Playlist burning program

[Yousuf Khan]

You probably checked most of the links in the search below. One of
them says Windows Media Player can do what you want, but the details
are sketchy and I haven't tried it.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=create+mp3+data+cd+from+m3u>

Yes, I did find that out, I posted in another part of the thread. So in
a sense, the answer is found, and the rest of the thread is moot. But
WMP is a very finicky media burner, I find that despite carefully
selecting only enough songs to fill a 700MB CD, it may decide there's
one too many songs and push the last song into another CD.

So I wouldn't mind if there was an alternative burner for these
playlists. I find ImgBurn is one of the best burning programs out there,
and it's completely free too. So if I can find a way to create the CD's
through ImgBurn rather than WMP, I'd jump at the chance.

 

[thanatoid]

Yes, I did find that out, I posted in another part of the
thread. So in a sense, the answer is found, and the rest of
the thread is moot. But WMP is a very finicky media burner,
I find that despite carefully selecting only enough songs
to fill a 700MB CD, it may decide there's one too many
songs and push the last song into another CD.

No offense, an 80min 700MB CD-R is what, 10 cents? They can
actually hold up to 734 MB, so just make sure you have a list of
not more than 675 MB (or 695, or 725, depending on personal
preference) and you will never have to think about this again.
(A good program will tell you when you are over the limit,
anyway.)

(Remember about the difference between MB = 1000 KB and MB =
1024 KB - do some tests. Good burning software allows you to
record a "vaporCD" it goes through the entire process and tests
everything but does not actually USE the disk, so you won't be
out 10 cents.)

Don't you make your playlist selections based on some sort of
aesthetic or historic logic, anyway?

You are confusing me. And more.

How much do you spend on coffee (or ice cream, or cigs) each
month?

 

[Yousuf Khan]

No offense, an 80min 700MB CD-R is what, 10 cents? They can
actually hold up to 734 MB, so just make sure you have a list of
not more than 675 MB (or 695, or 725, depending on personal
preference) and you will never have to think about this again.
(A good program will tell you when you are over the limit,
anyway.)

I've also tried reducing the size all of the way down to below 650 MB,
and WMP will still decide it's too big for one CD. As I said WMP is a
decidedly finicky media burner, I don't trust its ability to estimate
file sizes, so I'd rather if I could do it through ImgBurn. I used to do
it through Nero, but I'm trying to get away from that program for a
variety of reasons, one of which being that ImgBurn is just the superior
burning program. I don't want to keep a variety of different burner
programs just because one does better at one specific task. ImgBurn does
most things better than Nero, except this one thing.

Don't you make your playlist selections based on some sort of
aesthetic or historic logic, anyway?

You are confusing me. And more.

Well, in the overall scheme of things all you need to know is that I
have an M3U playlist with MP3 songs on it, and I want to use that
playlist as the list of files to burn.

The unnecessary detail behind it is that I have a program, called
MusicIP Mix, that can intelligently generate a list of songs based on
their style. Given a set of initial sample songs, it can generate a list
of similar songs from amongst the list of thousands of songs that I
have. You can also tell this application to generate only as many songs
as can fit on a data CD, or that can fit in a data DVD, or whatever size
you like. The list it generates is formatted into a Winamp M3U playlist.
The reason I am emphasizing the data CD capacity is because my car has
an MP3 CD player in it.

Yousuf Khan

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Yousuf Khan

I've also tried reducing the size all of the way down to below 650 MB,
and WMP will still decide it's too big for one CD. As I said WMP is a
decidedly finicky media burner, I don't trust its ability to estimate
file sizes, so I'd rather if I could do it through ImgBurn. I used to

I'm puzzled: why is any file size _estimating involved_ - or are you
transcoding the files to mp3 as you burn, having them on disc in some
other format (raw wav, or the Microsoft one [WMA is it?])?
[]

MusicIP Mix, that can intelligently generate a list of songs based on
their style. Given a set of initial sample songs, it can generate a
list of similar songs from amongst the list of thousands of songs that

Interesting. Does it use tags, or analyse the beat, or ...

I have. You can also tell this application to generate only as many
songs as can fit on a data CD, or that can fit in a data DVD, or
whatever size you like. The list it generates is formatted into a
Winamp M3U playlist. The reason I am emphasizing the data CD capacity

So if it's done that, I'm puzzled as to why WMP - assuming it is working
from that m3u list - is having to "estimate" the sizes all over again.

is because my car has an MP3 CD player in it.

Yousuf Khan

(Incidentally, most CDRs can be recorded beyond their nominal capacity -
Easy CD Creator [now made by Roxio, used to be someone else, Symantec I
think?] calls this overburning, and obviously there's no guarantee -
even within the same batch - that it will work. For an audio CD it just
means the last track may fail before its end, as the "index" for an
audio CD is all at the beginning; I'm not sure what happens with a data
CD [which mp3 CDs are]. Of course, with the low price of blanks now,
there's certainly no need to do it to save money, but maybe to complete
a compilation.)

 

[Yousuf Khan]

In message <[email protected]>, Yousuf Khan

I've also tried reducing the size all of the way down to below 650 MB,
and WMP will still decide it's too big for one CD. As I said WMP is a
decidedly finicky media burner, I don't trust its ability to estimate
file sizes, so I'd rather if I could do it through ImgBurn. I used to

I'm puzzled: why is any file size _estimating involved_ - or are you
transcoding the files to mp3 as you burn, having them on disc in some
other format (raw wav, or the Microsoft one [WMA is it?])?
[]

No, no transcoding involved, they all stay in exactly the format they
originally were in (MP3). They just get transferred straight from hard
disk to CD.

Interesting. Does it use tags, or analyse the beat, or ...

It actually analyses the beat. It can even correct the tags on the MP3
if you ask it to.

So if it's done that, I'm puzzled as to why WMP - assuming it is working
from that m3u list - is having to "estimate" the sizes all over again.

I have no idea, Windows Media Player is the only program that does this,
and it's the only program that does it improperly. I used to use Nero,
and it did it it properly.

(Incidentally, most CDRs can be recorded beyond their nominal capacity -
Easy CD Creator [now made by Roxio, used to be someone else, Symantec I
think?] calls this overburning, and obviously there's no guarantee -
even within the same batch - that it will work. For an audio CD it just
means the last track may fail before its end, as the "index" for an
audio CD is all at the beginning; I'm not sure what happens with a data
CD [which mp3 CDs are]. Of course, with the low price of blanks now,
there's certainly no need to do it to save money, but maybe to complete
a compilation.)

Yeah, I know, Nero used to do it too. Nero could also overburn if
necessary, but that shouldn't even be necessary here. I've got MusicIP
Mix set to choose exactly the right amount to fit into a standard CD
with no overburning.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Is there any freeware programs that can burn Winamp M3U playlists to a
CD or DVD blank in data format? Winamp itself can only burn to audio-CD
format not data format. That is I need something that can take a list of
MP3's from a playlist and burn them to a blank.

I used to use Nero Express for this, but I'm trying to get away from the
whole Nero thing right now, and go towards built-in or freeware burning
programs.

Yousuf Khan

Okay guys, here's an update on the problem. I found a perfect solution
to this problem, it's a simple freeware program call M3U Copier.

M3UCOPiER (M3U to MP3 Copy Tool)
http://www.arnebrachhold.de/2006/01/08/m3ucopier-mp3-copy-tool/

It's a bit old, hasn't been updated since 2006, but it really doesn't
need to be, since it still works everywhere. All this program does is
that it copies the MP3 files listed within the M3U playlist to a
separate folder, and all you have to do is copy the single folder to
your CD or DVD blank. Nothing fancy, just works.

Doesn't do anything fancy or wierd like Windows Media Player.

Yousuf Khan

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Yousuf Khan

Okay guys, here's an update on the problem. I found a perfect solution
to this problem, it's a simple freeware program call M3U Copier.

M3UCOPiER (M3U to MP3 Copy Tool)
http://www.arnebrachhold.de/2006/01/08/m3ucopier-mp3-copy-tool/

It's a bit old, hasn't been updated since 2006, but it really doesn't
need to be, since it still works everywhere. All this program does is
that it copies the MP3 files listed within the M3U playlist to a
separate folder, and all you have to do is copy the single folder to
your CD or DVD blank. Nothing fancy, just works.

Doesn't do anything fancy or wierd like Windows Media Player.

Yousuf Khan

Does it keep the order the same though? I guess that's more a question
for what you use to do the copying/burning. I know that in Windows the
order is _fairly_ meaningless (though probably determines placement on
the actual hard disc), but it might well be relevant on many of the
external devices you slot the resultant CD/DVD into.

It _may_ be relevant if m3ucopier prepends a sequence number to the
filenames, which would make any subsequent process _more likely_ (though
not definitely) to do them in that order, but any such prepending is
arguably undesirable in that many external devices only display a
limited part of the filename, so any such prepending reduces the visible
amount.

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Does it keep the order the same though? I guess that's more a
question for what you use to do the copying/burning. I know that in
Windows the order is _fairly_ meaningless (though probably determines
placement on the actual hard disc), but it might well be relevant on
many of the external devices you slot the resultant CD/DVD into.

It _may_ be relevant if m3ucopier prepends a sequence number to the
filenames, which would make any subsequent process _more likely_
(though not definitely) to do them in that order, but any such
prepending is arguably undesirable in that many external devices only
display a limited part of the filename, so any such prepending
reduces the visible amount.

Even if the files were copied in order listed (without prepending), the
player would most likely sort them for playback.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: []

It _may_ be relevant if m3ucopier prepends a sequence number to the
filenames, which would make any subsequent process _more likely_
(though not definitely) to do them in that order, but any such
prepending is arguably undesirable in that many external devices only
display a limited part of the filename, so any such prepending
reduces the visible amount.

Even if the files were copied in order listed (without prepending), the
player would most likely sort them for playback.

Some yes, some no. My GPS (which spends more of its time as an MP3
player than GPS) plays MP3s in, as far as I can tell, the order in which
they were loaded onto the SD card! Unless I tell it to select random,
that is.

Since it got its KIAT some months ago and I had to reload its software
onto the card, this means that all of its own sound files (in all the
languages it supports - and I'm convinced that "keep to the left" in
some of them is just the English phrase said with a foreign accent!)
come somewhere in the middle of all my. MP3s, which is disconcerting.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Does it keep the order the same though? I guess that's more a question
for what you use to do the copying/burning. I know that in Windows the
order is _fairly_ meaningless (though probably determines placement on
the actual hard disc), but it might well be relevant on many of the
external devices you slot the resultant CD/DVD into.

It _may_ be relevant if m3ucopier prepends a sequence number to the
filenames, which would make any subsequent process _more likely_ (though
not definitely) to do them in that order, but any such prepending is
arguably undesirable in that many external devices only display a
limited part of the filename, so any such prepending reduces the visible
amount.

Yes it does keep the order, by prepending a track number to each file.

It's not really an issue that I care about, but I'm sure somebody would
find this necessary.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Okay guys, here's an update on the problem. I found a perfect solution
to this problem, it's a simple freeware program call M3U Copier.

M3UCOPiER (M3U to MP3 Copy Tool)
http://www.arnebrachhold.de/2006/01/08/m3ucopier-mp3-copy-tool/

It's a bit old, hasn't been updated since 2006, but it really doesn't
need to be, since it still works everywhere. All this program does is
that it copies the MP3 files listed within the M3U playlist to a
separate folder, and all you have to do is copy the single folder to
your CD or DVD blank. Nothing fancy, just works.

Doesn't do anything fancy or wierd like Windows Media Player.

Yousuf Khan

Glad you found that.

I've downloaded it for myself, for the next time I might need it. I
usually make regular CDs from iTunes playlists, but ya never know