Using iTunes Playlists on WD TV Live [ Edited ]

[awhan]

Hi,

My music is stored on a NAS under an iTunes tree. When I export playlists from iTunes as M3U and then click the resulting file on my WD TV Live (1.09.10) I get the message "There is no media in the current folder". I read an old post that said playlists must only reference folders one level below. Is this still the case? I find this hard to believe since surely most people have playlists that span artists and albums arranged by iTunes in subfolder trees.

Is the issue instead that the WD is having trouble following the network paths as recorded in the playlists? An example of a path within my playlists is " \\NAS-419PII\Multimedia\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\Amy Winehouse\Back To Black\01 Rehab.m4a ". I can certainly play the songs on the WD when I navigate to them.

Thanks,

Andrew

[TonyPh12345 · Accepted solution]

No, that's not true.

What IS true is that the playlist file references must be RELATIVE.

Your playlist references are "Absolute."

Your absolute path is:

\\NAS-419PII\Multimedia\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\Amy Winehouse\Back To Black\01 Rehab.m4a

Assume the playlist FILE is stored here:

\\NAS-419PII\Multimedia\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\Playlists\MyPlaylist.m3u

Then the RELATIVE reference would be:

..\Amy Winehouse\Back To Black\01 Rehab.m4a

[awhan]

Thanks Tony.

In your example, the "Amy Winehouse" folder is not a subfolder of the "Playlists" folder that contains the playlist file, so are you sure it is correctly relative? If it is correct, does the relative path always start from one folder higher than the playlist location?

I had another look in iTunes and there doesn't appear to be any way export a playlist with relative paths. Can you recommend a simple freeware program that will read the iTunes library and allow greater control for exporting the playlists?

Thanks again,

Andrew

[TonyPh12345]

Yes, I'm sure.

I'm just making an example; but the ".." at the beginning means "Go Back One Folder."

You'll need to figure out the correct relative path.

I wrote a few Linux scripts a while back to do all that for me...

[awhan · Accepted solution]

I learn something every day.

Thanks Tony. You're a legend. I have it all working now.

I used iTunesExportUI.exe written by Eric Daugherty to extract the playlists to a folder I created called "M3U Playlists" at the same level as the iTunes music folder. The program includes an option to override the defaut prefix (meaning everything in the path before \Music) so I replaced the prefix with ..\ and it all worked perfectly. I now have my iTunes playlists working on my WD TV Live. Thanks again.

[damire]

Hi.... i am trying to find a better way to stream my music from itunes over network share! is it possible to a live tv smp?? i will be getting a buffalo NAS in a couple of weeks, will i be able to do it with that?  i dont like the built in music player that comes with WD!! i have sent an email to support a week ago and have not recieved a reply, very help ful.... can someone help

cheers

[awhan]

The WD music player takes some getting used to but once you have all the functions sussed and playlists sorted it is not that bad. If you like iTunes, however, i recommend you just buy an AppleTV. It allows you to stream music from iTunes running on your computer to your stereo and television.

Using any NAS with itunes is no problem. I have my music files and the iTunes database files all on the NAS so that the one library (including playlists) can be accessed via iTunes from multiple PC's in the house (not at the same time, however).

Before moving your music onto a NAS read these instructions and follow them carefully.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to-a-new-hard-drive/

Good luck.

Andrew