Need help with a smart playlist

the party shuffle won't play on the iPod.

you could set the criteria to include only the least recently played of the larger playlist, instead of "not within last 1 day." it'll still remove songs that just played, but still update continually and never run out.

OK
A dynamic playlist(smartupdating) on the iPod would be awesome, but is not currently possible. All playlists on the Pod are static, only in iTunes are they dynamic. So it will only refresh when you sync.

Lets call your big list Essentials.
How long would it take to play your list all the way, if broken down into, say, 1.5 hour increments per day? lets say 20 days. Play with these last two numbers, you know you're listening habits...

conditons for MASTERlist in itunes(no need to sync this one)
playlist is essentials
played in the last 20 days.

List for the Pod 1
playlist is essentials
playlist is NOT MASTERlist
limit to 20 songs by random

list for ipod 2
playlist is essentials
playlist is NOT MASTERlist
playlist is NOT list for Pod 1
limit to 20 songs by random

that gives you 2 lists of 20. obivously you can expand that to whatever.

my "least recently played" list seems to be dynamically updating on my iPod mini, and pmoto seems to suggests that his smart playlist dynamically updated itself on his iPod, so I will assume that dynamic playlist is possible for atleast Gen3 and for the mini.

pmoto, if you expand the playlist to 50 or 60, assuming that's not larger than your source playlist, and put it on shuffle, then it will still seem like the iPod is playing them in random order. This is about as close to what you decribed as I can think of. It would be great if the iPod could exclude songs played in the last hour(s), but maybe that's something we write to Apple for future features.

dekkerd:

Dynamic smartlists are possible on Gen3 iPods. Possibly you have a 2nd gener?

Adam

Originally posted by pmoto
Dekkerd, thanks for your suggestion.

First, although not nearly as dynamic as in iTunes, I have no problem getting my smartplaylists to dynamically update on my iPod (without having to sync). The only additional requirement is I must physically exit the playlist and then reenter it to get the playlist to refresh/update.

This is puzzling. Read here (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61686) from the iPod FAQ. I just tried listening to a song from my 'unheard' playlist(on the iPod), exitingafter it was completed, & reentering the list. Its still there, though it should have kicked off if it was dynamic. Using a 3g 30gb with v 2.2. There have been several threads about this, although I can't recall any about the mini.
Originally posted by pmoto

As for your suggestion for a smart playlist, am trying to follow your playlist logic in setting up the lists you suggest. Using your example, if it would normally take me 20 days to listen to all the songs in my Essentials list then wouldn't the contents of the Essentials and Masterlist be identical (every song in the Essentials list would have been played in the last 20 days)?

If so, wouldn't the contents of the iPod lists be empty since all songs in the Essentials list are also in the Masterlist?

What am I missing?

Eventually, yes, you could have 2 empty lists. But not before every song on the essentials list is rotated thru once, with no repeats, as you had requested. If you're timing is right, they will start over before that happens, but enough time will pass you won't notice the repeats. I probably explained wrong, I've been up 20 hours by now, sorry :)

Originally posted by pmoto

The next time I go back into the larger playlist I am back at the beginning of the list and I have to remember the last track listened to. I then have to scroll down the list to the next 'fresh' song in the list. Is there a way to get a playlist to 'remember' where I last stopped listening?


if you hit pause when you stop listening and let the iPod sleep on its own, when you come back, hitting play will pick up the playlist right where it left off. so if you continually listen to the same playlist, this option will allow you to continue listening without hearing recently played songs. of course it's still a passive solution. if you stop to go to a different playlist, then come back, you'll have start again.

Originally posted by Starboard
i got it!

create another playlist of recently played songs, limit to about 20.

then set your playlist to include songs from your source playlist but to also exclude songs form the recently played playlist. that should kick out songs that just got finished playing.

so criteria should be:
match "all" conditions
playlist - is - "Your source playlist" - and
playlist - is not - "Recently Played playlist."
limit to 20.

I think that should do it.

I think that should work as well, but again, its dependent on time. The recently played playlist needs to expire at some point to get the songs back. If the timing is off even a little, you get no songs or songs back into the rotation before hearing them all...

Starboard, thanks for the suggestion.

I think this might be close to what I am looking for. As you suggest, as long as I limit the content of the 'Recently Played' list to something smaller than my larger 'Master List' then songs should continuously rotate through this list then back into the pool of songs available for random selection by my 20 song random list.

Limiting the size of the 'Recently Played' list to something like 75% of the size of my 'Master List' should work. With this solution I could still get a repeat song, but not until 75% of the songs in my 'Master List' have been played. This is acceptable.

To keep the 'Recently Played' list clean I will probably add a second criteria to the list so it only includes recently played songs that are also in my 'Master List'.

Will play around with your solution to see how well it works.

Thanks again!