Sansa Playlist (PLA) Support

[Cyberian75]

Hello,

I've a Sansa Clip+ in MSC Mode mainly because I don't like syncing as it totally messes up the organization / file structure. However, I'm running out of space, so I'd have to switch to MTP Mode when I add an SD card; otherwise, I'd have to maintain separate playlists for the card, because in MTP Mode, absolute paths are used in M3U playlists.

Sansa is a popular player as iPod, and since MTP is supported, it makes sense to also support PLA playlists.

Thanks!

[DJ Egg]

Maybe you could attach a (zipped) sample PLA playlist file?



>>> Sansa is a popular player as iPod

I'm not so sure about that ;)

[Cyberian75]

I can't create one unless I switch over to MTP. But take a look at http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/pla and http://forums.techarena*****media-player/872163.htm#post3421802
(http://forums.techarena*****media-player/872163.htm#post3421802)

[DrO]

alas that link doesn't really give much helpful information though from a few things i've seen it sounds like they support m3u playlists so there isn't really a need to support another playlist format unnecessarily though i've a feeling that the playlists need to go into a playlist folder and that's where an issue with pmp_usb & it's handling of relative paths may cause an issue when stored in that folder. plus i think the paths need to be specified in a certain manner which can be controlled with the current pmp_usb version though i'm not 100% about that either.

if only i had a device to work on then it'd be a lot easier to give a better answer (but i just cannot warrant buying something like that for something i shouldn't be trying to debug, heh).

-daz

[DrO]

and with a bit more looking http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=clip&thread.id=113&view=by_date_ascending&page=3 and there's a post a few down on that page which seems to indicate the m3u would need to have the path stripped down so 'no slash or dot at start' on preferences -> media library -> portables -> usb drive ?: -> 'advanced' tab may be what's needed (though still not sure it'll work ok with the relative path generation).

-daz

[Cyberian75]

PLA playlists use the internal database which is supported, I think, by MTP.

[Cyberian75]

"Most MTP-compatible devices do not appear through drive letter assignment in Windows Explorer, instead they will appear as "devices" in Windows Explorer." -- WikiPedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol)