How to use Playlists

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bizmodeller
Posts: 458
Joined: Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:40 pm

How to use Playlists

Post by bizmodeller »

My Media for Alexa supports indexing five types of playlist:

1. iTunes / Apple Music Playlists
2. M3U/PLS File based Playlists
3. My Media Managed Playlists
4. Internet Playlists
5. Watch Folder Pseudo Playlists

You can play any imported playlist the same way, eg:

"Alexa, ask My Media to play my xxxxxxx playlist."

Let's look at these in turn.

1. iTunes / Apple Music Playlists

These playlists are automatically imported and sync'd from your iTunes / Apple Music library. If you create a new Playlist in iTunes, on the next watch folder scan, this playlist will be available within My Media. New tracks / removed tracks are synchronised automatically. If you want to delete the playlist, you should delete the playlist in iTunes and it will be removed from My Media.

2. M3U / PLS file based playlists

These playlists may be exported from other media tools. My Media will automatically import these playlists if it finds the playlist files within any registered Watch Folder location you have added to My Media. As above, My Media watches for changes in these playlists and will add/remove tracks automatically on the next Watch Folder scan. If you want to modify the playlist, you should modify it in the tool that originally created it as My Media does not currently support modifying these within the My Media web interface. To delete the playlist, delete it on your file system or alternatively move it outside of an indexed watch folder.

3. My Media managed Playlists

My Media can also create Playlists directly within the My Media web console. Click on the Playlists tab and then click 'Create Playlist'. Create a new name for the playlist. You then add tracks in two ways:

a. Click on the 'songs' tab, search for your songs you want to add. Click the checkbox next to the tracks you want to add and then click 'Add to playlist'. Select the playlist and 'OK'.
b. When a song is playing say to Alex:

"Alexa, ask My Media to add this song to my xxxxxxx playlist".

You can edit the tracks in the Playlist by clicking on the Playlist within the Playlist tab of the My Media web interface. Similarly you can delete the playlist by clicking the Delete icon next to the playlist name in the Playlists tab.

4. Internet Playlists

My Media can also index specific external web streams and manage these as playlists. Click on the Playlists tab and click 'Create Web Stream'. Give the stream a name, and enter the URI for the internet stream.

5. Watch Folder Pseudo Playlists

This type isn't a real playlist, however, for completeness - My Media will automatically create a 'label' for each Watch Folder you create based on the name of the Watch Folder. This label can be overridden when you create the Watch Folder or edited on the Watch Folder screen. You can play all tracks within that Watch Folder with the command:

Alexa, ask My Media to play my xxxxxx Playlist

... just like a playlist so in some ways this label acts as a pseudo playlist.
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