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<a class="trail" href="index.html" title="♪ Streamtuner2"><span class="media"><span class="media media-image"><img src="img/logo.png" class="media media-inline" alt="♪"></span></span> Streamtuner2 </a> › <a class="trail" href="index.html#footer" title="index#footer"></a> » <a class="trail" href="glossary.html" title="Glossary">Glossary</a> › <a class="trail" href="glossary.html#filetypes" title="Filetypes">Filetypes</a> » </div></div></div>
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<div class="hgroup"><h1 class="title"><span class="title">File types</span></h1></div>
<div class="region">
<div class="contents"><p class="p">Streamtuner2 understands different playlist formats as used by various
directory services and audio players.</p></div>
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<div class="hgroup"><h2 class="title"><span class="title">.M3U files</span></h2></div>
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<p class="p">M3U files are one of the simplest playlist types. They're often used by desktop audio players.</p>
<p class="p">The MIME type of these files is <span class="sys">audio/x-mpegurl</span> and often contain just a list of URLs:</p>
<div class="code"><pre class="contents ">#M3U
http://123.45.67.189:8222/
http://123.45.67.222:7555/</pre></div>
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<div class="hgroup"><h2 class="title"><span class="title">.PLS files</span></h2></div>
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<p class="p">Playlist files often have the extension <span class="file">.pls</span>. It's the primary station
stream link format of SHOUTcast, and was popularized by WinAmp.</p>
<p class="p">The MIME type of these files is <span class="sys">audio/x-scpls</span> and they often look like: </p>
<div class="code"><pre class="contents ">[playlist]
numberofentries=1
File1=http://123.45.67.189:8222
Title1=(#1 - 555/2000) radio station Xyz - top 100 - all the hitzez
Length1=-1</pre></div>
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<div class="hgroup"><h2 class="title"><span class="title">.JSON files</span></h2></div>
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<p class="p">JSON is a data representation format derived from Javascript (the browser embedded
programming language for websites). It's commonly used because it provides a
nice balance between terse and exact data representation, while still being
readable.</p>
<p class="p">Streamtuner2 uses it to store all of its configuration and radio station data files.
The MIME type of these files is <span class="sys">application/json</span> and they often look like: </p>
<div class="code"><pre class="contents ">[
  {
    "title": "Station title..",
    "url": "http://1.2.3.4:8000/",
    "homepage": "http://radio.org/",
  },
  { "title": "second" }
]</pre></div>
<p class="p">It's also the basis for JSPF, the JSON variant of XSPF.</p>
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<div class="hgroup"><h2 class="title"><span class="title">.XSPF files</span></h2></div>
<div class="region"><div class="contents">
<p class="p">The Xiph foundation manages the Ogg streaming format, Vorbis and other
codecs, and introduced the "XML shareable playlist format" or "XSPF" for short.
They're hard to look at and not very widespread. On the upside they
contain more meta information than any other playlist store.</p>
<p class="p">As MIME type <span class="sys">application/xspf+xml</span> and they often look like: </p>
<div class="code"><pre class="contents syntax brush-html">&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;playlist version="1" xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/"&gt;
  &lt;trackList&gt;
    &lt;track&gt;
      &lt;title&gt;Top 500 hitz station XY&lt;/title&gt;
      &lt;annotation&gt;Paris&lt;/annotation&gt;
      &lt;location&gt;http://123.24.67.189:8222&lt;/location&gt;
      &lt;info&gt;Pop, Rock, Future-Jazz&lt;/info&gt;
      &lt;homepage&gt;http://example.com/&lt;/homepage&gt;
    &lt;/track&gt;
  &lt;/trackList&gt;
&lt;/playlist&gt;</pre></div>
<p class="p">A variation of this format exists as JSPF, using JSON (yay!) instead of XML.</p>
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<div class="hgroup"><h2 class="title"><span class="title">Uncommon formats</span></h2></div>
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<p class="p">Various other file formats are in existence, but not widely used:</p>
<div class="list"><div class="inner"><div class="region"><ul class="list">
<li class="list">
<div class="title title-item"><h3><span class="title">SMIL</span></h3></div>
<p class="p">Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language is an HTML-style
  audio/video/stream-link format.</p>
</li>
<li class="list">
<div class="title title-item"><h3><span class="title">ASX</span></h3></div>
<p class="p">Is a Windows-only format, a variation of SMIL. There's an abhorrent
  number of similar formats, like .ASF and .WPL, basically doing the same
  thing. Nobody knows why.</p>
</li>
<li class="list">
<div class="title title-item"><h3><span class="title">QTL</span></h3></div>
<p class="p">QuickTime Link files are also a variation of SMIL</p>
</li>
<li class="list">
<div class="title title-item"><h3><span class="title">B4S</span></h3></div>
<p class="p">.B4S is a failed WinAmp XML playlist format.</p>
</li>
<li class="list">
<div class="title title-item"><h3><span class="title">.desktop</span></h3></div>
<p class="p">*.desktop files can contain just one link.</p>
</li>
<li class="list">
<div class="title title-item"><h3><span class="title">.url</span></h3></div>
<p class="p">*.url (Internet Shortcut) files also are single-link containers.</p>
</li>
</ul></div></div></div>
<p class="p">For a comparison of what various audio players support, see also
<span class="link"><a href="http://fossil.include-once.org/streamtuner2/wiki/Playlist+format+support" title="http://fossil.include-once.org/streamtuner2/wiki/Playlist+format+support">Playlist format support</a></span>
in the ST2 fossil wiki.</p>
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