question re: 720 and music - making a playlist

[stylemaster1]

General question...does anyone know if you can make playlists in the music folder??? Would you create folders inside the music folder, or is there any other way to break down your music rather than having 500 random songs filed and playing randomly? I wanted to break my music down either by genre or decade and thought maybe make seperate folders, but if someone has a better way I would appreciate it.

 

[appledlr]

Playlist on TomTom 720

This worked for me.

Please note, I am an Apple Computer Dealer. This is how I did it on a Macintosh. It will be similar on a PC, however, I do not answer questions about PCs.

This is performed manually from your computer, without using the TomTom software.

1.) Remove the folder named mp3 from the internal memory of the TomTom (This action is optional, however it prevents duplicates)

2. Move all of your .mp3 files from their folders and place them in the root directory of the mp3 folder.

3. Create a folder called __Playlist1 in your mp3 folder. (The folder can be called anything, the underscored force it to the top of the directory.)

4 Holding the option key drag .mp3 files to your new __Playlist1 folder. (This action will leave the files in the root of the mp3 folder and place a copy in your new folder.)

The TomTom indexes music files on startup. There is no file index file stored on either the internal or external memory card.

This method is somewhat crude but it works.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely:

Christopher Rively
President
Mac Rx Inc
Sarasota, FL.
Authorized Apple Dealer Since 1986

 

[Lonnie]

This question has been asked over 10 times in this forum, and I am hoping someone smarter than I will put out a complete answer and make it a "sticky".
I'm stumbling through to find the best procedure myself. From a previous answer in this forum I learned that a playlist in TT has to have the extension of ".pla" - not m3u, etc. However, it is otherwise the same format as an m3u playlist (basically just a text file listing the song information), so you can create an m3u playlist in WinAmp or similar program, change the extension to pla (eg, favorites.pla), and drop it into the mp3 directory in the TT along with your mp3s. When you open the TT mp3 player, the .pla playlist will be the first listing seen under playlists, followed by any folders in the mp3 directory.
But of course it is not that easy. At least it was not for me. I had to first edit the playlist using Notepad (text editor) because WinAmp's playlist was referencing the mp3s in a different folder location. I had placed the actual mp3s and the playlist into the root directory of the TT's mp3 directory, so I just used Find and Replace in Notepad to delete the incorrect directory reference within the playlist.
Works fine, but it was a pain. I know there is a simpler way out there.

 

[JSB]

What I did, and a couple of questions.....

Here's what I did on my 920. Should be the same for the 520/720/920.

I just made folders under my "mp3" folder with the name of the album/artist, and put the associated mp3 files into each folder. I can still play all folders/mp3's together randomly (shuffle mode), even though they are stored in their own folders (playlist). And I can choose a folder from the playlist menu, and it acts as a playlist.

Is there an advantage/disadvantage of doing this vs. using a *.pla file?

The only quirk I see is that each playlist (folder) and mp3 file in any (playlist) folder is not listed in actual correct original recording track sequence order, but instead in alphabetical order. For example: I have ripped many of my own complete CD's to iTunes, and they are stored on my computer/iTunes in AAC form. I then use iTunes to create converted copies of these AAC files to MP3 files, so that I can load them onto my TT920. Anybody have any idea's of how to fix this alphabetical vs. true track list sequence issue? I am getting the MP3 ID3 tags when I convert my iTunes m4a files to mp3. So I don't understand why the CD track sequence order isn't being preserved?
Thanks,
JSB

 

[shed]

This worked for me.

Please note, I am an Apple Computer Dealer. This is how I did it on a Macintosh. It will be similar on a PC, however, I do not answer questions about PCs.


Christopher Rively ( up himself )
President ( in his dreams )
Mac Rx Inc
Sarasota, FL.
Authorized Apple Dealer Since 1986

useful post, i am sure you may need help in the future, i dont help people from sarasota,fl.... really helpful when someone posts negative feedback isnt it, especially with their first post

 

[F22]

Here's what I did on my 920. Should be the same for the 520/720/920.

I just made folders under my "mp3" folder with the name of the album/artist, and put the associated mp3 files into each folder. I can still play all folders/mp3's together randomly (shuffle mode), even though they are stored in their own folders (playlist). And I can choose a folder from the playlist menu, and it acts as a playlist.

Is there an advantage/disadvantage of doing this vs. using a *.pla file?

The only quirk I see is that each playlist (folder) and mp3 file in any (playlist) folder is not listed in actual correct original recording track sequence order, but instead in alphabetical order. For example: I have ripped many of my own complete CD's to iTunes, and they are stored on my computer/iTunes in AAC form. I then use iTunes to create converted copies of these AAC files to MP3 files, so that I can load them onto my TT920. Anybody have any idea's of how to fix this alphabetical vs. true track list sequence issue? I am getting the MP3 ID3 tags when I convert my iTunes m4a files to mp3. So I don't understand why the CD track sequence order isn't being preserved?
Thanks,
JSB

I think a PLAYLIST would play tunes in the order they appear in the playlist. BUT I am still not sure how Playlists are created with the correct folder info on the TT (920, here).

BUT to answer your question, if your TAGS are correct, TRACK NUMBER will prevail if you use the ALBUM option on the TT and your cd's have the correct Album info and track info. I was pretty confused when my Classical music would play in Alpha order - it does not work very well! (G)

 

[F22]

I think that I have figured it out.

I used a program named Playlist Creator 3.

I used its m3u output.

You can drag mp3 titles to it - from one folder or mix and match.

Save the m3u files (probably to your mp3 folder on your internal or SD memory.

Okay, I then manually edited the file and removed all reference to PATH or Folder hierarchy. It just has the actual mp3 tunes.

Saved it back and changed the "m3u" to "pla" and it works.

Apparently, when the TT (920, here) indexes or reads/scans the mp3 folders and subfolders, it somehow creates some internal db and it can find the files in the playlist even without folder information.

 

[JSB]

Cool...Thanks for your efforts

Thanks, F22. I saw the Playlist Creator 3 download and description while browsing the web tonight looking for an M4P to MP3 converter for iTunes, and PC3 sounded to me like it would probably do what we needed it to do for making functional playlists.

Thanks for taking the time to figure out how to make PC3 work for a TT920, which I also have had now for about two weeks.

So, to make sure I understand you correctly, you are saying that after creating and renaming these .m3u to .pla playlist files with PC3, you put them into the root of the TT920's "mp3" folder, and even your .mp3 files in sub-folders of the "mp3" folder can be accessed, after editing the .pla file and removing all pathnames, and just leaving the .mp3 filename?

One thing to note that I read about PC3 is that it won't edit existing playlist files, only create them.

Thanks,
JSB

 

[F22]

Thanks, F22. I saw the Playlist Creator 3 download and description while browsing the web tonight looking for an M4P to MP3 converter for iTunes, and PC3 sounded to me like it would probably do what we needed it to do for making functional playlists.

Thanks for taking the time to figure out how to make PC3 work for a TT920, which I also have had now for about two weeks.

So, to make sure I understand you correctly, you are saying that after creating and renaming these .m3u to .pla playlist files with PC3, you put them into the root of the TT920's "mp3" folder, and even your .mp3 files in sub-folders of the "mp3" folder can be accessed, after editing the .pla file and removing all pathnames, and just leaving the .mp3 filename?

One thing to note that I read about PC3 is that it won't edit existing playlist files, only create them.

Thanks,
JSB

I hope that it works as I outlined. I am now listening to a list I made from a variety of subfolders. And yes, I edited out the path, leaving only

Brahms Sym 4 Adagio (or whatever)

It had been

q:\mp3\Brahms\Brahms Sym4\Brahms 1
Brahms 2
etc

(am now swooning over Brahms Sym4, Movement 1 (g))

 

[baggss]

This worked for me.

Please note, I am an Apple Computer Dealer. This is how I did it on a Macintosh. It will be similar on a PC, however, I do not answer questions about PCs.

This is performed manually from your computer, without using the TomTom software.

1.) Remove the folder named mp3 from the internal memory of the TomTom (This action is optional, however it prevents duplicates)

2. Move all of your .mp3 files from their folders and place them in the root directory of the mp3 folder.

3. Create a folder called __Playlist1 in your mp3 folder. (The folder can be called anything, the underscored force it to the top of the directory.)

4 Holding the option key drag .mp3 files to your new __Playlist1 folder. (This action will leave the files in the root of the mp3 folder and place a copy in your new folder.)

The TomTom indexes music files on startup. There is no file index file stored on either the internal or external memory card.

This method is somewhat crude but it works.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely:

Christopher Rively
President
Mac Rx Inc
Sarasota, FL.
Authorized Apple Dealer Since 1986

This is more or less what I did.

I did notice that I had to upload the songs via TTH vice directly from the Finder. If I did it via the Finder the TT displayed a "shadow" of all the songs (.Becahboys-Fun Fun Fun and so on) with a "." in front of the "shadow" tracks.

I did discover that once I had the songs on the TT/SD Card I could move them about freely in the Finder with no issues. I also found that I could use and App like MP3 Rage or Media Rage to sort them into folders and edit the ID3 tags with no issues from the TT. I simply sorted by Genre and use that Main folder as a playlist, selecting it via the Playlist menu on the TT.

I also discovered that my TT doesn't like ID3 V2.4 tags, but works with ID3 V2.3 tags.