m3u playlist generation

[antimattr]

this is a repost from elsewhere in the forum. is there a better way?:

a little further explanation...which may help someone, or may not.

i base this on the way i'm doing things...which is thus: i have a directory on my pc with all my music, it is called C:\music. I copy this entire folder over to my unit (m3) and drop it in the root directory. i rename it MUSIC instead of music, because it matches with the other folders, and i'm slightly unhinged (obsessive compulsive).

i don't index my portable player files with winamp, i only have the media library search C:\music (this is found in winamp preferences, and you can also specify the rescan behaviour, i do it manually becuase i only add music when i buy and rip a cd).

i make a playlist with winamp. for example:

1. open winamp
2. open media library component (alt+l)
3. on left navigation pane, select 'local media' -> 'audio'
4. in the search field, type "love"
5. select all the tracks that appear in the bottom "results" pane by selecting one and then pressing ctrl+a, or just pick and choose, or refine your search, or organize them by year, or track length, or manually as you see fit -- this is the point where you do what you want
6. right click on the selected tracks and say 'send to' -> 'new playlist'
7. name it ("love" for my example)
8. now, in media library, in the navigation pane on the left, go to 'playlists' -> 'love' (or whatever you named the playlist in question)
9. at the bottom, click on 'manage playlist' -> 'export playlist...'
10. save playlist as love.m3u in the playlist directory of your device
11. now open the m3u file with a text editor...you will get something like this:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:243,Blackalicious - purest love
C:\music\Blackalicious\2002 - Blazing arrow\15 - Blackalicious - purest love.mp3
#EXTINF:150,Bruce Cockburn - Love Song
C:\music\Bruce Cockburn\1971 - High Winds White Sky\03 - Bruce Cockburn - Love Song.ogg
#EXTINF:282,Bruce Cockburn - A Long-Time-Love Song

C:\music\Bruce Cockburn\1975 - Joy Will Find a Way\08 - Bruce Cockburn - A Long-Time-Love Song.ogg

now, you need to make the entries point to the locations of the files on your player, not your pc. so you need to do a "replace all" and get rid of the C:\music\ thing that doesn't exist on your player. namely, in my case, i will replace C:\music\ with ..\MUSIC\.

the ..\ moves up one level and gets us out of the iaudio device "playlist" folder, then music\ puts us in the right folder on the device. this will be different depending on how you organize your music, so "replace all" according to your particular situation. the point is that you need to get rid of the local file reference and have it reference from the location of the playlist file on the device, which is PLAYLIST\

modified example:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:243,Blackalicious - purest love
..\MUSIC\Blackalicious\2002 - Blazing arrow\15 - Blackalicious - purest love.mp3
#EXTINF:150,Bruce Cockburn - Love Song
..\MUSIC\Bruce Cockburn\1971 - High Winds White Sky\03 - Bruce Cockburn - Love Song.ogg

ok, hopefully that makes some sense.