Importing Existing M3U Playlists
I have over 100 playlists in the .M3U format, ranging from a few hundred to several thousand songs each.
My Question: Does the community have any strong recommendations for third-party tools or scripts that reliably import a large volume of .M3U playlist files into Plex?
- Selective Library Inclusion
The media referenced in my 100+ playlists only accounts for about half of my total music collection. With my previous service, I could effectively “build” the server’s library by only including files referenced in a playlist, not the entire music directory.
I understand that for the .M3U import in Question 1 to work, the tracks must already be part of a Plex Music Library.
My Challenge/Request: Is there any way to selectively add files to a Plex Library using a text file or list of paths (like the contents of a master .M3U file) instead of pointing Plex at an entire parent directory? I would strongly prefer not to scan and manage my entire music collection within Plex, but only music the that I actually stream. If selecting a parent folder is the only option, I’ll work with it, but I wanted to confirm this limitation.
- Plexamp Features on Amazon Echo
I see that Plexamp (with a Plex Pass) offers advanced audio features like Loudness Leveling (volume normalization) and track transitions (gapless playback/crossfades).
My Question: Do these advanced Plexamp features (especially Loudness Leveling) work when streaming from the main Plex skill/interface to an Amazon Echo device? I suspect the answer is no, as Echo devices likely act as simple media targets that don’t utilize the Plexamp client’s processing. Is that correct?
- Volume Normalization (ReplayGain)
Even without the transitions, the volume consistency is critical for me when shuffling playlists. My entire collection has ReplayGain Track Gain tags already calculated. My old service used these tags to re-transcode all audio (even MP3s) on-the-fly to ensure normalized track-to-track volume without spikes.
Plex can be set to “Analyze audio tracks for loudness” (which is similar to ReplayGain), but I do not see a setting to force Plex to use that calculated data to pre-adjust the volume via transcoding before sending the stream to the Echo.
My Question: Is there any configuration setting within the Plex Media Server that will apply the loudness/ReplayGain value by transcoding or pre-processing the volume level when streaming to a basic target like an Amazon Echo, or will the audio always be sent at its original volume?
In a nutshell:
How can I leverage my existing M3U playlists and achieve reliable track-to-track volume leveling when shuffling that music to my Amazon Echo devices?
Thank you in advance for your insights and help!
