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View Full Version : Can't convert WMP Playlists to iPod & iTunes


thirdperson
04-13-2005, 10:09 AM
Hey there folks...I searched under this topic but had no success with the solutions given. Sorry for my newbieness, but I would appreciate any help you can offer. Here's my problem:

My employer is setting up a new sound system at his restaurant that will center around his iPod. Prior to getting the iPod, he had poured the contents of several people's CD collections onto his PC. He used windows media player and all his music files are in .wma format. He also generated many playlists which he wants on his iPod.

Using iTunes, I have converted all his music to AAC format (the original .wma files still exist on the computer...I haven't deleted them yet). So we've got all the music on his iPod now. The playlists are another story.

I had saved his WMP playlists to .m3u format and moved them to iTunes, but they seem to still want to look for the original .wma files, which of course won't play. iTunes will allow me to convert the songs referenced by the playlists to AAC, but this only results in an extra copy of the songs being placed into my iTunes Music folder. The playlist does not convert over when those songs are converted.

I purchased Anapod, in the hopes that it would help me out, but I have had no luck there either. I even tried manually editing the playlists in a text editor by changing the file extensions and pathways, but no dice.

So, where do I go from here? If I can't get this done, it will fall upon me to manually construct the playlists for iTunes. I must be missing something simple. I hope you can help, and please accept my apologies for the length of this post.

David "I'm just a waiter...how should I know?" B.

hotphil
04-13-2005, 10:30 AM
Bet you're wishing you hadn't volunteered to help him out now!

I've not tried this kind of thing, but it may be worth considering ditching the AAC's you've made, importing the M3U's and letting iTunes do it's thing. It should at least then be able to find the new files it converts. Other than that, I'm not sure.

Also, (and it's not for me to comment on) but it may be worth checking up on the legal standpoint of copying people's CDs and then playing them in public.

thirdperson
04-13-2005, 10:42 AM
Thanks for the quick reply...among whatever other advice I get, ditching the AAC's seems like a good place to start.

That's an excellent point about the legality of this endeavour! I'm editing this reply since I've just spoken to my boss, who has informed me that our restaurant pays for a SOCAN licence, which is part of a tariff system in Canada allowing for the public communication of copyrighted musical works. cool, eh?

Keep up the suggestions...I'll try anything!

-david.

wkearney99
04-13-2005, 08:12 PM
m3u files are plain text. open 'em up in a text editor and do some search and replace. As in, the files in .wma format where located at c:\some\files\whatever.wma. So replace the 'c:\some\files\' string with where they're now located. Then swap the extension.