Guide for playlists in MSC mode for J3 & S9

[DSperber]

Hard to believe.

You are certain that you're first going through the "safely remove hardware" step before disconnecting the J3, yes?

Almost seems like a problem with Playlist Creator, as that's the only program "touching" the actual source M3U files. Or are you creating them first on your PC and then copying them to the J3? Are you doing any editing whatsoever between the time Playlist Creator actually creates them, and when they finally end up on your J3 as shown in your post?

Just for an experiment, can I ask that you don't use Playlist Creator but rather use Winamp to create two M3U playlists on the J3. Same script as you did above, but this time use Winamp and not Playlist creator. Point to tracks on the J3, create the playlist with Winamp, save that M3U playlist on the J3. And then look at both of them with Notepad. Are they good?

"Safely remove hardware", disconnect.

Now re-boot the J3 (remove external card first, if present), and see what happens. Both M3U playlists work?

Then reconnect the J3, re-examine the M3U playlists, and see if they're still good or if they've been corrupted as you described.

[JMC Creative]

DAPMagic's experience is kind of what happened to me. It seems that the J3 actually changed the encoding or something on the playlist file...

Quite frankly I'm VERY surprised this was built by Playlist Creator, since that is not standard Windows syntax. Certainly this would NOT be created by Winamp.

Mystified how this got created... but it's obviously wrong.

Playlist Creator has an option to replace \ with / and I selected that as I was trying everything possible. So, just for posterity, DO NOT SELECT that option!

[DAPmagic]

Okay. I created two playlists in Winamp. I opened them in Notepad and they looked fine.

However, installed on my player, both playlists show up with .m3u file extensions. So of course, they won't play.

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by DAPmagic

Okay. I created two playlists in Winamp. I opened them in Notepad and they looked fine.

However, installed on my player, both playlists show up with .m3u file extensions. So of course, they won't play.

I'm baffled.

J3 is in MSC mode. Currently disconnected from PC and powered off.

You have previously confirmed that you have NO OTHER M3U PLAYLISTS ANYWHERE ON YOUR J3. You remove the microSDHC card (if any) and re-boot the J3, to ensure that any previously cached M3U experiments are deleted. You then connect the J3 to the PC (while it's still currently powered on, but I don't really think that matters at all in MSC mode and it can be connected even when powered off and still both internal and external storage, if any, will receive Windows drive letters correctly).

You're then using Winamp to (a) point to music files somewhere on the J3's internal storage (either opening them using the main Winamp Player window or "add files" from the Playlist Editor window, either method will result in those selected tracks showing automatically in the Playlist Editor window), (b) use the File->Save Playlist function from the Playlist Editor window, and (c) navigate to save the playlist into \Playlists on the J3.

Then you "safely remove hardware", disconnect the J3 from PC, and re-boot the J3. You should see the [check albums] function occur, which I believe is when the playlist detect/analysis/cache process takes place.


Is it the same story as before... when you put only one at a time into \Playlists of the J3 then that playlist is analyzed correctly and appears in [Playlists] without its .M3U extension... and works fine? With either playlist, but one at a time?

But then when you put BOTH of them on the J3 together, it's that some kind of corruption to the actual M3U files themselves occurs? If so, WHEN is that corruption occurring? By implication, they both look good when Winamp saves them both and you check them both with Notepad. So it must be after you re-boot the J3 that something at [check albums] time is actually corrupting them.

Have you tried working up to the two playlists on the J3 "serially"? In other words, add just one at first, disconnect and re-boot, and confirm that everything is fine. Then reconnect, add the second playlist, disconnect and re-boot, and see what it looks like? Then reconnect and look at both M3U files, and see if they're now corrupted or still intact as originally saved?


Sure seems hard to understand what's at work here.

I've had no problem myself experimenting with two M3U playlist files at one time. In fact, I even created one first and confirmed that it worked, and then repeated the entire procedure for a second playlist and confirmed that BOTH of the playlists worked (and of course, both showed up in \Playlists without the .M3U extension).

Don't know what to suggest next to try.

[DAPmagic]

Looks like I finally have two working playlists now. (The Notepad trick is really helpful!)

I created them using Winamp. And I made sure to remove my microSDHC card.

Thanks again, DSperber.

[orionph05]

I read all posts of Franki and DSperber and I was successfull in creating playlists using Playlist Creator In MSC Mode as follows - a)-Have all songs in different folders and these folders are in one location say ALBUM b)-Changed settings in Playlist Creator as follows , save playlists as 1- Absolute e.g C:\\Music & 2- Use forward slashes c)-Name and Type - XXXX.m3u d)-Save Location – H / Albums and click Create Playlist and it works, I created 4 playlist , all work. If I have songs or folders under Music instead of album and try to create playlist using above settings it does'nt work , If I change the settings of Save Location – H / Albums to H / Music ,it works. So all playlist appear irrespective if the songs are under music or album except you have to point the -Save Location to that folder where songs are placed. Franki and DSperber correct me if I have made any mistake

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by orionph05

I read all posts of Franki and DSperber and I was successfull in creating playlists using Playlist Creator In MSC Mode as follows - a)-Have all songs in different folders and these folders are in one location say ALBUM b)-Changed settings in Playlist Creator as follows , save playlists as 1- Absolute e.g C:\\Music & 2- Use forward slashes c)-Name and Type - XXXX.m3u d)-Save Location – H / Albums and click Create Playlist and it works, I created 4 playlist , all work. If I have songs or folders under Music instead of album and try to create playlist using above settings it does'nt work , If I change the settings of Save Location – H / Albums to H / Music ,it works. So all playlist appear irrespective if the songs are under music or album except you have to point the -Save Location to that folder where songs are placed. Franki and DSperber correct me if I have made any mistake

Well, I have to disagree with you on some of the points you're making.

(a) It is NOT necessary to create \Albums and store your music under it. Storing your music under the standard \Music folder works perfectly fine with M3U playlists.

(b) It is NOT necessary to store the M3U playlist into the very folder in which the songs live. If that were true, then how could you create an M3U playlist referencing tracks in more than one folder?

In fact, you can save your M3U playlists anywhere... within the \Playlists folder seeming to be the most likely common-sense location.

(c) It is NOT necessary to only use Playlist Creator as your tool. In fact, MANY programs work just fine.

(d) The format and syntax within the M3U playlist itself does NOT have to be "absolute" (including the Windows-known drive letter of the J3's internal storage, which at the moment is the only place the music files can be referenced from).

In fact, there are THREE known formats (either "absolute" or "relative") which work. And if you use a program like Winamp to build your M3U playlists, it is smart enough to know exactly where the referenced tracks are located... in what folder structure... as well as where the M3U playlist itself is being stored (e.g. in \Playlists\playlistname.m3u). Thus any "relative" references will be perfectly usable by both Windows, Winamp, and the J3.

In fact, Winamp will build an M3U playlist whose track references can very likely be a mix of both "absolute" and "relative", depending on where the referenced tracks live as well as where you save the M3U playlist file itself. But however it looks... the Winamp-created M3U playlist works perfectly, no matter where the files are and where the playlist gets saved.


The magic key to M3U success currently (at least unless and until Cowon fixes this in firmware) seems to be to be sure and remove your external microSDHC card before that first J3 re-boot following your creation of your new M3U playlists. This will trigger first-time analysis and cache functions, which appear crucial to proper M3U understanding and future usage by the J3.

Once the boot-time processing of the new M3U playlists is complete, you can power off and reinsert the card, and then power on again, and you will still have the M3U playlists that got "analyzed and cached" at that crucial first re-boot. And you will also have the full storage capacity of the J3 restored.

Also, you DO need to have standard Windows back-slash syntax in your track references, not forward-slash syntax.

------------------------------------------------------

(1) Produced by Cowon's JetAudio program: [works on the J3]

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:255,Desperado
W:\Music\Eagles, The\Hell Freezes Over\Desperado.mp3
#EXTINF:432,Hotel California
W:\Music\Eagles, The\Hell Freezes Over\Hotel California.mp3


(2) Produced by Winamp: [works on the J3]

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:255,Eagles, The - Desperado
\Music\Eagles, The\Hell Freezes Over\Desperado.mp3
#EXTINF:432,Eagles, The - Hotel California
\Music\Eagles, The\Hell Freezes Over\Hotel California.mp3


(3) Produced by Playlist Creator: [works on the J3]

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:255,Hell Freezes Over - 15 - Desperado
..\Music\Eagles, The\Hell Freezes Over\Desperado.mp3
#EXTINF:432,Hell Freezes Over - 6 - Hotel California
..\Music\Eagles, The\Hell Freezes Over\Hotel California.mp3

[orionph05]

Originally Posted by DSperber

Well, I have to disagree with you on some of the points you're making.

(a) It is NOT necessary to create \Albums and store your music under it. Storing your music under the standard \Music folder works perfectly fine with M3U playlists.

You are right , I corrected this.
I was able to reference songs from different folders.
It was a pain as I tried all combinations using media monkey , Found Playlist Creator as a good way , will try winamps soon, and also your suggestion of format and syntax while creating M3U playlist .
Is it easier to make playlist with winamps as compared to others like Jetaudio which I have never tried using MSC format.

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by orionph05

Is it easier to make playlist with Winamp as compared to others like Jetaudio

Of the various MSC Playlist Creator tools I have played with, in my opinion absolutely NONE is easier to work with than Winamp. It is essentially as simple as "hey, you've currently got the following tracks added to your Player window and playing... and these same tracks are simultaneously being added to your Playlist Editor window. You want to make an M3U playlist out of them now? File->Save Playlist."

It's essentially that simple, although the Playlist Editor window itself can be worked in independently of the Player window, and there are some further capabilities to do other things before File->Save Playlist. But essentially that's it.

And the rest is up to Winamp, figuring out where each of the tracks came from (including from multiple different source folders) and where you've told it to save the M3U playlist file, thereby deciding the exact format and syntax of each track's reference.

The final result once saved will be directly usable in the future by both Winamp (for playing those tracks under Windows, using the M3U playlist) just as if it were a single music file (i.e. you access it by Play -> file...) as well as by the J3!


I'd never used Playlist Creator before, but it was ok... after getting used to its interface.

As far as Cowon's JetAudio player/creator, well to be honest I still am NOT COMFORTABLE at all with this inscrutable multi-window and non-intuitive user interface. I don't know what I'm looking at, or which of the multiple open windows I should be in at any moment in order to accomplish whatever I want to accomplish. And if I RMB I expect the context menu to be what I would expect given where I was when I did the RMB. And yet... the resulting menu is never what I expect and I can never seem to locate secondary functions off of those popup menus that are ever what I really want. Personally I would give this product a D- score.

I still MUCH prefer to use Winamp for anything and everything (including ID3 tag browser/editor "on the fly" for individual files) because it is my very music player and it's when deciding what to play that I also decide whether I'd like to save that collection of tracks as some "playlist" (including in Winamp's "Music Library" by name that can be recalled and replayed in the future). Its interface (not to mention its audio capabilities and performance) is simply superb, reflecting over 13 years of evolution and improvement. And even though it, too, has multiple open windows they are all remarkably small (e.g. in "Winamp Modern") and cleverly designed so that you can actually see and work with them all at once.

Yes, for "mass ID3 tagging/editing" I use several other tools. But for music playing, and playlist maintainence, I see no reason to stray from Winamp.

Just my 2 cents.

[soyboy]

Dsperber is right.
Load files from the player into Winamp, create playlist. Done. The M3U shows up in "playlists" folder and works fine. Easy-peezy lemon-squeezy.

Brief note: I have the latest firmware 2.22 installed. If you're having problems, make sure you've got that one because it might've addressed these issues.

Happy playlisting!

[Murre]

OK i've been working with this for about 3hours now and i can't get it too work. I'm using a Cowon S9 with firmware 4.41 cowon DMB thing for norwegian player. Dunno if this could cause problems. Ive been trying with mediamonkey playlist creator and winamp.

With winamp the M3u file looks like this.

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:360,Angello, Ingrosso, Axwell & Laidback - Leave The World Behind (Petros T. Remix)
\Music\House-electro-whatever\VA-Electro.Summer.2010.vol.4.2010.MP3-VoXMUSiC\Angello, Ingrosso, Axwell & Laidback - Leave The World Behind (Petros T. Remix).mp3
#EXTINF:196,David Guetta- Love Don't Let Me Go (Tom D-Light Remix)
\Music\House-electro-whatever\VA-Electro.Summer.2010.vol.4.2010.MP3-VoXMUSiC\David Guetta- Love Don't Let Me Go (Tom D-Light Remix).mp3
#EXTINF:287,Deadmau5 Feat. Kaskade - Move For Me (Disco Reason Remix)
\Music\House-electro-whatever\VA-Electro.Summer.2010.vol.4.2010.MP3-VoXMUSiC\Deadmau5 Feat. Kaskade - Move For Me (Disco Reason Remix).mp3

The Playlistcreator file looks like this.

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:227,Full Metal Alchemist - 4 - Rewrite
J:\Music\Alternative rock\Asian Kung-Fu Generation\Fullmetal Alchemist\Rewrite.mp3
#EXTINF:285,Music from the OC: Mix 1 - - Honey and the Moon
J:\Music\Alternative rock\Joseph Arthur\03-joseph_arthur-honey_and_the_moon-fnt.mp3
#EXTINF:519,At Play - 4 - Faxing Berlin
J:\Music\House-electro-whatever\Deadmau5\At Play\04 Faxing Berlin.mp3

The J is ofc the cowon players disk drive not on my actual HDD. So im wondering what can be wrong in this. Its really annoying..... I dont know what to do cuz i really want to use a playlist but cant atm....

Ok so I didt think this would work because i tried updating my firmware with other then norwegian DMB firmware before and didt work but i tried the korean DMB version now and for people who have the same problem as me. Use the korean DMB 3.53 it worked perfectly and playlists works aswell.

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by Murre

Ok so I didt think this would work because i tried updating my firmware with other then norwegian DMB firmware before and didt work but i tried the korean DMB version now and for people who have the same problem as me. Use the korean DMB 3.53 it worked perfectly and playlists works as well.

Just on a flyer...

I believe there is some analysis/cache process that goes on during the first time re-boot after a new or updated M3U playlist is stored on the player (my experience is with the J3 and yours is with the S9, but there may be strong similarities). As has been stated earlier, you can tell that your playlist is going to be "usable" if it displays under [Playlists] without the .M3U extension but rather only shows the playlist name. And of course, further proof that it is "usable" and works fine is that when you then tap on it and try to use it, you actually are presented with the list of tracks referenced by that playlist, instead of "No File".

Again, this describes my J3 experience, which may not be expected to exactly match your S9 experience.

Anyway, once that cache process is performed (and reflected in some \System folder or file) the cached version of the playlist is now "permanently usable", and persists even across something as significant as MSC/MTP state changes!


So, now that you've used the Korean firmware to get your playlists working (and presumably "cached"), why not try reinstalling the Norwegian firmware and see if you can still access these playlists?

Worth a try, anyway.

[M-a-v]

Thanks for the info and program, works perfectly for my new J3

Franki's step 6 ( Choose ‘Absolute (eg. “C:\MyMusic\MySong.mp3”) under ‘Saving playlist entries’.) Makes it work on my setup
(Windows 7 Pro 64bit, J3 in default connection mode (MSC)

Also found out on anythingbutipod.com forum you can do the playlist in JetAudio . here's he steps
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...ad.php?t=56586
Big thanks to user CJ666 for the info
(I've edited the steps for clarity)

1) Open JetAudio then go to the Media Center (ctrl+m)

2) Go to Playlist folder on the left and right mouse click and pick New Playlist > New Playlist. or (ctrl+e)

3) Give it a name and click OK or hit enter.

4) In the new Playlist window right mouse click and pick Add Files > Add Files... (ctrl+i)

5) Pick your files from your Cowon player. (Mines on the I: drive, so I navigated there and to the Music folder to select my files)
(Tip: you can select multiple files while holding the Ctrl key)

6) Sort the files as needed. You can drag them around to create your own sort or use the columns like artist, year, etc...

[Info: now the Playlist is saved in the Media Center library you must export it to an .m3u file so the player can read it]

7) On your new Playlist file right mouse click and pick Export > Export to File...
Select the location for the file (Should be on the player)
Give it a name.
Pick the "Save as type" as M3U file (*.m3u) and click save.

(Tip: your can save the .m3u file on your computer and then copy it over to the player. I do this for backup)
(I like to put all my playlists in the top Music folder. but you can put them anywhere on the player)

8) Safely Remove/Eject the player
Turn it on and go into the Library the to [Playlist] and you'll find your playlist.


Info: you can have multiple playlists on the J3, ( yeesss .. )
once on the player they will show up in the Library's [Playlist] list.

Tip: In the JetAudio Media Center, You can drag and drop files to the play list
Click Show/Hide My Computer (lower)
Navigate to your players folders and drag the files to the playlist in the upper pane.


rgrds.
M-

[DAPmagic]

Originally Posted by M-a-v

Also found out on anythingbutipod.com forum you can do the playlist in JetAudio . here's he steps
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...ad.php?t=56586
M-

In MSC mode?

[M-a-v]

Originally Posted by DAPmagic

In MSC mode?

Yes, mine is in MSC mode.