WHAT IS IPTV M3U

M3U (MPEG version 3.0 URL) is a file format that aims to store a list of addresses, usually audio files and / or video files. Originally created for playlists of the Winamp software, these files are simple text files that can be edited by hand (line by line).

The m3u seems supported by most multimedia player software.

Its structure is simple: put an address by line1. The addresses can be:

Summary

1 The format

1.1 m3u8

1.2 m3u extended

2 Examples

2.1 m3u

2.2 m3u extended

3 Applications

3.1 Example of use for php

4 Notes and references

4.1 Notes

5 See also

5.1 Related Articles

5.2 External links

distant or local,

relative (to the m3u file edited) or absolute.

These addresses can point to several types of targets, the most common is the audio file and the video file; other types, such as folders and play list formats, can create various playback problems depending on the application you are using.

For example, if a line points to a folder, some players will only read the first child file (such as iTunes in “factory settings”, corrected from iTunes6 on OSX), others (including Windows Media Player 12). will try to “read” the file and not his children. This will cause a read error for this line.

In contrast, softwarenote 1VLC and MPC support pointing a folder and also scanning child folders.

m3u8 [edit | change the code]

note 1Format not recognized by applications not decoding UTF-8 Windows Media Player, MPC

The coding of the m3u files is in Latin-1. The m3u8 format uses a UTF-8 encoding.

m3u extended [edit | change the code]

note 1 The extended format keywords are ignored by Windows Media Player.

The extended format is defined as this:

# EXTM3U

Keyword indicating that the file is in the extended M3U format. To be placed exactly at the beginning of the file.

#EXTINF: duration, information

(This line is optional, in case you want one of the listed files to have no extended information). Let’s detail it:

#EXTINF:: Keyword meaning EXTended INformation Field. It indicates that this line is extended information of the following media.

duration,: Specifies the duration (in seconds) of the media followed by a comma. If the duration is -1, it will be ignored.

information: By convention, we indicate here the name of the artist, separated by a dash, the name of the track.

Address

Address of the target. You can also add another playlist. It is advisable, however, to pay attention to the encoding of the edited playlist in relation to those listed, but also to the format of the latter (a reader does not necessarily read all the formats of playlist).

#EXTREM:

Placed at the beginning of any line, makes of it a comment. That is, it will be ignored by the software that will read the file, so can contain any text, even the keywords above. (Does not work and is not ignored by Media Player Classic note) .