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  1. 19th Jul 2012 17:22 #1
    vrios777
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    Hi, I have a WDTV Live Hub Media Center and want to recreate an old TV block I use to watch through the use of .m3u playlists, as a project. There are a couple things I want to do the playlists, but don't know how, or if some of them are even possible to do since I've never worked with .m3u files before

    The first thing I want to do is simulate commercial breaks in the .m3u playlists. Is there a way to tell the playlist to jump from the middle of the currently playing video to another video (or set of videos), which would be the commercial(s), then back again (through timecodes, etc.)? Or would I have to take the video, split it where the commercial break would be, then insert the commercials in between them in the .m3u file? (I'm trying to avoid this, though. I'd rather keep each episode of every series as one file)

    The second thing I want to do is have the playlists randomly select videos from specified folders rather than just point it to individual files in it. This would be especially helpful in the case of getting the first issue sorted out. But is this even possible? If so, how would it be done?

    Thanks
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  2. 19th Jul 2012 19:27 #2
    Cornucopia
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    You can't do that with m3u files, they just don't support duration info.

    The ASX (aka WAX, WVX) format, and probably SMIL metafile/playlist formats DO support duration, so if your WDTV supports those, you'd be good to go.

    Scott
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  3. 19th Jul 2012 20:52 #3
    vrios777
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    Originally Posted by Cornucopia View Post
    You can't do that with m3u files, they just don't support duration info.

    The ASX (aka WAX, WVX) format, and probably SMIL metafile/playlist formats DO support duration, so if your WDTV supports those, you'd be good to go.

    Scott

    Ah, I see. Thanks for the info. Well fortunately, the WDTV supports .WPL playlists, which apparently follow the SMIL structure. And I have here the code from one I made for testing purposes:

    Code:
    <?wpl version="1.0"?>
<smil>
    <head>
        <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Windows Media Player -- 10.0.0.3802"/>
        <author/>
        <title>Test</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <seq>
            <media src="O:\Intros\Test Intro.mp4" tid="{FE9545C5-BAD4-4933-91D7-0801B13945E3}"/>
            <media src="O:\Series\Test video.mkv" tid="{724BF78F-05DB-420A-BD0A-F5BE3940533F}"/>
            <media src="O:\Bumps\Test Bump.mkv" tid="{9A0282E7-9513-4D5A-88B1-03165B809CBC}"/>
            <media src="O:\Intros\ Test Intro 2.mp4" tid="{3F25C94B-63BF-439F-9458-3743CB573A63}"/>
        </seq>
    </body>
</smil>
    Say I want Test Bump.mkv to play 15 minutes into Test video.mkv, then resume play of Test video after. How would I do that? As I've stated before, I want to avoid this , but would I still have to split Test Video at the commercial break into two separate files, then sandwich Test Bump's line between the two resulting video files' lines?

    And as for playing a random video from a folder, would I just write another <media src> line and point it just to the folder?
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  4. 19th Jul 2012 23:38 #4
    Cornucopia
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    This site: http:// http://webhelp.ucs.ed.ac.uk/domsdemo/playlists.html has good examples to help with setting dutation, start times, etc.

    I just skimmed it, there may be info about randomness in there, too...

    Scott

    Edit: no, i dont think you need to split any files. Just try something like this:
    file1->myfile.avi, start 0:00, duration 5:00
    file2->mycommercial.mov, start 0:00, duration 2:00
    file3->myfile.avi, start 5:00, dutation 5:00
    ...etc.
    Last edited by Cornucopia; 19th Jul 2012 at 23:45.
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  5. 21st Jul 2012 19:58 #5
    vrios777
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    Originally Posted by Cornucopia View Post
    This site: http:// http://webhelp.ucs.ed.ac.uk/domsdemo/playlists.html has good examples to help with setting dutation, start times, etc.

    I just skimmed it, there may be info about randomness in there, too...

    Scott

    Edit: no, i dont think you need to split any files. Just try something like this:
    file1->myfile.avi, start 0:00, duration 5:00
    file2->mycommercial.mov, start 0:00, duration 2:00
    file3->myfile.avi, start 5:00, dutation 5:00
    ...etc.

    Thanks for the help. Read that link and tried everything, but unfortunately nothing worked. I think the playlist has to be in .wsx format instead of .wpl. But this'll be helpful in the future when I build my HTPS. Anyway, thanks again.
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