Sharing music playlists

[audiozorro]

What's the best way to share playlists between different player software?

 

For instance:

 

1. The playlist file extension for iTunes and MediaMonkey is .m3u

2. The playlist file extension for XXHighEnd is .PLXX

3. The cue sheet (playlist) file extension for cPlay is .cue

 

With the exception of iTunes, sharing one music library between different player software is very easy, but sharing the playlists may be more difficult than just changing the file extensions to match the above.

 

Thus if one were to copy a master playlist into 4 different folder directories for each of the 4 players mentioned above, what changes to each playlist file would be necessary for player compatibility? Is there a program or easily created routine that would accomplish this? Or is the recommend solution just to create new playlists in each of the 4 software players?

 

 

 

[PeterSt]

What I would try to do :

 

Load the playlist concerned in the "old" player's playlist area, and next drag the whole list onto the "new" player's playlist area. Next, save it as a playlist there.

 

Further, I guess it is about wanting to support the other playlists. So, I think it wouldn't be all that hard if e.g. I (XX) just supported .m3u.

Btw, note that .cue is a not so good example, because -although its origin may come from playlists as such- it is not used like that. It is used to store complete album files, the .cue sheet denoting which tracks are in there.

Only in cPlay it is used like that. So (off topic I guess), you could try to dump a large WAV from cPlay onto XX's playlist area, and if the .cue is in the same folder as the .wav, it will work. Or just select the .wav otherwise. But this is just because XX supports Cue Files.

 

 

[PeterSt]

I hope I can explain it;

 

First keep in mind : The cue sheets as how they are normally used these days, look similar to your example, but they will be from one album only, and the 00:00:00 shown at each track of yours, will increase throughout the tracks, indicating the starting position (by means of a time offset) of each track, within the one large (wav or flac etc.) file.

Sidenote : they just can be of 10 etc. albums (and the large wav etc. then being 6GB or so), but the principle is the same : we have one large file, and the cue sheet denotes which tracks are in there, and where they (time offset) start within that large file.

 

Also note (but I am not 100% sure) that cPlay was originally made for just that : create one large file of everything you want to play, meaning that various tracks of different albums end up in the "one large wav", the cue sheet denoting what is where. Maybe cPlay can't use that information as such, except for indicating what plays when (the whole file always being playing from the beginning to where you want to stop.

 

In XXHighEnd it kind of works the other way around and it anticipates more on the downloads from nowadays : there is the large wav file, open that in the playlist area, and by means of the cue sheet the individual tracks are shown, and now you can play the album, or a selection of it. You may throw out a couple of tracks from the playlist area, and do that - or select what to play really doesn't differ.

One thing is important here : you select the wav and not the cue (although selecting the cue will also work). The point is though, at selecting either, the player has to know what belongs to what, and this is done by name. This means that the name of the .wav has to be the same as the name of the .cue, like

 

M:OneElla FitzgeraldThe Best of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong.wav

M:OneElla FitzgeraldThe Best of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong.cue

 

Now compare this with the cue sheet from your post, and you'll see that at your side things have been registered at the track level to begin with. You could say "why not", and while each entry also holds the file name, each track starts at 00:00:00.

 

Here is an example of how I think it is meant to be :

 

PERFORMER "DJ ILP"

TITLE "lost days liquid mix 2006-09-10"

FILE "lost days liquid mix 2006-09-10.mp3" MP3

TRACK 01 AUDIO

TITLE "Wicked Ways"

PERFORMER "Brooklyn and Bachelors of Science"

INDEX 00 00:00:00

TRACK 02 AUDIO

TITLE "Providence"

PERFORMER "D Bridge vs Commix"

INDEX 00 03:17:06

TRACK 03 AUDIO

TITLE "True Lies"

PERFORMER "Kleer"

INDEX 00 05:51:08

TRACK 04 AUDIO

TITLE "Jacuzzi 9mm"

PERFORMER "Kubiks and Lomax"

INDEX 00 09:58:10

TRACK 05 AUDIO

TITLE "Inside Heart"

PERFORMER "Blame"

INDEX 00 13:16:09

TRACK 06 AUDIO

TITLE "No One Knows"

PERFORMER "Electrosoul System"

INDEX 00 16:56:02

TRACK 07 AUDIO

TITLE "No Time 2 Love"

PERFORMER "DJ Marky, Bungle"

INDEX 00 21:41:05

TRACK 08 AUDIO

TITLE "Sunday Morning"

PERFORMER "D Kay"

INDEX 00 25:42:12

TRACK 09 AUDIO

TITLE "Silicon Mistress"

PERFORMER "Q Project"

INDEX 00 30:06:07

TRACK 10 AUDIO

TITLE "My Feeling"

PERFORMER "Mutated Forms"

INDEX 00 34:32:14

TRACK 11 AUDIO

TITLE "True Stories"

PERFORMER "Calibre"

INDEX 00 39:18:09

TRACK 12 AUDIO

TITLE "Reunions"

PERFORMER "A Sides"

INDEX 00 42:47:06

TRACK 13 AUDIO

TITLE "Ruff Dub (ft. Rohan)"

PERFORMER "Breakage"

INDEX 00 47:11:01

TRACK 14 AUDIO

TITLE "Odessa"

PERFORMER "D Bridge vs Artificial Intelligence"

INDEX 00 51:56:10

TRACK 15 AUDIO

TITLE "Desert Island"

PERFORMER "Brookes Brothers"

INDEX 00 54:52:07

TRACK 16 AUDIO

TITLE "In the Groove"

PERFORMER "Young Ax"

INDEX 00 59:16:03

TRACK 17 AUDIO

TITLE "It's a Jazz Thing (Utah Jazz remix)"

PERFORMER "Roni Size and DJ Die"

INDEX 00 63:17:12

TRACK 18 AUDIO

TITLE "Make It Happen"

PERFORMER "Submorphics"

INDEX 00 67:14:02

TRACK 19 AUDIO

TITLE "Listen Up"

PERFORMER "Young Ax"

INDEX 00 71:26:08

 

See the difference ?

Again, assuming that cPlay was every made for just this (and stuff in that lareg file what you want) by now this has been "tweaked" to let load cPlay individual files (gapless may be lost for a normal album), and now you all call that a playlist. And I repeat : "cue sheets" will imply exactly the same, but they are not used like that.

 

Hoping I am not making it too difficult, you can try to look at it in an "IT" fashion :

If cue files are used like I think they should, one file out of a "cue file album" can be part of a playlist. So, the "playlist" is just another dimension. In XXHighEnd a playlist entry would look something like

 

"08 Summertime.wav" from "M:OneElla FitzgeraldThe Best of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong.wav"

 

and when this track must play, it is drawn from the large wav the album is in, and it again knows where it is by means of the withgoing .cue file (which must be in the same folder as the large wav).

If you now again look at your example, something doesn't fit. Why ? because there is no provision for the track length. In your case this is no problem, because each track ends at its physical length (they are individual small wav files). But what if you'd have the "nowadays normal" large wav files ? You would still be able to denote the (large) file, you would still be able to indicate the starting offset, but you would lack the ending offset (hence track length). Not so with the large wav, because the cue sheet for that will imply the end of a track by means of the start of the next one ...

 

Disclaimer : It might be so that in Cue Land official provisions exist for denoting the end offsets (hence, the fact that I never saw them, may say not much).

 

So, moral of the above : when using cue sheets for playlists, you'll be missing a dimension : using "normal" cue files, and you'd always have to split them first.

 

Now, you could appreciate all of the above as a very long way to explain you can't do what you want in XXHighEnd, but I though it would be nice to eleborate a bit.

Also notice that it would be fair to say that XXHighEnd should support the FILE tags in the middle like from your example, but then the .cue would really and indeed be used as a playlist, which would violate the playlist mechanism which stands by itself. It would be the one (normal playlist) or the other (cue mechanism), and with "the other" less is possible as explained.

 

Is this something for a reply ?

:-)

Peter

 

 

[audiozorro]

From the little and recent knowledge I have of cue sheets what you describe is indicative of the way EAC generates cue files. That is a start time for each track and perhaps an end time for each track, which is necessary when creating one large audio file of several tracks. This IMO is fine when you are ripping one album or if the program used to create the cue sheets makes the time corrections for multiple albums into one cue file, otherwise you would have to edit the start times manually to adjust for the relative track starts.

 

Perhaps there are some people who create one large WAV or FLAC file of various tracks of different albums or the same album but that IMO leads unnecessary complications and the possibilities that the start and end times of each track may be off or slightly incorrect. I tried that method using EAC to rip just one album and I noticed that some of my album tracks were starting late or ending early. This to me was nonsense.

 

With the cue files generated by cPlayList Editor all the cue sheet need do is point to where the track is located on your drive or network. The time is irrelevant unless you have some desire to cut off the beginning or end of a track. The name of the cue file is irrelevant but obviously the name of the track is very relevant. Thus a cue file of the PeterSt jazz favorites today could simply be named PeterSt Jazz Favorites 080309.cue.

 

The cue sheet example you provided will work for one large combined WAV or FLAC file but that again increases the complexity, reduces the flexibility and allows for time errors. I prefer to keep my music library perhaps over several different drives but always organized with individual tracks (and album art) under the associated album folder, which is a subdirectory of the associated artist folder.

 

Perhaps I need to study the XXHighEnd playlist structure to see what is necessary for conversion. I believe that almost anything a person can manually do to manipulate data can be automatically programmed into a computer software program. IMO we are basically talking about processing text files so it should not be difficult. But if the start times, track lengths or any other data is necessary for the XXHighEnd playlist, then this would be impossible or would require additional human effort, which is impractical. The only data of importance in the cue files generated by cPlayList Editor is the title of the track, the location of the track on the computer or network and perhaps the number of the track in the cue file. I will let you know what I find next weekend.

 

 

[PeterSt]

AudioZorro,

 

The last thing I will do is say that you are wrong. The point is though, that reality is a little bit violated by what you want or use. But I guess you just don't know that (yet). 95% of downloads come as that one large file, and a cue sheet is accompanied with it. Don't ask me why, but this is practice.

 

With the timing errors you are theoretically right. In practice though, this doesn't occur, or not that I ever noticed (note though that the resolution of samples is higher than the resolution of the 1/100 second !).

 

More complex ? YES. I guess I spend half of the development time on stupid cue file complexities, and I wish it had never been discovered (and don't forget the relation to memory playback *and* these (too) large files).

 

Hey, it is no nig deal at all to make a conversion for you. The only thing is that I need twice the time I have in general.

I'll have a glimps at it.

 

[audiozorro]

"Further, I guess it is about wanting to support the other playlists. So, I think it wouldn't be all that hard if e.g. I (XX) just supported .m3u."

 

Obviously I don't speak for everyone, but I have no interest in the m3u playlists.

 

I just took a look at the playlists in iTunes and MediaMonkey. First of all, I looked all over for the playlist files on my hard drive until I realized that the playlists are internal to the programs and need to be exported if you want to do something outside of the program.

 

What a pain. At least in XXHighEnd and cPlay the playlists and cue sheets are standalone files that do not need to be exported or imported. I guess it is similar to looking for the album cover art in XXHighEnd - the artwork is in the album folder and can easily be copied or edited outside of XXHighEnd. Whereas the same is true for MediaMonkey, the album artwork can be a real pain in iTunes.

 

Anyway I looked at the exported playlists from MediaMonkey and iTunes and all I can say is what a mess. There is no comparison to the logical and well organized cue file sample that I posted earlier. I guess if you have some program that does all the importing, exporting or manipulating and hides the mess, then no problem. Whereas I could create a cue file from scratch without using cPlayList Editor, I wouldn't even try to create an iTunes or MediaMonkey playlist without using the programs.