Music Playlists - Where Stored? How To Convert?

geogecko · #1 11-07-2005, 05:03 PM

Now that the My Music section of SageTV is coming around to offer some good features, I've started using it. I only have one problem.

I like the iTunes feature of "Smart Playlists," so what I'm wondering, is where the playlist files are stored in SageTV?

I can export a playlist out of iTunes in ether a .TXT file, or a .XML file. I'm guessing, that the easiest thing for me to do, would be to create an Excel spreadsheet, with some macros in it, that would convert the .TXT file output from iTunes, and put it in the format needed for SageTV.

This would allow me an easy way to keep my playlists up to date as I add music, without having to remember to add the songs to the playlists.

Or, if you guys at Sage aren't too busy now that V4 is out, how about adding a "Smart Playlist" feature?

geogecko · #2 11-07-2005, 06:39 PM

Hmm...meant for this to be in the General Discussion section, not sure how I got it in here...sorry 'bout that.

geogecko · #3 11-09-2005, 03:01 PM

Bump. Anyone? Opus? I created a playlist inside of SageTV, and then tried to search for a file with the name of the playlist, and nothing was found. Is it stored in some configuration file somewhere?

Opus4 · #4 11-09-2005, 03:16 PM

Like most such things (favorites, show info, etc.), playlists are stored in wiz.bin & that is not user-editable. The v4 manual lists some types of playlists that SageTV can import, so you may want to see which ones those are.

- Andy

geogecko · #5 11-09-2005, 06:48 PM

Hmm...

Well, after some searching around, I found this little gem.

http://chimpen.com/things/archives/001191.php

You can download a program called SonglistToM3U, which will convert an exported TXT playlist from iTunes, into an M3U based playlist.

Now, I tried going through all the menus in the Music section, for the life of me, cannot figure out how to import the M3U files...

Could be the STV I'm using doesn't have the menu item (SageMC 16x9)...

Thanks for the help, Andy.

geogecko · #6 11-09-2005, 09:10 PM

The manual keeps saying you can import the M3U files, but I see no where to do it. I've put the M3U files in my music import folder, and done a refresh, but nothing???

Opus4 · #7 11-09-2005, 09:22 PM

Is that file type listed for the seeker/playlist_import_filename_extensions property in sage.properties? I have never tried it, so I don't know what all rules apply.

There is no button to select to say 'import playlists'... they would just get imported when the library dirs are scanned again. Did you place the playlists in a music lib import dir?

- Andy

geogecko · #8 11-09-2005, 09:51 PM

This is what I have:

seeker/playlist_import_filename_extensions=.m3u,.asx,.wax,.wvx,.wpl

Also, I did place the files in a music import directory, and did a refresh, but still don't see them listed...

Opus4 · #9 11-10-2005, 10:27 AM

I found out a little more about importing playlists... make sure there are no invalid entries in the m3u playlist, since if there are any entries that can't be used, the entire playist will be skipped.

Also, try restarting SageTV -- there might be an issue where it has to restart to get the playlist imported.

- Andy

geogecko · #10 11-10-2005, 10:48 AM

I tried restarting SageTV, even rebooting the computer.

I will have to check out the playlist files though, to be sure they have valid enteries. I may just go into iTunes, and create a playlist that has only one song, to see if that works, when converted.

Thanks for looking into this...maybe it's the conversion process.

teknubic · #11 11-10-2005, 11:40 AM

I would think Sage wouldn't find the tracks if they're not where the playlist says they are from Sage's POV.
Example:
If iTunes sees the location as D:\Music\Tosca\Suzuki\02-Tosca-Suzuki.mp3
And Sage sees the location as \\Server\Music\Tosca\Suzuki\02-Tosca-Suzuki.mp3
It may disregard the playlist. You can edit the playlist in wordpad to do a find and replace to make it like Sage wants it.

geogecko · #12 11-10-2005, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teknubic

I would think Sage wouldn't find the tracks if they're not where the playlist says they are from Sage's POV.
Example:
If iTunes sees the location as D:\Music\Tosca\Suzuki\02-Tosca-Suzuki.mp3
And Sage sees the location as \\Server\Music\Tosca\Suzuki\02-Tosca-Suzuki.mp3
It may disregard the playlist. You can edit the playlist in wordpad to do a find and replace to make it like Sage wants it.

Crap. I didn't know that a playlist file contains file locations. I figured it just used file names or ID3 tags or something. That would certainly explain my problem, especially since iTunes is on another computer, and my music is on the Sage machine!

Guess I'll have to check into that. Thanks for pointing that out...

teknubic · #13 11-10-2005, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by geogecko

Crap. I didn't know that a playlist file contains file locations. I figured it just used file names or ID3 tags or something. That would certainly explain my problem, especially since iTunes is on another computer, and my music is on the Sage machine!

Guess I'll have to check into that. Thanks for pointing that out...

Oh, heck -- I don't really know -- I was just taking a stab in the dark. If it works, I'll take the credit and make like I was serious.

geogecko · #14 11-10-2005, 07:28 PM

Believe it or not, that was the problem.

I changed all the network paths to local paths on the HTPC, and that solved the problem. I just did a "replace all" after a search.

That only brought one of my three playlists over though. Make sure you don't put any radio streams into your Library inside of iTunes. That one link messed the playlist up, which is why it wasn't seen by SageTV. Once I took out my one radio link in the playlist out, the showed up.

Thanks for all the help. Hopefully this has helped others as well. Sure is a neat and easy way to get "Smart Playlists" into SageTV!

geogecko · #15 11-11-2005, 07:52 AM

Well, actually, I've still only been able to get one playlist to show up. Not sure why.

I took the radio link out of the other two, but that didn't work. Maybe there is a count of the elements inside of a playlist (that I need to decrement by one)? I may just re-export the playlists in iTunes, now that I deleted the radio link in the library.

dlevey · #16 11-22-2011, 10:04 AM

How can I get a playlist out of Sage 7? I upgraded to WHS2011, and had to reinstall sage (since WHS2011 is 64 bit, WHS V1 was 32 bit - no upgrading possible).

I want to get all the playlists from the old install to the new one.

The good news is Sagetv seems much more stable and snappy on WHS2011.

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