How to randomize playlist

[dlane2155]

First I will describe my setup.

I am using TVersity to share my stadium sounds over to my 360. I have a folder for each team with files named identically for each team and I share the specific folder needed for each game. In the game I setup the stadium sounds for all teams and everything works great.

I would just like a way to randomize the playlist. I don't think this is possible within m3u files. Does the Xbox 360 support other playlist formats for use in games? Also does anyone know of a program that could run in the bacground on the computer and whenever the m3u file is accessed it could change the order of the lines in it? I know this is possible, and I would do it myself but I know very little programing.

Thanks in advance!

[thumstyx]

Re: How to randomize playlist

It is possible however the method I use is pretty unconventional

You need to be on an XBOX 360 for this method
It requires the use of streamed M3Us and a script

The script overwrites the M3Us for stadiums sounds in intervals of 10 seconds from one of 4 different folders

It effectively "randomizes" the playlists

Example -

I have one "playlist" in game that it streams from PC but it can be one of any number of playlists depending on which one is in the folder at the time it reads the M3U

I use the xcopy and timeout commands

It is fairly straight forward if you can copy and paste, substitute a few lines of code unique to your environment and understand where things are stored on your PC

If anyone is interested in this method I will post the code

It is pretty awesome having an event trigger a "random" sound every time

[dlane2155]

Re: How to randomize playlist

I would like to try out the script you use.

Also I originally posted that I just use "all teams" but found out that they were only working if I was playing as the home team.

[thumstyx]

Re: How to randomize playlist

I will try to explain with as few details as possible because it is a rather convoluted solution to an otherwise simple problem

Example:

Consider I have playlist called "DEF_Stop_3rd_Down" and I want to play any one of 4 different sounds

If you would like to play 4 different sounds for one event you will need to create 4 different M3Us (playlists) with the exact same name BUT linked to a different mp3

I create 4 folders called 1,2,3 and 4 in and I place the M3Us with the same name in each folder

I will create 4 folders NOT in your MUSIC folder for the source files
(Windows Media Player defaults to that folder and includes all playlists and things can get messy - Your source M3Us should NOT be in your music folder)

C:\NCAA Stadium Sounds\1
C:\NCAA Stadium Sounds\2
C:\NCAA Stadium Sounds\3
C:\NCAA Stadium Sounds\4

Now I want to create a folder in MUSIC where I store my playlists and MP3s

C:\Users\USER\Music\NCAA Custom Stadium Sounds\MyTeam

This is the location that we link to the playlists in game

I will now create my script that overwrites the M3Us linked to the stadium sounds in game with the variables in my example

(Open notepad, cut and paste this code and edit as needed and save as "Randomizer.bat" or whatever you prefer)

This batch file will perform the following tasks:

Set a timer for next function
(In this example it is 10 seconds)
Copy the M3Us from your source folders to the folder that is linked for streaming
Loop until it is closed

@ECHO 
 
cls
:start
 
timeout /t 10
 
xcopy "C:\NCAA Stadium Sounds\1\*.m3u" "C:\Users\USER\Music\NCAA Custom Stadium Sounds\MyTeam" /y
 
timeout /t 10
 
xcopy "C:\NCAA Stadium Sounds\2\*.m3u" "C:\Users\USER\Music\NCAA Custom Stadium Sounds\MyTeam" /y
 
timeout /t 10
 
xcopy "C:\NCAA Stadium Sounds\3\*.m3u" "C:\Users\USER\Music\NCAA Custom Stadium Sounds\MyTeam" /y
 
timeout /t 10
 
xcopy "C:\NCAA Stadium Sounds\4\*.m3u" "C:\Users\USER\Music\NCAA Custom Stadium Sounds\MyTeam" /y
 
goto start

Again, a somewhat convoluted approach to a simple problem but it does work

If you have some experience with batch scripts and understand where your computer stores it's files you should be able to customize this script and "randomize" your playlists that are triggered by an in-game event

Good Luck and feel free to ask any questions

DISCLAIMER:

Use at your own risk
thumstyx accepts no liability for an incorrectly written and executed script that goes awry

(That being said the worst that can happen is overwriting an M3U / playlists by accident)

[dlane2155]

Re: How to randomize playlist

Great. Seems simple enough. Now if I could just get my 360 to recognize my computer again. After the last batch of windows updates none of my computers are recognized...

[SECElit3]

This sounds interesting

[buckeyebaggins4]

Re: How to randomize playlist

bump...awesome post. any chance i could do this while streaming from my mac somehow?

[rambeaux504]

Re: How to randomize playlist

I burn my songs to a disk.
And rip the songs to my xbox.
If I have 20 songs, I have to make 20 playlists with one song each.

If I make an actual playlist with more than one song, it just plays the first song (Maybe the second song if I wait long enough. I dunno)
For LSU, I want "I'm from Louisiana" to play for kickoff. But also have "Callin Baton Rouge"... but they really only play that pregame. ... It sucks that you can't fully customize the environment. Like, I wish you could have a pre-pregame, pregame and then the team run out on the field. Like they used to... EA always takes features out, when they should build on them.