Creating m3u playlist (tutorial and dummies guide)

[Roadrunner]

I'm sure you already know it and its not worth to be stickied, but I hope there are some members who are new to IPTV and will find it of some help

Creating *m3u playlist for SimpleTv player ( lists will also work in VLC)

In your search for links to streams on the net you will (or already have) find loads of links that look like this:

http://123.123.123.12:8080 (its just an example)
or rtmp://.......
or mms://......
or rtsp://......

or same as above but with EXTINF:and the name of the stream followed by its address, IP address and port number, or a proper name like _http://www.sitename.....
All tutorials people post on youtube seem to concentrate on how to open a single stream on various players, right clicking copying and pasting a single address to open it with a player (in other words just nick the link and paste it to their player asap). But we can create a playlist with multiple channels on it and open it all at once, and just change channels at the click of a mouse instead of the time consuming opening them one by one? And share the ready made playlist with others too (hopefully)?

We need to begin with opening a new file in the notepad.

First thing we need to do in that file is to put a header in the first line so the player recognises what it is:

#EXTM3U

Next we would like our file to go to the correct group of channels in our player so in the same line as the header (after a space) we insert the intended destination ($ExtFilter=) where the list should be uploaded when we load it to the player. I will use SPORT as an example here. First line (header + destination) will look like this:

#EXTM3U $ExtFilter="SPORT"

Doing the above will tell your player where to (which group) insert the playlist, if no such group exists it will create a new group called SPORT and insert your channels in there

Next we can start inserting stream addresses to our file

In the next line we need to tell the player that we are inserting the address now, so we write #EXTINF:
Now, there are two types of #EXTINF: you will come across on the net , one is #EXTINF:0, and the other is #EXTINF:-1
The numbering of the #EXTINF is explained in detail on wikipedia if you want to go into details
But we are only concentrating on what difference it makes for our player.

If we use #EXTINF:0, our playlist will be added to the bottom of our list of channels in the group we have named above and if we use the #EXTINF:-1, it will be added to the top(you will see the difference it makes when your list of channels start growing as you find new additions, the -1 also tells the player that there is no predefined lenght value as its an internet stream and not your local file, but as we are making a player specific file it doesn't bother us so don`t worry about it now.(You start worrying about what number to put after the EXTINF when you start creating extended *m3u playlists, but we are only making a simple list for our streams)
So if we want to just add channels to list we use #EXTINF:0, but if we want them on top for any reason we use the other. Whichever you use you can always re-arrange the channel order when they are already on your player, so don`t worry too much, I am just trying to explain the difference

Back to the file:
In order for the player to correctly recognise the link, we need to insert our #EXTINF:0, and without any space after that, our stream name (you can have spaces in the name but immediately after the name we press ENTER and insert the address in the next line (so there are no spaces between the name and address). So the file we have created so far will look like this:

#EXTM3U $ExtFilter="SPORT"               
#EXTINF:0,Your Channel Name
http://123.123.123.12:8080
#EXTINF:0,Your Channel Name 2
http://www.sitename..........
#EXTINF:0,Your Channel Name 3
rtmp://.............
and so on

Insert all your links in the above manner, and when you have finished SAVE the file. (press File->Save as, then name your playlist
example.m3u and for the file type change from Text Do***ents to All Files then press save
Now you can open your Simple Tv player and load your playlist. Make sure that you un-tick the 'Delete curent data' in the load playlist screen so you load your new list and retain your current list too
For future updates you can re-use that file, just replace the names and addresses and save under a different name

VLC users can just double click the file or Media-->Open file, but they wont have all the bells and whistles that come with the SimpleTv player