Playlist editor for MPIO HD devices

[vviskari]

Hi,

I wanted to make some use of the playlist feature of my HD300 player so I created a simple editor for managing a playlist stored in the device. As you know, the Utility provided by MPIO is totally useless IMHO. You are able to edit the "titles" playlist with a neat GUI with my application.

Go to the download page (http://www.hut.fi/~vviskari/playlisteditor) to get yours.

I appreciate any comments you might have on the application.

Cheers,
VVi

[MrTNT]

Well its great to see your support on this player, but the HD300 just sucks.
A 256 file/directory limit.

Limited Features like missing ID3 tag browsing or deleting files from the device directly, or creating playlist from the device directly and more!

Its very slow....in performance

The FM Tuner can never get good reception, and the

autoscanning skipped channels that was strong sometimes

And has a tendency to freeze up, alot!

The developers don't seem to care about it, Its going on 2 years and they only released 2 firmware upgrades that did not even address any of the issues many consumer's complained about.


If you think you can improve the mayjor draw backs of this player then go for it! But theres just more impressive players out there to write code for.
Check out the new Creative Vision M.

You did notice this forum is now dead right?

[vviskari]

I know the player is not the greatest of them all. Not even close! But this is what I have and it does work for me. I don't listen to radio that much. Maybe if the reception was better... now it's basically useless.

I agree that MPIO customer support must be the worst of it's kind on the whole planet. Seriously, two FW upgrades to a player with this many bugs!?

At least it hasn't freezed for a long time. I think the FW is pretty stable, just buggy.

I discovered the random play bug just recently. Usually I listened the songs in order since that is about all the player is good for. Now when I can create a favourites playlist, I found the random function is crap. Sort of found a workaround for it, though. Just save the playlist in random order

About the motivation to make this app:
1. I wanted to and
2. I don't want to spend 250 euros on a new player when this works for me.

(This forum is dead, you're right about that.)

[qpwoei]

dude - we are still alive!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cheers

Man - thanks for making the M3U playlist file editor!!

Ill try it out and give some feedback later.

The HD300 is STILL my fav player - 1 yr later - and it beats the ipod hands down. FM works fine and dandy for me, and voice record, line in record, alarm, radio rec timer, looks, build quality are all still top notch!
:)

cya

[qpwoei]

ok ive tested it.

1. where can i see the file created? it said, " turning on the player and selecting the "Titles" option from the player menu. " - but how is the playlist "titled"? can i see / move the playlist from explorer? im confused?

2. how many playlists can i make? what will they be called?

maybe im talking sht... who knows lol ill try and mess around and see what happens.

:vivi

[qpwoei]

ok i see what it's doing!

1. i get a playlist made. i delete the EXISTING playlists that the UTILITY made - correct? The "all.m3u" was created by your app - i opened it in wordpad and look what it says:

[B@1ce784b
[B@3bc473
[B@1de9ac4
[B@182bcde
[B@3dc0bb
[B@384065
[B@10bbf9e
[B@513d61
[B@194d372
[B@1c5fde0
[B@19e8329
[B@1b5340c
[B@16c163f
[B@12884e0
[B@12bcd4b
[B@b307f0
[B@1ce3fc5
[B@1bcdbf6
[B@cf66b
[B@1060478
[B@f9c40
[B@db4fa2
[B@491c4c
[B@1e0f2f6
[B@16f25a7
[B@110c31
[B@13785d3
[B@32efa7
[B@13f991
[B@165a3c2
[B@1e228bc
[B@e06940
[B@11e0c13
[B@1aae94f
[B@1bb5c09
[B@1976011
[B@1242b11
[B@1878144
[B@137d090
[B@15db314
[B@97eded
[B@858bf1
[B@1a68ef9
[B@1f48262
[B@19bfb30
[B@1884174
[B@814013
[B@195d4fe
[B@1d2b01b
[B@127fa12
[B@192c8d9
[B@1c05ffd
[B@de1b8a
[B@1e232b5
[B@16f144c
[B@19da4fc
[B@baa466
[B@17f409c
[B@16acdd1
[B@ee6681
[B@18bbc5a
[B@facf0b
[B@2f0df1
[B@13c6a22
[B@15c07d8
[B@10721b0
[B@134b07e
[B@2f48d2
[B@55d93d
[B@296f76
[B@54c4ad
[B@13c7378
[B@1c0f2e5
[B@8ab708
[B@f6ac0b
[B@9934d4
[B@5b8827
[B@147c1db
[B@82d37
[B@d09ad3
[B@1649b44
[B@dc67e
[B@6295eb
[B@609959
[B@1f3ce5c
[B@1712b3a
[B@cd2e33
[B@9446e4
[B@ba5c7a
[B@10d593e
[B@15e0873
[B@7cbde6
[B@1977b9b
[B@340101
[B@2e1f1f
[B@1fd6bea
[B@b7ec5d
[B@fefe3f
[B@e61a35
[B@c2b2f6
[B@737371
[B@1a001ff
[B@1e328e0
[B@90c06f
[B@149d886
[B@1267649
[B@1fe88d
[B@dcb03b
[B@b60b93
[B@1b1fbf4
[B@148662
[B@1829e6f
[B@6fa9fc


what is this??

2. when i launched the HD300 - and selected "artists" on playlist, the player showed an empty directory and nothing happened.

what should i do?

thanks

[vviskari]

ok i see what it's doing!

1. i get a playlist made. i delete the EXISTING playlists that the UTILITY made - correct? The "all.m3u" was created by your app - i opened it in wordpad and look what it says:

[B@1ce784b
[B@3bc473
...
what is this??

Sorry about this. You weren't doing anything wrong. I posted a wrong version of the file to the site. This was sloppy coding without really testing it :doh . I corrected this just now and working version is available. Please try again.


2. when i launched the HD300 - and selected "artists" on playlist, the player showed an empty directory and nothing happened.

what should i do?

You deleted all playlists under the players 'artists' directory. You can recreate them with the MPIO Utility.
You can still use the playlists that the Utility creates under Artists, Albums and Genres.

edit2:
And remember that when using the MPIO Utility to create Artists and Albums, it will overwrite also the All.m3u file you have made with the playlist editor. So take a backup before running the Utility if you want to keep it safe.

edit:
And to answer your previous post, my app only modifies the Titles-playlist currently. If you really want to use this app for multiple playlists, maybe I'll start thinking about doing it.

Anyway, I'm glad you find this editor useful. I just made it for fun for myself :cheers

[vviskari]

And to answer your previous post, my app only modifies the Titles-playlist currently. If you really want to use this app for multiple playlists, maybe I'll start thinking about doing it.


I made the changes and now you can edit multiple playlists with the editor. Use the 'open' button and select existing file or create new one by typing its name to the file selection dialog and the editor creates it for you.

New editor version 1.2 is available on the application site.
Enjoy!

[qpwoei]

I made the changes and now you can edit multiple playlists with the editor. Use the 'open' button and select existing file or create new one by typing its name to the file selection dialog and the editor creates it for you.

New editor version 1.2 is available on the application site.
Enjoy!

Many thanks vviskari! I'll check out the new version shortly. So this program cannot be used in conjunction with the original MPIO utility - not that i ever needed it :rotfl

[qpwoei]

Hi,

I've just used the program successfully and am very happy with it

A few points:

- The program takes a long time to load when the player has many songs (20gb), and when I first used the program I thought it had crashed and therefore forced it to close, oops! Maybe a notice to warn users about the potential delay should be presented...?

- The save playlist function saves it to the default director and labels it "all.m3u". It would be better to allow users to save the file using the file save dialog, eliminating the need for people to rename and move the saved playlist.

- What is achived by saving the playlist to "all.m3u" in the playlist default location? I cannot access the HD300's "album, artist, genre..." submenus from the device.... I have to manually move, and rename, the created playlist to a folder that is accessable from the hd300 device.

- Perhaps the option to convert existing playlist from your computer (presuming the file structure in My Music is the same as your player) to the mpio structure...

These are all minor points and overall, Its a great program, and its free!!! :-) Thanks!

[qpwoei]

delete

[vviskari]

- The program takes a long time to load when the player has many songs (20gb), and when I first used the program I thought it had crashed and therefore forced it to close, oops! Maybe a notice to warn users about the potential delay should be presented...?


There should be a small text that reads "loading..." and it shows ontop of the application window while the player loads the directories. If you missed that it may be that the message was under the application window. I haven't figured out yet how to make the dialog stay on top of the application window... But the message is there.


- The save playlist function saves it to the default director and labels it "all.m3u". It would be better to allow users to save the file using the file save dialog, eliminating the need for people to rename and move the saved playlist.


I have noticed this myself too. There will be 'Save as...' option in the menu soon (when I have time) so hold on.


- What is achived by saving the playlist to "all.m3u" in the playlist default location? I cannot access the HD300's "album, artist, genre..." submenus from the device.... I have to manually move, and rename, the created playlist to a folder that is accessable from the hd300 device.


The 'all.m3u' file can be accessed from the player by selecting "titles" option.
BTW, the open-button can be used also for creating new playlist files: Click 'open' and navigate to the directory where you want to make the playlist (for example H:\Playlist\Album) and type in the name of the playlist file (britneyspears.m3u). M3U part is optional. The editor will create the file and you can start putting songs to it. When finished click 'save'. Now you have new playlist in the Album directory.


- Perhaps the option to convert existing playlist from your computer (presuming the file structure in My Music is the same as your player) to the mpio structure...


Do you mean like replacing the c:\whatever\folder\song.mp3 with \music\folder\song.mp3? Maybe there could be an 'import' button in the menu or something. It asks for input playlist, then where to put it and then filters the files from it depending which ones are found in the player. Did you mean something like this?

Note that the file filtering is already done. When the editor loads a playlist, it detects if a file has been removed from the player and tells about it. Try it by adding some files to playlist, save it, rename one file on disk and press 'reload'.


These are all minor points and overall, Its a great program, and its free!!! :-) Thanks!

Ofcourse it's free (open) :thumb

[vviskari]

I've added 'New' and 'Save as...' entries in the file menu.
Also changed the progress bar when loading files. Now it is done properly.
Go to the application page and download version 1.3.

:cheers

[qpwoei]

hi vviskari, 1.3 is even better! It's very useful to create a playlist that encompasses all mp3's within a specified folder and all its sub-folders (i have one folder with top 40 mp3s in their own folders - so without this program it would take ages navigating between each song :-)
I was thinking about making some programs for the hd300, but using AutoIT (thats the only code i can use :( )

Do you have any ideas for some other programs?

[qpwoei]

you dont know if this player will ever be able to display txt files do you? a guy at mpio said that the last firmware would encompass this but it doesnt. maybe it can be achieved using the lyrics function?

[vviskari]

you dont know if this player will ever be able to display txt files do you? a guy at mpio said that the last firmware would encompass this but it doesnt. maybe it can be achieved using the lyrics function?

I have no idea how the lyrics should work. They didn't bother documenting it anywhere. :dunno
I think the txt file viewing feature is also working only on paper.

Since the last FW update was from last summer, I believe that either MPIO has gone belly up or they have stopped supporting this player. Or then they have only one single guy managing all the firmware for all players and he is really tired and stressed out :)
Anyway, it's a fine player for what it does now. It could be miles better if it had decent FW.

[vviskari]

Do you have any ideas for some other programs?
No, I'm fresh out of ideas :) I was thinking about adding ID3 tag support for the PL editor, but it requires some refactoring since the code is now pretty messy.

I'd like to get my hands on the FW and implement FLAC support for the player and get rid of all (IMHO) useless features like the clock and such. If this thing could play also FLAC files, it would be GREAT.

[qpwoei]

yeh it was also meant to be able to play windows protected media files...

hey leave the clock alone - i like it :) and the alarm - great for waking up to music.

I kinda figured that the summer update for the hd300 would be its last... :(

Isn't there a program that customises the startup display from "MPIO" into an animation?

[Dr Zaius]

Hi

This is my first post on this forum.

I bought the HD300 recently for my daughter thinking it would do custom playlists (not just the artist/album thing). After getting to grips with the nightmare navigation of the unit I trawled the internet looking for some way of adding custom playlist and I think I have found a great solution.

I found the following stand alone utility:
Playlist Creator 3.0.3 (Freeware)

http://www.oddgravity.de/ available elsewhere also)

It can produce M3U and PLS files.

This is how I did it.
1) Connect HD300 to PC

2) Open Playlist Editor and go to settings

3) Select Playlist Details

4)Under 'saving playlist entries' select 'Absolute, without drive ...' click OK

5) Click on Add Files icon and access HD300 music files (that you have already on MPIO).

6)Keep adding files until you have your playlist (use arrow icons to order the files).

7) Under select save location browse to, or type:
F:\PLAYLIST\Genre

8)Give playlist a name (I always put 000 at the beginning of the name to ensure it is at the top of the list).

9) Select M3U and click 'Create Playlist'

You should now find the playlist in the Genres lists. It may briefly scan.
I have only tried this with WMA files and have not used PLS. So far it seems to work. Lets hope this may be an answer for now.