Table of Contents

Text Playlist Import Format Specification

This document contains the specification of the “Text Playlist Import” (TPI) format introduced in mAirList 5.0.3.

The purpose of this format is to import playlists from 3rd party music scheduling systems.

TPI is a text/CSV based format that contains the IDs or filenames of the items to import, plus optional control information.

General

File Format

File Name Conventions

Column Layout

Each line contains four or more tab-separated columns:

Column # Field
1 Start Time
2 Timing
3 Line Type
4 Line Data
5..x Optional columns, depending on line type

Start Time

Timing

The Timing column can contain one of the following values which correspond to the respective Timing settings in mAirList:

Value Description
N Normal
H Hard fixed time
S Soft fixed time
B Backtimed
E Excluded from backtiming

The Timing column can be left empty, in which case Normal timing is assumed, or the default value from the item metadata is used.

For Hard and Soft timing, a valid Start Time must be given in column 1.

Line Type

The third column specified the type of the respective line. Currently, the folllowing types are defined:

Type Name Description
B Block Indicates the start of the next music block
D Dummy A dummy/note item
E External ID An item from the database library, identified by its External ID
F File An audio file, identified by its filename
I ID An item from the database library, identified by its ID
O Options Options for file import
R Remark Silently ignored during import

Line Definitions

Below it the description of all supported Line Types (column 3) and the corresponding Line Data (column 4).

B: Block

Used to indicate the boundary of a (music or advertising) block. In column 4, the number of the block starting here is given. Column 4 can be left empty, in which case the number of the previous block + 1 is assumed. Timing is ignored and can be left empty. If the file contains no B lines at all, block 1 is assumed for all content.

Example:

12:00:00                B       2

Indicates the start of music/advertising block #2.

D: Dummy

Adds a new Dummy item to the output playlist. In column 4, specify the title of the new item.

Example:

12:00:00        H       D       Start of Hour

Adds a new dummy with title 'Start of Hour' and a Hard fixed time of 12:00:00.

E: External ID

Adds the item with the specified External ID from the database. Example:

12:00:00        N       E       100810-01

Adds the item with the External ID 100810-01, with Normal timing.

F: File

Adds an audio file to the playlist. In column 4, specify the file name of the audio file; if no full path is give, the file name is assumed to be relative to the playlist file. Metadata will be fetched from the database, MMD files, or file tags automatically, whatever is available.

Example:

12:00:00        N       F       C:\news.mp3

Adds the file C:\news.mp3, with Normal timing.

Additional columns can be used to set fields on the imported file:

Column Field
5 Title
6 Artist
7 Item Type

I: ID

Adds the item with the specified (internal) ID from the database.

Example:

12:00:00        N       I       120577

Adds the item with the ID 120577, with Normal timing.

O: Options

Specifies the options for the processing of all subsequent F lines. Start time and timing is ignored. Column 4 and 5 contain the name and value of the option. Currently the following options are available:

Name Description
ItemType Override playlist item type, e.g. News or Advertising. Default is Unknown which means no overriding.
ImportTasks Tasks to perform during file import. Comma separated list of one or more of the following values: MDD, Tags, NativeTags, Duration, Tilde, AutoCue, Normalize, DatabaseLookup, UnpackPlaylists. Use * for all tasks, which is also the default.

R: Remark

Lines of type R are silently ignored during import. R lines can be used to add comments to TPI file, to make it more readable by humans.