A playlist is a file containing information pertaining to the location of other audio and video files.
Many digital audio and multimedia players for your computer support playlists. A playlist offers you better organization and management of the various music files on your computer by controlling what files are played and in what order, much like a music playlist used by radio stations. Playlists are commonly used by amateur and professional computer DJs at parties and dances to allow a continuous play of music, queuing programmed and requested songs. More advanced programs’ playlist feature can support fading and mixing between tracks, sorting by artist or genre, and effectively give you the ability to turn your computer into a modern jukebox.
Within a playlist file (which can be viewed as a text document) is the local (hard-drive) and/or remote (Internet) location of each file within that playlist. As the audio player moves through each file on the playlist, it sources that file from the specified location, either on your hard-drive or the Internet (a URL).
Playlist formats:
.pls [WinAmp MPEG PlayList File] – The extension for a playlist created in Winamp that can contain MPEG audio files
.m3u [MPEG URL file] – This extension is used to stream and MP3 file or files
.asx [Active Streaming File – Windows Media]
.wvx/.wax [Windows Media metafiles] – When a browser downloads a file with one of these extensions from a Web site, it opens Windows MediaPlayer. Windows Media Player then locates and plays the content specifiedin the file.
.m2a [MPEG Archive Enhanced .M3U Playlist File]
