Bolero playlist

[Sanqhar]

I have created a .m3u playlist on the SD card in my Yeti's Bolero radio.

The playlist shows up as do all the songs in it (as .mp3) however they won't play.

Any ideas?

tom

[john999boy]

I have created a .m3u playlist on the SD card in my Yeti's Bolero radio.

The playlist shows up as do all the songs in it (as .mp3) however they won't play.

Any ideas?

tom

All a playlist does is show the path and the song to play. So for example, if you have been following this thread about how to speed up the Bolero by only using playlists then you could have one file with this text inside:-

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\Scooter - Sheffield\01 MC's Missing.mp3

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\Scooter - Sheffield\02 Don't Gimme The Funk.mp3

This is 2 tracks from an album called Sheffield by a group called Scooter (pretty easy so far eh).

It is actually a little bit more precise though as the first track is called 01 MC's Missing.mp3 and the second track is called 02 Don't Gimme The Funk.mp3 and they are both in a parent folder called Scooter - Sheffield. If it had been Scooter Sheffield\01 MC's Missing.mp3 then it wouldn't work due to not being the exact path.

You will also notice that the album name - Scooter - Sheffield - is nested 9 folders from the root directory. This is to prevent the Bolero seeing it when it reads the SD card and is most important.

So in this example all you need in the root directory is a playlist (for ease of naming) called:- Scooter-Sheffield.m3u. Note it does have a different spelling to the album but could just as easily be called Scoo-Shef.m3u or anything else as long as you try and keep all the group + album naming similar for your own piece of mind.

However there is one more thing that must be done to ensure a trouble free time. You must have at least one mp3 file also in the root directory. This will be the default track that gets played when the card gets inserted into the Bolero.

So the scenario now is that you insert your SD card and it plays the default track. You then can navigate very quickly back up to the root directory where you have put any other m3u files to select from.

There you have it; until Skoda resolves the firmware problem, this is the speediest way to navigate the Bolero.

[Sanqhar]

All a playlist does is show the path and the song to play. So for example, if you have been following this thread about how to speed up the Bolero by only using playlists then you could have one file with this text inside:-

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\Scooter - Sheffield\01 MC's Missing.mp3

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\Scooter - Sheffield\02 Don't Gimme The Funk.mp3

This is 2 tracks from an album called Sheffield by a group called Scooter (pretty easy so far eh).

It is actually a little bit more precise though as the first track is called 01 MC's Missing.mp3 and the second track is called 02 Don't Gimme The Funk.mp3 and they are both in a parent folder called Scooter - Sheffield. If it had been Scooter Sheffield\01 MC's Missing.mp3 then it wouldn't work due to not being the exact path.

You will also notice that the album name - Scooter - Sheffield - is nested 9 folders from the root directory. This is to prevent the Bolero seeing it when it reads the SD card and is most important.

So in this example all you need in the root directory is a playlist (for ease of naming) called:- Scooter-Sheffield.m3u. Note it does have a different spelling to the album but could just as easily be called Scoo-Shef.m3u or anything else as long as you try and keep all the group + album naming similar for your own piece of mind.

However there is one more thing that must be done to ensure a trouble free time. You must have at least one mp3 file also in the root directory. This will be the default track that gets played when the card gets inserted into the Bolero.

So the scenario now is that you insert your SD card and it plays the default track. You then can navigate very quickly back up to the root directory where you have put any other m3u files to select from.

There you have it; until Skoda resolves the firmware problem, this is the speediest way to navigate the Bolero.

Thanks john999boy

My problem is that there is little point in speeding up the Bolero/SD card when speed is not my immediate problem. My problem is that the playlist is there, it lists all the songs in it but it just won't play them. If there was something wrong with the path then presumably it wouldn't show the track name (please correct me if this is a false statement). It shows the track name as an .mp3 file but just won't play it/them.

Thanks again, my understanding has increased because of your post but I can't see how it helps my problem.

tom

[john999boy]

The playlist that you've created is just a text file and not something that changes depending upon what mp3 files you add. The path and name must be exact or it won't recognise any of the tracks.

[InexEng]

2 things :-

check which way the slashes ( \ ) go should be as John has listed it - I think in the other post they were the other way

I foung it easier to make playlists using windows media player - then "save now playing list as a 3mu" then just edit them a little using notepad

HTH

[Sanqhar]

Hi all

I think I have found the problem. The songs do not play from the playlist on the SD card because the paths for the songs on the card all point to the C: drive .mp3 files on my computer. I presume need to create the playlist where the file paths on the card playlist point to the .mp3s on the SD card.

I have tried this:

Connect SD Card

Open Windows Media Player

Double click on "Music Card"

From the File menu click on Create Playlist

Name Playlist

I get lost from here. I can't seem to get a list of all the files on the card in the left hand pane (other than a Sync List) in order to be able to drag them to the right hand pane to create the list.

Do I have to create the playlist on the computer with .mp3s pointing to their location on the C: drive and then manually change with Notepad each .mp3 entry to point to the location on the SD card? Then save to the SD card. Seems a lot of hassle.

If there is no easy way to create a playlist on the card then I might just copy each .mp3 into another folder (using up SD card memory) and play them from there. But I don't really want to do this.

any help would be much apreciated

tom

[john999boy]

Use the info in post #5 here and that tell you what to do to give you all the paths etc. I normally 'cd' to the sd card first and that then writes all the songs paths etc to alist.txt.

You will probably need to do a find/replace to remove the initial bit of the path (F:?) etc though

Use notepad and cut/paste each albums info to a new playlist and call it album1.m3u, album2.m3u etc

You'll be amazed how easy it is once you get to grips with it....

[InexEng]

Do I have to create the playlist on the computer with .mp3s pointing to their location on the C: drive and then manually change with Notepad each .mp3 entry to point to the location on the SD card? Then save to the SD card. Seems a lot of hassle.

Almost there on the computer I put all the music into similar folders as suggested on other thread i.e.

C:\my music\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\ALBUM\songs.mp3

so all you have to alter the M3U with notepad is the initial path as John says

eg from this :-

#EXTINF:0,songs.mp3

..\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\ALBUM\songs.mp3

to this :-

#EXTINF:0,Songs.mp3

\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\ALBUM\Songs.mp3

I just removed the 2 dots and then copied m3u to SD card all worked fine ( its worth the hassle IMHO)

HTH

Edited 28 February, 2010 by InexEng

[Sanqhar]

Thanks everyone, couldn't have done it without you.

I compared the file properties on the card of each song against the path in the .m3u file. Then using Notepad got the .m3u paths the same, ditching the F: at the beginning.

Then it all worked.

thanks again.

tom

[ian-inhome]

A free easy program for creating a playlist can be had at

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Other-AUDIO-Tools/Winamp-Playlist-Creator.shtml

[GiannisB]

I think the easiest way to create playlists is the one and only Winamp.

Besides, I found out that Bolero doesn't need "root" paths in playlists as other players need, for example my portable player "Archos 604". I mean one doesn't have to create entries like this " \60s-70s\Rock\Deep Purple\Child in time.mp3 " Just "relative" paths are enough.

So, after you've placed the songs you want in Winamp's playlist window you click "save" and...

1) If the songs in the list happen to be ALL in the same folder you simply point to that folder and the list created there contains just the file names and no other "path" info.

2) If you have selected songs of multiple folders then you point to the upmost "parent" folder (even to the root of your media) and the list created contains the exact path for every song.

Bolero displays the playlists names always on the top. The song names follow.

"Mix" is supported perfectly within the playlist.

The only bug I've found is that many times (not always), when you choose a song while another is playing, a gap follows, the interrupted song is heard again for a fraction of a second and then the next song starts normally. Nothing serious to talk about of course, just to mention.

[InexEng]

Can anyone recommend some good "free" software for Normalising all the mp3 volumes - lots of tracks at once ?

Thanks

[Dodgy]

I think MediaMonkey will normalise volumes.

[jon15]

Could someone please help me to get the iTunes playlist to work in my Bolero?

 

In iTunes on my Mac I have a playlist of cca. 3,200 favorite songs. I exported a .m3u file of this playlist and then added it to my SD card. However, when I tap on the .m3u playlist in Bolero it says "No playable files available".

 

I should add that my entire music collection is on my 256GB SD card and it's sorted mostly by genre folders and then inside these folders there are folders of artist albums and as well some separate folders with just hundreds of random non-album mp3s. I haven't had a problem playing these from my SD card, so I thought that once I added the .m3u file it would index all the songs from the SD card by itself.

 

But then I figured the problem of why the playlist wouldn't work in Bolero may be because the file paths are obviously linked to my Mac. Here are a few examples from my playlist:

 

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:273,Turn Me Up ft. Kendrick Lamar (prod by Tae Beast) - Ab-Soul
/Users/jon15/Musick/RAP Albums/WEST COAST/Ab-Soul - Long Term Vol. 2 (2010)/08. Turn Me Up feat Kendrick Lamar (Prod by Tae Beast).mp3
#EXTINF:274,My Dream Girl (prod by Neffu) - Ab-Soul
/Users/jon15/Musick/RAP Albums/WEST COAST/Ab-Soul - Long Term Vol. 2 (2010)/14. My Dream Girl (Prod by Neffu).mp3
#EXTINF:252,Back in Black - AC/DC
/Users/jon15/Downloads/- NEW albums, mp3s/ACDC-Back in Black   .mp3
#EXTINF:207,Highway To Hell - AC/DC
/Users/jon15/Downloads/- NEW albums, mp3s/The Rolling Stone Magazines 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time/254 - Ac Dc - Highway To Hell.mp3

 

So I've tried several things in trying to get it to work in Bolero, namely:

 

1. removing the whole front path before a song, e.g.

/Users/jon15/Musick/RAP Albums/WEST COAST

Leaving only:

/Ab-Soul - Long Term Vol. 2 (2010)/14. My Dream Girl (Prod by Neffu).mp3

 

2. Trying to add a dot . in front of it:

 

./Ab-Soul - Long Term Vol. 2 (2010)/14. My Dream Girl (Prod by Neffu).mp3

 

3. Trying to reverse the slashes:

 

\Ab-Soul - Long Term Vol. 2 (2010)\14. My Dream Girl (Prod by Neffu).mp3

4. Adding a . in front of it:

 

.\Ab-Soul - Long Term Vol. 2 (2010)\14. My Dream Girl (Prod by Neffu).mp3

 

Nothing seems to work... Please advise what could I do to make it work?

 

(Of course, I could simply drag and drop all the mp3s from the playlist into a separate folder to "emulate" a playlist, but I wouldn't want to sacrifice 20+ GB of my SD card for duplicates of the songs that are already on the SD card as parts of the albums etc. Also, the problem arises when the number of files in a folder exceeds 1,000 and Bolero wouldn't recognize the remaining 2,000 songs, which means I'd have to split it into several folders. So how could I even make Bolero play ONLY the songs from these couple of "playlist" folders as opposed to randomly choosing from the rest of the music SD card anyway?)

 

 

 

Edited 4 August, 2017 by jon15

[jon15]

For those interested, I managed to get it to work thanks to @Paul90!!  

 

I wrote step-by-step instructions below, but to summarize: the path of your mp3s needs to be linked to folders/files on your SD card, and for Mac users like myself the .m3u file should be saved in Windows (CRLF) format, otherwise Bolero (and similar systems) won't recognize it due to some formatting differences between Windows and Mac.

 

1. Create your playlist in iTunes

2. Click on the playlist, go to iTunes "File" and then "Library" and select export in M3U format

3. Open the .m3u file with TextWrangler (free app)

4. You will see something like this (this is just an example of 1 song!):

 

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:273,Shape of You - Ed Sheeran.m4a
/Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Ed Sheeran/Divide/04 Shape of You.m4a

5. Remove everything to the left of the slash "/" before the artist's name, so you end up with something like this:

 

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:273,Shape of You - Ed Sheeran.m4a
/Ed Sheeran/Divide/04 Shape of You.m4a

6. Do this for the rest of the songs in the .m3u file (best to use the "find and replace" option within the app)

7. Once done go to "File" in TextWrangler and then "Save As"

8. Under "Line breaks" choose Windows (CRLF) - this will ensure that the file can get read properly in Bolero!

9. Copy all your music to SD card and make sure the paths match those on the playlist! E.g. in the above example the folder structure is as follows: Artist/Album/Song, so the "Ed Sheeran" folder should be visible right away when you plug SD card into your computer, as it will be on the "root" of the SD card.

 
 

Below I'm quoting some additional explanation from @Paul90:

 

  Quote

Paul90 said:

A full path starts from what they call the "root" of the file system, this just means the highest level you can get to.

So if you plug the SD card into your mac and open it you will see some folders (I guess you've already created some).  These start at the "root" and that's indicated by the first "/".  

A text file (like the .m3u file) contains characters you can see (the text) and ones you can't (called control characters).  These would be used to indicate that the end of a line has been reached, etc.  Whatever you use to display the file interprets these control characters and so does the car when reads the file so it knows how to display it or use it to find the tracks.

Things are different here depending on your operating system.  The car and most other people on the forum are using  a Windows operating system and for them it's simple, what they see on the screen is what the car reads.
This expects a CR (carriage return from the typewriter days) and a LF (line feed).  A Mac these days tends to just use a LF and not a CR.  So you need to insert a CR after each line so the car can read the file.

 

I use a free app called TextWrangler to do this and it will also search and replace the path text as it's just a general text editor.  At the bottom of the screen you can choose how you want the file to be saved.  Just choose "Windows (CRLF)" and it will insert all the control characters for you automatically.  Job done :-)

 

Edited 5 August, 2017 by jon15