, MM is simply too big and tries to do too much for my taste. It's also too agressive for me--it tries to latch onto all sorts of file types and populates the "available" list with a bunch of links to mp3 sample files I listed to on emusic (no idea where it found that information). Does anyone have a recommendation for a program that just manages playlists?

Oh year, on my steam-driven computer MM is extremely
sssssssss
llllllllllllllllll
0000000000
wwwwwwwwwww.

And if I connect the Sandisk and run MM, the system grinds to a reasonable approximation of a halt.

[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.

[Sethster]

Thank you so very much.

Seth

PS - The latest version is located at the bottom of the first page of this thread.
--

Originally Posted by TBAFROMCA

m3u2pla 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".

Download the attachment of this post and the original post has been updated with the latest file.

[Sethster]

The first two times I tried this method with great success. Then I opted to sync in MTP mode with WMP10. That deleted the m3u and pla playlsts on the E270 and relaced them with WMP playlists. More importantly, MM will not recognize the E270 in MSC mode as a removable HD now that it has previously seen it in MTP mode. So MM will no longer transfer playlists and songs in MSC mode. Hmmmm.

Any ideas?

[StretchArm]

Originally Posted by Sethster

The first two times I tried this method with great success. Then I opted to sync in MTP mode with WMP10. That deleted the m3u and pla playlsts on the E270 and relaced them with WMP playlists. More importantly, MM will not recognize the E270 in MSC mode as a removable HD now that it has previously seen it in MTP mode. So MM will no longer transfer playlists and songs in MSC mode. Hmmmm.

Any ideas?

Have already got an 'Generic Portable/Audio Device' configured? I've never had any problems, but I only use MSC mode. Try posting a question to the device section of the mediamonkey forum.

[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)

[psaux]

Originally Posted by 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)

First off, is that really the entire file? I think there should be a header before the filelist. Also, editing it manually is rather likely to break it since there are NULL bytes between each character (and you'd have to use an editor that won't try to be "smart" and clean that up for you). Finally, I believe each line needs to start with exactly "HARP, MUSIC", but I may be wrong.

[sillychilly]

Oops... file starts with

PLP PLAYLIST
VERSION 1.20

I just tried editing the file manually in wordpad so the null bytes would be there, now my player doesn't recognize the playlist at all

[Alpha]

Hey all

1st of all, I want to thanks to guy who made this converter, really helps.
However, just like many ppls here, I've had lots of troubles to make it work (I'm not a MediaMonkey user).

It took time but I found out what was wrong.

Here's the m3u line type that MM generates :
\MUSIC\The Beatles\The Beatles - Yesterday.mp3

and here's the same info generated by every other m3u creator I tested (WMP, Winamp, etc):
#EXTINF:0,The Beatles - Yesterday.mp3
E:\MUSIC\The Beatles\The Beatles - Yesterday.mp3

So, no wonder the converter was not working for non MM users (like me )

I wrote a small script that will convert m3u file type to m3u file MM type (lol).
With this the m3u to pla thing works perfectly and i can finally have playlists on my sansa.

Use is simple : unzip the vbs file and put it the same folder of the m3u files you want to convert. double click it and write the drive letter when it asks you to.

I hope this will help some of you guys.

Good luck and thx again to the thread starter

[TBAFROMCA]

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.

Originally Posted by Alpha

Hey all

1st of all, I want to thanks to guy who made this converter, really helps.
However, just like many ppls here, I've had lots of troubles to make it work (I'm not a MediaMonkey user).

It took time but I found out what was wrong.

Here's the m3u line type that MM generates :
\MUSIC\The Beatles\The Beatles - Yesterday.mp3

and here's the same info generated by every other m3u creator I tested (WMP, Winamp, etc):
#EXTINF:0,The Beatles - Yesterday.mp3
E:\MUSIC\The Beatles\The Beatles - Yesterday.mp3

So, no wonder the converter was not working for non MM users (like me )

I wrote a small script that will convert m3u file type to m3u file MM type (lol).
With this the m3u to pla thing works perfectly and i can finally have playlists on my sansa.

Use is simple : unzip the vbs file and put it the same folder of the m3u files you want to convert. double click it and write the drive letter when it asks you to.

I hope this will help some of you guys.

Good luck and thx again to the thread starter