How to save a playlist as .m3u8 UTF-8 without BOM?

How do you save a playlist as .m3u8 UTF-8 without BOM (byte order mark) ?

Some songs of my playlist don’t appears on the clip because they contain caracters such as é, à, ê

I did a search on this forum and found the solution which is saving the playlist as .m3u8 UTF-8 without BOM (byte order mark), but I don’t know how to do that.

Can I change myself the extension (adding the ‘8’)?

I use Mp3tag and it doesn’t have the possibility to save the playlist with the .mp3u8 extension, and I can’t find where I could check the “UTF-8” and “BOM” options.

Thanks a lot.

Message Edited by snorkyller on 02-16-2009 11:06 AM

I managed to find the solution (see below).  For the benefit of others, I also make a summary of what should be done to use succesfully .M3U playlists with the Sansa Clip when you just drag and drop it instead of using the “synchronization” feature of iTune or Windows Media Player:

(Assuming that you use Mp3tag to create the playlist)

1- Into the Sansa Clip, go to Settings/Usb mode, check “MSC”.

2- I think that you’ll have to format the player, then copy again your mp3 into the player

3- Open Mp3tag

4- Go to Options/Export

5- Create a new export configuration and name it “M3U8 Playlist, relative file paths”

6- Then double-click it and paste into it the below text:

$filename(m3u8,utf-8)#EXTM3U
$loop(%_counter%)#EXTINF:%_length_seconds%,%artist% - %title%
%_filename_rel%
$loopend()

7- You can create this 2nd export configuration if you want, if never a new firmware requires absolute path (?).  Name it : “M3U8 Playlist, absolute file paths”.  

$filename(m3u8,utf-8)#EXTM3U
$loop(%_counter%)#EXTINF:%_length_seconds%,%artist% - %title%
%_path%
$loopend()

8- Uncheck “Write BOM”

9-Change the directory for the one where your mp3 are

10- Select the mp3 of your playlists

11- Richt-click, choose “Export…”

12- Select “M3U8 Playlist, relative file paths”

13- This create a file with the “.m3u8” extension.  This is your playlist.

14- Put it into the Music folder of your Sansa Clip, AND NOT into the Playlists folder (as strange and illogical as it could appears).

Wow!!!  Thanks a lot snorkyller!

It worked.  I was searching for a so long time into this forum and everywhere and no complete answer.  So much time wasted just for being able to use playlists.  How could it be so hard to find information.  I don’t understand why these informations isn’t easily find in the Sansa web page.  And it seems to me that I shouldn’t have to waste some time : the player should do it all automatically without having to search.

No problem snorkyller, my pleasure…

Should my message be usefull to other person ; I would be just happy. :wink:

Message Edited by snorkyller on 02-16-2009 04:52 PM