Introduction
As we all knows Digital Headend Industry is growing day by day. For that reason we came across the terms FTTH Tripple Play and OTT etc. Where FTTH stands for Fiber To The Home and OTT stands for Over The Top.
So in this article we are going to discuss about What Is M3U, How it Works and its Conversion.
What Is M3U
M3U stands for MP3 URL. MP3 URL denotes Moving Picture Expert Group Layer 3 Uniform Resource Locator. M3U was developed by Fraunhofer. M3U is a extension of playlist file which represents different streams over internet.
In other words M3U extension file contains the URLs or different absolute or relative path names. These path names locate media files over internet. M3U is used to locate the audio files. But sometimes it is also used to locate the video files too.
M3U Players
One thing here which we need to keep in mind that it is not the video file while it is have the links which represents audio and video file over the internet so that player can understand, what media it needs to play and from where.
There are several players which support M-3-U files listed below,
You can open M-3-U files with the Text editors also.
M3U File Syntax
If you want to make a M3U_File then here is example of how we can make it
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:105, Headendinfo artist - Headendinfo title
C:\Files\My Music\Headendinfo.mp3
#EXTINF:321, Headendinfo Artist2 - Headendinfo title2
C:\Files\My Music\Doc\Headendinfo2.ogg
M3U File Conversion
As we have mentioned above that M-3-U extension is playlist file referencing different stream online. Now we can convert this M-3-U_File into the other formats like M3U8 .HTML and .XSPF . We need to open M-3-U_File into the VLC Media Player then we need to go to “Media” then open the “Save Playlist As...” option and then select the format you want and save it. It is shown below in the screenshot,
You can also download the located audio and video file into your computer by using “M3UExportTool“. We need to use a “Free File Converter” to convert M-3-U_Files into the MP4 or AVI file format.
Conclusion
M-3-U is a file extension contains the URLs locating the audio and video files. A VLC media player is most commonly used to play these files. By using VLC Media Player we can also convert this playlist file to different formats like .HTML and M3U8. VLC Media Player is very good player because it supports other formats like ASX, IFO and M3U8 etc.
Know More About What Is RTMP
