MMITunes v3.0 brings you genre-based playlists

Posted byJan 28 Comments on MMITunes v3.0 brings you genre-based playlists

Just in case you’re one of the few users of MMITunes: I added a new feature to auto-create genre-based playlists in MMITunes v3.0. If you select create playlists for genres MMITunes will generate .m3u playlists for every genre it finds in the tracks on the selected volume (which ideally is an SD-card or similar).

If you find playlists with weird names like (79).m3u you will have to convert the ID3-tags of that particular track to a newer version. You’ll find the names of the tracks which may require attention in the MMITunes output window. To convert the ID3-tags simply open iTunes, right-click the track, select Convert ID3 tags and apply ID3 v2.4. An easier way is to convert all your tracks at once instead of selecting single tracks. Don’t forget to re-export the tracks you modified to your destination volume.

The names of the three default playlists MMITunes creates have changed slightly as well. MMITunes v3.0 is available in the downloads area.

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28 replies on “MMITunes v3.0 brings you genre-based playlists”

  1. Hi, MMitunes refuses to open on my Macbook air runnin 10.8.3 and having the security settings disabled. Any ideas?
    Thanks

  2. To run on Mountain Lion:

    Go to System Preferences and Security and Privacy.

    Then change “Allow applications downloaded from” to “Anywhere.

  3. Has anyone been able to run this application on Mountain Lion?

    It refuses to install on my Mac and asks me to move it to trash!

    Thanks,

  4. Thanks for the insights, Fred. That’s a pretty silly limitation, but probably not as silly as forgetting to make the random track mix function sticky. The next generation of MMI head units is already out. We just might have to buy a new car. I think I’m gonna buy the new Audi RS4…..I just need to win the lottery first.

    Cheers,
    Jan

  5. Hi Jan,
    I think I found a playlist-limitation of sd-slot to 99 songs.
    Same playlist on same sd-card in a sd-card-reader connected to AMI shows complete 999 songs of the test-playlist (playlist limitation of AMI is 999 as decribed in the manual).

    Found a way to show the number of the located play-list songs: turn the main control knob of the navi really fast counterclockwise…(if you are interested I can sent a picture of the surface I got through that).

    CU
    Fred

  6. Hi Jan,

    thanks.
    I will take my MacBookAir into my Audi within the next few days and try something with song 105 and/or change the order of the songs in the playlist…

    CU
    Fred

  7. Hi Jan,

    further trying of the playlist “_rnd.m3u” results in stopping after 104 of 3997 songs (I mean playback in the car…;all songs are in the playlist as I can see with a text-Editor)
    Do you have any idea how to play all the songs of the playlist?

    Best regards
    Fred

    1. Hi Fred,

      I have no idea why it stops there. Maybe something is wrong with the 105th song? Or is it always the 105th song no matter the order of the songs in the playlist?

      Cheers,
      Jan

  8. Hi Jan,

    found the solution meanwhile: put YOUR playlists from root into a subfolder…ready :-)

    Solved the problem “cannot read the card” (corrupted datas) too: one subfolder-name was guilty: “…Hits” (by Phil Collins). Erased the 3 dots: ready :-)
    Took me a while to found that crazy thing…

    Best regards
    Fred

  9. Hi Jan,

    I already changed the names (canceled the underscore): no result.
    “Your” playlists now have a size of 295kB. Really to large?The largest genre-playlist is 66kB.
    I will do some test with smaller cards and less music…

    Cheers
    Fred

    PS: if the sd-card get more than 3000 files (measured with “what size”) the MMI says :”cannot read the card”. Connecting the same card with a card-reader to the AudiMusicInterface (AMI): it works! A bit strange to me…Will try to use YOUR playlists with the AMI as a next step.

  10. Hi Jan,
    sorry for annoying you oncemore ;-)
    Now I have all my genre-based playlists on the sd-card as well as I can work with them on the MMI :-))
    But YOUR playlists MMITunes_RND.m3u; MMITunes_TRK_RND.m3u and
    MMITunes_SORTED.m3u
    I do have on the card too (can see it on the MacBook) but they aren´t to see on the MMI :-((
    Because I want to use especially the first one I ´m looking for the error.
    Do you have any ideas regarding this problem?
    Best regards
    Fred

    1. Fred, there could be two reasons for this. a) the names of these playlists have changed, they start with an underscore or b) your playlists have grown too large for the MMI 3G.

      Cheers,
      Jan

  12. Hi Jan,

    you´re right: I don´t noticed the update from 3.02 to 3.1 ;-(
    And the main thing: 3.1 works fabulous :-))
    As well on SD-card as on HDD :-))
    I only have to clear the library because of the (123).m3u files.
    I´m not shure if its only a problem with an old ID-tag version.
    But I have to test that calmly within the next few days.

    Thanks a LOT for your efforts and cooperation!!!
    Cheers
    Fred

  13. Fred, are you sure you’re using 3.1.0? I removed the “Please be patient” message in 3.1.0 so if you’re still seeing it, you’re probably using an older version.

    Cheers,
    Jan

  14. No errors in the output window;
    “P” is the second largest folder; “C” the largest one (approx.7GB)
    Same results on SD-card as well as on 250GB HDD (only the same music as on SD-card;therefore no absence of space):

    – complete music from A-Z: hangs on “Calculating… may take several minutes, please be patient”
    – music without “P”: OK
    – music without “C”: OK

    There seems to be a limit around 30GB on my system…

    Its late here in Europe…Have a nice day and till tomorrow!
    Maybe by direct mails?
    CU
    Fred

    (Thought first you were testing with 5000files on 3-5 GB)

  15. Are there any errors in the output window if “P” is present on the card? The ID3-tag library MMITunes is using only reads the audio file header so it won’t matter how large a file is. Some of the songs in my 5000-titles-test-set are encoded with Apple’s lossless codec and MMITunes still crawls through those 300GB worth of data in just a few seconds. Is there enough space left on the SD card for the playlists MMITunes wants to generate? Those playlists can grow quite a bit if you have several thousand titles.

    Cheers,
    Jan

  16. Further test: I´ve “isolated” folder “P” on an external hard-disk-drive.
    MMiTunes running fast and successful!
    Maybe 30GB is a virtuell upper limit?

  17. Hi Jan,

    I´ve done some experiments: put at first folder “A” (regarding first letter of artist-name) on SD-card; used MMiTunes; then folder “B” in addition and so on. It works till I took folder “P”. This folder includes 4.5GB of songs and it´s not the largest. Took all the folders to the card aside folder “P” and MMiTunes worked in 2 minutes or so till producing the playlists. With “P” I was waiting 10min or so without getting the playlists.
    Don´t know what might be the mysterium of “P”? ;-(
    At first it seems to be the same with “R” but after some further tests this folder seems to be “normal”…
    I do have only 4.000 songs on the 32GB-card; maybe because using 256kBit/s for encoding (mostly). My MacBookAir is not to old (14days) ;-)) 1,7GHz; ie5, 256GB SSD
    Any idea for looking/searching into “P”?
    Cheers
    Fred

  18. Fred, unfortunately I never tested with more than 4-5 GB of data. I had to rewrite some of my inefficient code to reduce memory usage. As a result, MMITunes v3.1.0 now crawls through nearly 5000 songs on my external FireWire drive in less than 5 seconds. Please let me know what happens on your MacBook Air.

    Cheers,
    Jan

  19. Hi Jan, pastebin.com says “request entity too large” :-(
    Here are the last lines of the output window:

    Adding /Volumes/SD FAT32GB/S/Secret Service/Discofox Party Cd 1/04 Ten O_Clock Postman.mp3
    Traversing /Volumes/SD FAT32GB/S/Stanley, Ralph
    Traversing /Volumes/SD FAT32GB/S/Stanley, Ralph/Clinch Mountain Country (disc 1)
    Adding /Volumes/SD FAT32GB/S/Stanley, Ralph/Clinch Mountain Country (disc 1)/2-09 The Lonesome River.mp3
    Traversing /Volumes/SD FAT32GB/_Archived Items
    Calculating… may take several minutes, please be patient

    After 18,5 hours of waiting…Maybe 32GB are too much for MMiTunes.Tried it with letter “A” of the artists I got playlists after some minutes…

    If complete output is needed I can send it by mail.
    Cheers
    Fred

  20. Fred, can you please post the output of the log window to pastebin.com and post the URL here? You don’t need to sign up with pastebin.

    Thanks!
    Jan

  21. Hi Jan,

    unfortunately MMItunes runs only 1 times succesfully. After that I changed all the songs to ID-Tag 2.4 but MMItunes runs over 8 hours without finishing…
    Tried the old song-library again (a mix of ID-Tag2.3 and 2.4) but without success too.
    Do you have any idea what I can do in addition?
    Cheers
    Fred

    PS: Tried MMItunes 3.01 and an old version (2.x) on MacBookPro too; on SD-card as well as on hard-disc-drive; all without success :-(

  23. :-)))
    Great: 3.0.2 works fine!
    Now I have to clear my library because of some undesired playlists like “(33).m3u”…

    Thaks a lot!!!
    Cheers
    Fred

    PS: “About MMITunes” says still “version 1.0.1” ;-)

  25. Fred, the finish button shows up way too early while the program is still doing its calculations. So try giving it more time, especially on the not-so-powerful MacBook Air in combination with lots of music on the SD card. It may take several minutes on the MBA. Also check if you see log messages like “no audio header found”, corrupt files slow the process down a lot.

    Cheers,
    Jan

  26. Hi Jan,

    just tried out version 3.0.1 on MacBookAir with OS 10.7.2 and 32GB-SD-Card with FAT32
    Program is running and showing a lot of actions like “adding volume xy” and “traversing volume xy” but at the end I don´t have any playlist :-(

    Any suggestions?
    CU
    Fred

    2 Original messages:
    Adding /Volumes/SD2 ITMW/A-Z/C/Coldplay/X&Y/13 Til Kingdom Come.mp3
    Traversing /Volumes/SD2 ITMW/A-Z/C/Compay Segundo

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