[anonymousTHUG]

My collection is complete. Fully edited and cleaned 250GB's covering all genres.
My final step is to now create playlists to make it easy to find what to listen to. For example, a playlist for "sad music".
 
So how do playlists actually work? I'll be using M3U and PLS formats. I've read a lot about playlists breaking and I've had it happen to myself before. I would play a playlist and because I moved files around the playlist gave errors like "file not found".
 
I want to go through this long process of adding songs to playlists PAINLESSLY!. I want to get it right the first time. Google search isn't spitting out anything for me.
 
I need an answer for this specific question: Do playlists only keep a text of the file path in them such as C/Music/genres/rock/beatles/all you need is love.... and what would happen if I moved the collection to another computer or mp3player with a different file path such as D/Music/genres/...how would the playlist know how to find the songs to play when it thinks it's in C when it's in D? Also, What happens when I change the tittle and artist tags? Will playlists still work (obviously will if only filepath's are used)? So are only filepaths used?
 
Finally, tips and suggestions about playlists and possibly saving me pain that some of you had to go through is greatly appreciated. help a brother out
 
Thanks guys

 

[anonymousTHUG]

Did i post this in the wrong category?
 
For anyone new to creating playlists like myself, this link http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?threadid=65772 explains the technical difference between the 2 major formats m3u and pls.
 
However, what happens if the playlists are moved to mp3 players and any tips are welcome.

 

[Skylarke]

Bit of a thread resurrection but did you ever get to grips with Playlists and how they relate to where the files themselves are located. It seems to be a bit of a dark art, I'm reasonably clever but I can't seem to get my head around it!

 

[bgentry]

The answer is simple: With a large collection you want Library software. Software that catalogs your music so you can easily find it, and uses metadata to do so. Good library software knows where every file is located. So playlists know where all of the files are. When you move files, you do it through the library and the library updates all of the entries. This keeps the library content functional. Including keeping all playlists up to date.

Good library software has tools to make moving media around easy and flexible. Some let you do dynamic renaming based on metadata. If you want to.

I don't want to sound like an ad, so I'm not going to say my pick for library software. I'll say there are a number of decent choices. The key is not just a player, but a Library manager.

Brian.

 

[castleofargh]

  Bit of a thread resurrection but did you ever get to grips with Playlists and how they relate to where the files themselves are located. It seems to be a bit of a dark art, I'm reasonably clever but I can't seem to get my head around it!

if you look for a more specific question, you will find the answer already posted somewhere, it's a problem everybody willing to use playlists had to go through.
the main misunderstanding I imagine comes from the difference between relative and absolute path and the consequences they can have when moving the music or the playlist file itself.  a playlist is no more than a .txt with the folder path of the songs in it, so it's not rocket science. but if the path for a song is C:\folder\music\song and you move the entire "music" folder onto a DAP, there is nothing to say that the root of the DAP will be named C: in fact there is almost no chance it will. so the path for the songs will make no sens to the DAP. and that's about it.
what's nice is that you can move the playlist file anywhere it will still know the complete path to the songs.
 
in relative path, the path will tell where the music is relatively to where the playlist file is, so at first glance it only makes things more complicated because if you move the playlist file alone, it no longer works. but the positive thing is that if you create the playlist file inside the "music" folder and have the songs in several sub directories, the path recorded will be from the playlist to the music and so it will only go down in the folder path, never needing to know the name of the disk itself. in that situation when you move the entire "music" folder to your DAP, the playlist will still be good.
 
that's more or less all you have to understand to decide where best to put your playlist files and how to generate them. often an easy trick it to have the playlists at the root of  the µSD or hard disk, so that de facto all the paths will go down and never need the disk's letter(or name).
the rest is about particular needs for a DAP or an OS and how to achieve what you want depending on the software used. but all the job could be done with a text editor, it's just not user friendly when you have a paylist with hundreds of songs ^_^.

 

[Skylarke]

Thanks for the replies!
 
I have come to understand the need for good player/library software, you shouldn't really be bothered much about the music files/folders themselves(other than where they are being stored/saved to) and rather rely fully on the player/library interface.
 
I can see why iTunes + iPod + iPhone is so attractive to many, seamless music interface.
I use Android though and that is not an option, I like the Musicbee Player, any other options that may work for my circumstances?
 
Perhaps I can make use of this relative path thing in terms of playlists and then just sync my entire music collection with nested folders and playlists to the SD card on my devices, something along those lines has been my plan.
 
How do you specify playlists to be relative and not absolute in terms of the path to the linked files?
Is it a certain type of playlist file that can do that?

 

[castleofargh]

well for that you will need a more knowledgeable guy ^_^. I know only how to do it by hand while editing the playlist file with a text editor, or when using mp3tag. everything else is alien to me and my android expertise stops at turning ON my tablet to watch a TV show on the train/plane

.

 

[Skylarke]

In Musicbee if I make a playlist its always absolute, here's an example:
 
Washed Out.m3u
When opened with notepad it shows the following:
E:\Media\Audio\Tunes\Chilled\Chillwave\Washed Out - Within & Without\Washed Out-Within & Without-01-Eyes Be Closed.mp3
E:\Media\Audio\Tunes\Chilled\Chillwave\Washed Out - Within & Without\Washed Out-Within & Without-02-Echoes.mp3
E:\Media\Audio\Tunes\Chilled\Chillwave\Washed Out - Within & Without\Washed Out-Within & Without-03-Amor Fati.mp3
E:\Media\Audio\Tunes\Chilled\Chillwave\Washed Out - Within & Without\Washed Out-Within & Without-04-Soft.mp3
E:\Media\Audio\Tunes\Chilled\Chillwave\Washed Out - Within & Without\Washed Out-Within & Without-05-Far Away.mp3
E:\Media\Audio\Tunes\Chilled\Chillwave\Washed Out - Within & Without\Washed Out-Within & Without-06-Before.mp3
E:\Media\Audio\Tunes\Chilled\Chillwave\Washed Out - Within & Without\Washed Out-Within & Without-07-You And I.mp3
E:\Media\Audio\Tunes\Chilled\Chillwave\Washed Out - Within & Without\Washed Out-Within & Without-08-Within And Without.mp3
E:\Media\Audio\Tunes\Chilled\Chillwave\Washed Out - Within & Without\Washed Out-Within & Without-09-A Dedication.mp3
 
I'm surprised music players can't take a playlist and just use the artist/song title to search the existing library and match that to songs contained in the library, which would mean a playlist is always relative.
You could specify in settings that the artist/songtitle/file name must match absolute ie be identical all respects or allow some latitude which would mean you could import anyones playlist into your player and if you had the same songs in your library then it would play.
 
There must be players that can do that?

 

[bgentry]

Musicbee says it can do sync with handheld devices.

http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Devices

I'm not sure how it works, as I've never used the program before. The player I use can do this. In terms of playlists, it rewrites them on the fly during a sync. The sync process knows where it's putting every file on your device. It knows what files the playlists point to. So it rewrites the playlists as it puts them on the device! The original playlists still point to the files on your computer. It's just the ones that go onto the devices that get changed. So all the playlists in all places work correctly.

If you move files around in the Library, the playlists get automatically updated. There's no need to figure out relative or absolute or anything. The Library software just does it for you. As it should be!

I'm not saying MusicBee does ALL of this. I'm saying some library software does, including the one I use.

Brian.

 

[Skylarke]

Brian, if you can please share what Music player/library you use?
Thanks for the link to the Musicbee wiki

 

[bgentry]

I walk a fine line between being a REALLY enthusiastic user and sounding like I'm some sort of shill (a paid advertiser). I really AM just an enthusiastic user. So I try to not say the name of JRiver Media Center in every post I talk about it in. But yeah, it's JRiver Media Center. I use it on a Mac, but it's primary platform is Windows. It runs great on both. There's a Linux version too.

Brian.

 

[Skylarke]

I have been recommended Jriver by numerous people that appreciate the better things sound wise, it's not free or cheap so I suppose that's why I have not tried it yet.
Looks like it must be quite fair value for money.