Please someone help me with M3U Playlists. I want to store my playlists in a different folder on the WDTV Live Hub than the Media resides (i.e. a “Playlists” Folder) and my media in a “Music” and " Videos" Folder. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to setup the path so that it will look in the correct folders and play the Media. I always get the “No Media in this Folder” error.
What should the start path be setup as in the M3U file. All Folders I have listed are off the Root folder.
Playlists - Playlist Folder
Music - Music Folder
Videos - Videos Folder
Photos - Photos Folder
If someone can help me with this simple folder structure then I can figure out more complex folder structures myself. I also don’t know if I should be using Forward or Backward Slashes and if I need to use … to go to the Root folder first.
If I create the Playlist in the same folder as the Media and use only the filenames (i.e. “Take it Easy.mp3” or “Spiderman.mp4” etc. then the playlist work great. I just want to keep Music, Photos and Videos in separate folders and create a playlist that can reference the correct folders from a Playlists Folder. This would keep a mess of mixed media residing in one folder. Thanks
Try typing playlist into the search box above lots of posts and info in the topics.
I have Music, Video and Playlists folders in the root of my WD attached drive. I put m3u playlists in the Playlists folder and the WD finds them just fine.
Thanks for your help guys, I finally figured it out. I did do a search under playlists but with all the conflicting statements it’s always impossible to get the right info the first time on forums.
Some guys used forward slashes some used back slashes, then some used the full path name and others said you need to put … in front of the path etc. etc etc. In the end it seems like using Extended M3U playlists was the problem. I wish that all the useless posts that people put up could be taken off all forums so you don’t search for hours getting 5000 ways to do things when in the end only one works. If someone is going to suggest something test it first like I do before posting it.
…/Videos/Movie 01-1.5mb.mp4 These are test movies and this is a standard not extended M3U Playlist and it
…/Videos/Movie 02-3.0mb.mp4 works. I will test to see if I can make the Extended M3U Playlist to work.
…/Videos/Movie 03-4.5mb.mp4 Playlists are in a folder called Playlists.
…/Videos/Movie 04-6.0mb.mp4 Videos are in a folder called Videos.
…/Videos/Movie 05-7.5mb.mp4 Music is in a folder called Music, etc.
…/Videos/Movie 06-9.0mb.mp4 All folders are off the Root Directory, but now I know how to set up the M3U to
…/Videos/Movie 07-10.5mb.mp4 work so folder structure will no longer be an issue.
…/Videos/Movie 08-12mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 09-13.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 10-15mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 11-16.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 12-18mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 13-19.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 14-21mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 15-22.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 16-24mb.mp4
Thanks
I tested this tonight and it works too.
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:279,Movie 01-1.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 01-1.5mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 02-3.0mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 02-3.0mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 03-4.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 03-4.5mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 04-6.0mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 04-6.0mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 05-7.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 05-7.5mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 06-9.0mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 06-9.0mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 07-10.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 07-10.5mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 08-12mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 08-12mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 09-13.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 09-13.5mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 10-15mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 10-15mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 11-16.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 11-16.5mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 12-18mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 12-18mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 13-19.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 13-19.5mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 14-21mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 14-21mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 15-22.5mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 15-22.5mb.mp4
#EXTINF:279,Movie 16-24mb.mp4
…/Videos/Movie 16-24mb.mp4
Thanks Again.
Congrats on getting it done.
FYI, my playlists are only for my music tracks, and I use iTunes to create them with iTunes DJ and have explained elsewhere in the forum the details of how I do this. The music tracks on my WD player’s attached drive are a " direct lift" from my actual iTunes Media folder. The are a complete copy of the original folder that I keep synced on the WD drive using robocopy. The files on the WD drive are basically a backup of the original folder.
So, the original folder is on F: drive on the PC, and folks had written around here that the specific drive designation in the m3u needed to be modified so the WD could find the tracks. Not so in my case, The path to each track starts with F:/, but the WD ignores F:/, and plays stuff fine. It might be because the files and folders on the WD drive are exactly the way it is on my PC, so that’s what really counts to the WD, and not the drive name.
Every so often I make new playlists (all of mine are random ordering): and I just make more within iTunes and copy them to the WD drive, and can just keep on playing the music!
I guess it was a lot of stupidity on my side of things. I’ve never created playlists except in iTunes and never exported them before. I am using VLC to create the playlist on the local machine and then TextWrangler to fix the paths with “Search and Replace” for the WD Player. I need to do it this way because I am getting .mov, .mp4, .mkv and other file formats that iTunes doesn’t recognize. I’m going to be using several of these units as playback for a local film festival and I need to be able to manage all them over a network including file transfers while the unit is in play mode when there are late submissions.
The one thing I found is that I cannot have both Video and Audio formats in the same playlist. I must convert the Audio files to QuickTime movies or they are skipped over when the playlist is started. Any suggestions on a work around for this would be appreciated.
Thanks again for your help.
