Playlist Compatibility between Rockbox & iTunes (iPod)

[PHK Brasil]

♪

Hi!

The playlist you create on Apple OS/iTunes could not be played on Rockbox.

There's a tip you can do to "solve this problem".

1) Connect your iPod to PC, then go to iTunes

2) Create your Playlist or access an old one

3) Select all songs in playlist, then right click > Get Info

4) There's a category called Composer that is not much used. Name your playlist on this field:
 

"favourites blablabla", "best blablabla", etc...

5) When you go to Rockbox, your "Playlist" will be there, on "Composer" category.

Note: Of course, all real composer info of the songs you select will be lost. And the songs will not be played in the original order. If you think this is not relevant, go ahead.

PS: Maybe there's a right method to solve this, but I don't know. Anybody knows?

♪

[Llorean]

Please don't continually post 'tutorials' in our forums. The forums are for questions and discussions. The wiki is the appropriate place for static information.

[PHK Brasil]

♪
Sorry, Llorean.

You can erase, no problem.

♪

[blueskip]

For gods sake PLEASE POST tutorials.  I'm having the hardest time using Rockbox BECAUSE there are no tutorials anywhere.  I've wasted an entire weekend trying to learn all of this when a tutorial could have shown me in minutes.  

C'mon

[Febs]

Really?  Which part of the manual did you have difficulty with, and how can we improve it?

[blueskip]

Avoiding my bad urge to be a total smartbutt, I have playlists that I used ItunesExport to generate as .m3u and I put them into the playlist folder.  However when I load them I get No File (root) (root)

The site has TONS of information but it is extremely hard to navigate and find what I need.  

I've been fooling with MediaMonkey to create playlists but it really isn't what I would prefer because all of my previous playlists were created with itunes.  I'm no fan of itunes but I don't want so sit for a week recreating playlists.

If anyone has a tutorial I would be MOST MOST MOST appreciative.  Rockbox is awesome if it's in a usable state.  My configuration unfortunately is not.

I listen to jazz at work because it's peaceful and non-distracting, and I listen to numerous other playlists everywhere else depending on my mood.

EDIT:  (Soap merged double post)
Ok here's a start.  You could point me into the direction of how to make a playlist that actually works.  So far after hours of goofing around I cannot get rockbox to make a playlist that works.  If I use MediaMonkey to make a m3u list for music that is already on the ipod, it doesn't play.  I can't figure out how to make one using the rockbox interface either.  

Rockbox obviously reads the itunes songs but is not playing my playlist. If I view the playlist using "View Current Playlist", I get a listing of the songs with (ERR) in front of each one.  

I don't have a clue what the problem is and I'm seriously tired of looking for the answer.  I needed this to work by .... uhhh...NOW and I have a presentation to make for work that I should have started hours ago.  So I really don't have time to be fooling with this on and on.

So...That's why I think tutorials are not a bad idea to sum it up.

[bascule]

Open up your playlist in a text editor (or Rockbox's own Viewer) and take a look.

An .m3u/.m3u8 playlist should just be a list of filepaths like this:

Code: [Select]

/music/Kylie Minogue-Fever/03-Can't Get You Out Of My Head.MP3
/music/Dido-Life For Rent/01-White Flag.ogg
/music/KT Tunstall-Eye To The Telescope/05-Miniature Disasters.ogg

I suspect yours does not look like that.

If ITunesExport purports to create a valid .m3u8 then let's a least have a look at what the file actually contains and we will work from there.

...and it's a good job you refrained from being a smartbutt as such an attitude gets quite a short shrift around here. There are plenty of people willing to help, but only if you have attempted to find out the answer first. As Febs implied, the manual contains all the information you need about Rockbox's handling and saving of playlists, but we do not support Apple's (or anyone else's) non-standard ways of doing things:

Link to Playlists in the Manual

[AlexP]

Please read the posting guidelines and do not double post.

Are you transferring music with itunes?

If so, itunes changes all the filenames and puts files in random directories when you transfer music, making playlists a little tricky.  Are you using the database to access your music?

[blueskip]

.m3u not .m3u8  Neither itunesexport nor MediaMonkey create .m3u8 files.  

F:\Althea Rene - In The Moment (2006) - Jazz By FEFE2003\04 - More Than You Know.mp3
F:\Althea Rene - In The Moment (2006) - Jazz By FEFE2003\09 - And She Said.mp3

This is from one of the generated playlists.

So yes they look exactly like that however the location is not correct.  The music is not on the "F:" drive it shows it's on the ipod.  

So what am I doing wrong?  I'm obviously creating a playlist for MediaMonkey that is pointing to the wrong drive.  How do I fix it?  

[AlexP]

I'm afraid that is a question for the mediamonkey developers.  We can't be expected to support all of the hundreds of applications that can make m3u playlists.

You also haven't answered my question on how you transferred the music.

[blueskip]

The music was tranferred using itunes.  

I was talking to bascule before.  He seems to be on the right track.  

[Llorean]

Yes, but the iTunes question was relevant to that track

If they're transfered to iTunes, iTunes renames them. Whatever tool you use to create your playlist, you MUST be creating the playlist with the songs actually on your iPod (the physical files).

It looks like you have MediaMonkey creating it based on your library of songs on the computer, not the files on your iPod.

[AlexP]

He is.  The point is though that when itunes transfers your music, it renames all the tracks to random four letter file names, and puts them in random directories.  Therefore any playlists you make before transferring with itunes will not work afterwards.

[bascule]

That looks OK from a syntax point of view.

Rockbox is smart enough to ignore the Drive letter and the slashes can be either way round ('/' = Linux, '\' = Windows), so that should work, provided the filepath you quoted does actually point to a genuine file on the disk.

Was it generated my MM or ItunesExport? - which will help with BigBambi's line of reasoning...

[blueskip]

We're all talking about the same issue.  I fully understand where you're coming from.  What I'm looking for is the solution.  I don't care what I use to make the playlist OTHER than rockbox.  I just need something to recreate them.  I can easily remove the music and retransfer it .... oooh  that may be the answer.

Then I could just access it from MediaMonkey using the ipod as a drive and create the lists from there.  I think that might work.  Then the names and the music would match.  

MediaMonkey recognizes itunes filenames and synch to them ....SWEET I just figured it out.  I just have to access the drive in MediaMonkey and view the playlists then select them and export them as .m3u files.  I just tried it and it works.  

bascule got me in the right direction by looking at the playlist files.  The new ones are correct.  Too cool.  I can convert them straight from itunes now.