[NicB.]

Hi guys,

I have an old iPod that I've been using for years. the iDrive on my 2015 335i loads playlists fine and lets me access all my songs in the playlist (5000 songs). That said, the iPod is slow and old, and I wanted something smaller, so I picked up a high quality USB thumb drive and loaded my songs on it. I created two .m3u playlists, each with 5000 songs. iDrive indexes everything fine; however, each of these playlists is capped at 500 songs. I can't figure out why that might be, especially given the iPod playlists work fine.

Any ideas? Is it the .m3u format (should I try XML or something else)? Very frustrating as this should be something simple that works.

Thanks in advance.
NicB.

[NicB.]

Anyone?

[dianebrat]

m3u playlists respond differently depending on the player software and its limitations, most frequently limitations in how much metadata the player will support.

But you're also using playlists in a different way than many people do, having 500 songs in playlist even sounds like a lot in my book so when you toss 5000 as a number I'm not surprised there's an issue, 500 songs is a 33 hour playlist, and 5000 is a 13 day long playlist. I expect a playlist to average 8-10 hours and have many of them.

The reason you don't usually see the limitations in the ipod is that in most cases it's not loading the full playlist from the ipod, it's just hooking into it and displaying what's on the ipod and letting you drill into it, the ipod is doing most of the work in most cases. FWIW this is why I have a 128GB ipodtouch that lives in my console, side benefit is it also lets me download video from my dashcam.

I've used both flashdrives and an ipod touch for my 15,000 songs and the ipod is a lot more manageable than the sticks for that IMNSHO.

While I don't have a solution, this information might be somewhat helpful.

[GeorgeR]

What are you using to convert your iTunes playlist? I have saved all my files in iTunes as Apple Lossless and use MediaHuman Audio Converter to save files on USB drives in both WAV and MP3 format on different drives depending on whether I want album art or highest quality file.

My list of over 1700 songs plays without issue as do a few smaller lists also saved on the USB drive. I can save albums as well, keeping the iTunes file structure, and have used drives as large as 256 GB. I know many use iTunes built in converter without problem. I haven't noticed or been familiar with an option for .m3u format, why you would want it, or if it has a 500 song limit.

[NicB.]

Originally Posted by GeorgeR

What are you using to convert your iTunes playlist? I have saved all my files in iTunes as Apple Lossless and use MediaHuman Audio Converter to save files on USB drives in both WAV and MP3 format on different drives depending on whether I want album art or highest quality file.

My list of over 1700 songs plays without issue as do a few smaller lists also saved on the USB drive. I can save albums as well, keeping the iTunes file structure, and have used drives as large as 256 GB. I know many use iTunes built in converter without problem. I haven't noticed or been familiar with an option for .m3u format, why you would want it, or if it has a 500 song limit.

All files are .mp3 format and work fine. I'm not having an issue playing my songs when searching by album, title, or artist. The issue is strictly related to what appears to be a playlist limit of 500 songs.