Hey fellas! PLAYLISTS?

I see, but how do I make a playlist from the external memory only?

I tried putting the .m3u file on my external card but nothing showed up in the playlist (just said it was empty).

You need to properly set the output folder for the playlist and make sure that the Playlist Creator is set to output relative paths.

With Sansa playlists, location is everything.

Skinjob wrote:

"Actually, they don’t have to be in the MUSIC folder, but the do have to somewhere within the same branch as the songs in the playlist. 

Or to put it another way, the paths in the playlist have to be relative to the location of the playlist. 

So in practice this means playlists need to go in the root or MUSIC folder. 

However, you could have a playlist in an artist folder that only has songs from album folders under that artist folder. 

Or you you could have a playlist in an album folder that only has songs from that album."

Thanks again for your help.

Hopefully SanDisk does something about the fact that you can’t have a playlist using songs from bother external and internal memory.

But thanks for the help tmarkoski, I have two playlists now.  One for my internal and one for my external memory.  That’s good enough for now.

@corilof wrote:

How do I make a playlist that will play songs from both memories?

Corilof -

Your problem is the type/format of playlist files. What tmarkoski said is (partially) true:

[Playlists can contain files from either internal memory or external memory but not both.]

M3u format playlists must only contain files from either the internal memory or external SD card, but not both. Pla format playlists however, can read & play files from both places. These files get placed in the PLAYLIST folder of your device.

I had experience only with .pla playlists with my e260v1 player. When I got a 280v2, I had a heck of a time with playlists. Seems all the rules changed. (The Fuze & Clip have the same processor and so this pertains to them as well.) This forced me to experiment & learn about .m3u playlists. I have found the easiest & most dependable way to create these is with Winamp (as decribed in my earlier post), but I haven’t tried tmarkoski’s program yet.

There was somebody here a few months back that said he had created a script/program to convert .m3u playlist files to .pla format and the resulting conversion would automatically be placed in the PLAYLIST folder. He also claimed that the player would then read & play files from either memory (internal or external). Here is a link to that thread. I tried it and found that it worked, sometimes. It would (in my case) randomly drop songs from the playlist during the conversion process. But the remaining songs did indeed work!

It could be an issue with the way my songs were arranged. I haven’t had the opportunity to go back and ‘play around with it’ since. All my song files are in the MUSIC folder on my player, but on my SDHC card they are just in the root directory, not in a MUSIC folder. This may be a ‘relativity’ issue that prevented it from working as designed. One of these days I’ll go back and stick all the files on my card into a MUSIC folder and then try it again.

Toward the end of the thread on this is a newer version. You might want to try it. 

EDIT: I finally got time to play around with this a bit more and my problem was the fact that I did not have my music in a MUSIC folder on my SDHC card. I created one, put all the music in it, and now have created 6 .pla playlists with music from both memory locations and they play fine.

 

My apologies to Ger, the writer of this little program. It works! Only a 250 song limit though . . .Why?

Message Edited by Tapeworm on 11-07-2008 09:10 AM

Sorry, I guess I was wrong! Thanks, tmarkoski, I’m going to use that playlist maker!

Tapeworm,

It should be pointed out that *.pla playlists do NOT work at all in MSC mode on the Fuze.

They did work in either mode on the e200 series.

Here’s the link to my bi-direction *.pla/*.m3u playlist converter.

http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=announcement&thread.id=102

Message Edited by tmarkoski on 10-04-2008 11:54 AM

If I make a playlist with this software, do I need to have my player hooked up to my computer and save the playlist to the fuze? Thanks!

@tmarkoski wrote:

Tapeworm,

 

It should be pointed out that *.pla playlists do NOT work at all in MSC mode on the Fuze.

 

They did work in either mode on the e200 series.

 

Here’s the link to my bi-direction *.pla/*.m3u playlist converter.

 

http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=announcement&thread.id=102

Message Edited by tmarkoski on 10-04-2008 11:54 AM

tmarkoski -

Just an update, I just was able to create an .m3u playlist, convert it to .pla format and it works fine on my Fuze in MSC mode. I have not tried combining music from and SDHC card into the same playlist yet though.

@tmarkoski wrote:

Tapeworm,

 

It should be pointed out that *.pla playlists do NOT work at all in MSC mode on the Fuze.

 

They did work in either mode on the e200 series.

 

Here’s the link to my bi-direction *.pla/*.m3u playlist converter.

 

http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=announcement&thread.id=102

Message Edited by tmarkoski on 10-04-2008 11:54 AM

tmarkoski -

Just an update, I got some time and started playing around with this. I was able to create an .m3u playlist, convert it to .pla format and it played just fine on my Fuze in MSC mode. I have not yet tried combining music from an SDHC card yet though. This was with GER’s Playlist Creator v1.6 discussed in this thread (actually the latest one he posted was v1.5, but I found v1.6 on another board. I just don’t have the link to it handy right now.)

@tapeworm wrote:


@tmarkoski wrote:

Tapeworm,

 

It should be pointed out that *.pla playlists do NOT work at all in MSC mode on the Fuze.

 

They did work in either mode on the e200 series.

 

Here’s the link to my bi-direction *.pla/*.m3u playlist converter.

 

http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=announcement&thread.id=102

Message Edited by tmarkoski on 10-04-2008 11:54 AM


 

tmarkoski -

 

Just an update, I got some time and started playing around with this. I was able to create an .m3u playlist, convert it to .pla format and it played just fine on my Fuze in MSC mode. I have not yet tried combining music from an SDHC card yet though. This was with GER’s Playlist Creator v1.6 discussed in this thread (actually the latest one he posted was v1.5, but I found v1.6 on another board. I just don’t have the link to it handy right now.)

Cool!

I wonder if this was fixed in the last firmware update?

@tmarkoski wrote:

Cool!

I wonder if this was fixed in the last firmware update?

I’m still running the original .11 firmware. I never updated it; waiting to see if the bugs are fixed in the next one (due anytime now).

@tapeworm wrote:


@tmarkoski wrote:

Cool!

I wonder if this was fixed in the last firmware update?


I’m still running the original .11 firmware. I never updated it; waiting to see if the bugs are fixed in the next one (due anytime now).

Very Wierd?

I wonder if they changed the UNICODE requirement for PLA when they released the Fuze?

Can you send me an M3U and a PLA for the same content?

Message Edited by tmarkoski on 11-07-2008 09:47 AM

Forgive such a fundamental question: if I create two playlists on my Fuze and they share a song, does that song go onto my Fuze twice, or are there simply two pointers?

 

Thanks to anyone for such basic info.

 

JG

A playlist is simply that . . . a ‘list’ you want your player to ‘play’. It should include titles of songs already on your device. Having the same song in 2 different playlists just means it’s listed twice, not there there are 2 copies of the music file in the memory. :wink:

Thank you, tapeworm:

Did you mean “in my device”, or perhaps “in my Library”? Can I really create, on my Fuze,  a playlist of songs which are already on my Fuze?

 John G

A playlist is a list of songs on your player, not in your Music Library on your computer.

You have to ‘create’ the list on your computer, but it contains the songs on your player. You then transfer the list to your player.

So you can have the same song in 2 or more playlists on your player, but there will be only 1 copy of the actual .mp3 file.

Playlists are not to be confused with the GoList. While this is a playlist of sorts, it is a permanent fixture on your player. You can not delete it, whether it is empty or not. This list however, you create and add songs to it on your player with the sub-menu while the song(s) are playing. You do/can not create or edit the GoList on your computer.

This (the GoList ) is what I believe you are referring to here:

@jgcab15 wrote:

Did you mean “in my device”, or perhaps “in my Library”? Can I really create, on my Fuze,  a playlist of songs which are already on my Fuze?

The GoList and playlists are basically the same thing, but different. Got it? I hope so, 'cause I gotta headache now! :smileyvery-happy:

Very old thread this, I know.  But just to add my 2 cents to simplify things:

For me the simplest way to create playlists is to use Foobar media player.  Simply connect your device (Sansa Fuze or Clip) to your computer, and open up your device’s music folder.

Then, all the songs that you want in your playlist, simply drag and drop them to Foobar.

When you have dragged over all the songs you want for that playlist, go to Foobar and then File->Save Playlist (or CTRL+S).

At the bottom of Foobar is a ‘Save as type’ dropdown.  You need to select ‘m3u’ from the list.

Put the desired name of your playlist in the ‘File Name’ box (you don’t need to put ‘.m3u’ on the end).

Then, at the top of Foobar in the ‘Save in’ dropdown, you need to navigate to your MUSIC folder in your device.  You can save it within a subfolder too, that’s fine, as long as it is inside the MUSIC folder.

And that’s it.  If you now disconnect your device and navigate to playlists, your new playlist will be there. I tend to use playlists for creating extended versions of albums, e.g. I’ll create one for The Beatles’ Rubber Soul that also includes A-sides and B-sides from the period (Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out) that are on the Past Masters album. But that’s neither here nor there - the point is, these m3u playlists work great! :slight_smile:

Message Edited by FLACtastic on 09-26-2009 03:29 PM

@flactastic wrote:

Very old thread this, I know.  But just to add my 2 cents to simply things:

 

 

At the bottom of Foobar is a ‘Save as type’ dropdown.  You need to select ‘m3u’ from the list.

 

Put the desired name of your playlist in the ‘File Name’ box (you don’t need to put ‘.m3u’ on the end).

 

Then, at the top of Foobar in the ‘Save in’ dropdown, you need to navigate to your MUSIC folder in your device.  You can save it within a subfolder too, that’s fine, as long as it is inside the MUSIC folder.

 

Or you cold use the .pla format (if foobar supports it) which can reference files from either internal or external memory, and can be placed in any folder you like. Quite why people are still using .m3u is beyond me, it really is. And contrary to what people have been saying in this thread, .pla can be created in MSC mode. I’d plug YAPL again for this job, but I think it’s probably pointless.

D.

Actually, I just realised - the m3u file does NOT have to be in the MUSIC folder.  I only wrote that because someone else had wrongly stated that earlier (or maybe it was a firmware issue back then).  I just tested it.  And yes, they will play from memory or internal or both.

Message Edited by FLACtastic on 09-26-2009 05:34 PM

@flactastic wrote:
Actually, I just realised - the m3u file does NOT have to be in the MUSIC folder.  I only wrote that because someone else had wrongly stated that earlier (or maybe it was a firmware issue back then).  I just tested it.  And yes, they will play from memory or internal or both.
Message Edited by FLACtastic on 09-26-2009 05:34 PM

Yes, m3u can be in a folder other than the music folder. However, it has to stay there - you cannot move it elsewhere, as m3u uses relative paths. And no, the m3u format cannot reference both internal and external storage within the same playlist.

Unless you have proof, of course :slight_smile:

D.