Smart Playlist Properties

Smart playlists are playlists that are dynamically populated using the search criteria that you define. Mezzmo searches your Mezzmo library for media files that match your search criteria and lists those media files that match.

Smart playlists are very useful when you wish to collect a set of media files that all have certain matching characteristics. For example, you may want to create a smart playlist of all your 'Rolling Stones' songs from the 1970's.

Mezzmo installs several smart playlists into your Mezzmo library when you first run Mezzmo - including:

• Top 50 Rated
• Last 50 Played
• Recently Added

You can right-click on any of these smart playlists and click the Properties menu item to view the Smart Playlist Properties dialog.

Smart playlists use search criteria to determine what files are included in it. You define the search criteria using the rules editor in the Smart Playlist dialog and Mezzmo finds all the matching files from your Mezzmo library.

Example: You want to create a smart playlist named 'My top 20 rated rock songs from the 1980s'. The search criteria would include two rules and a 20 item limit:

• Match [all] of the following rules:
  • [Genre] [is] [Rock]
  • [Year] [is in the range] [1980] to [1989]
• Limit playlist to: [20] items
• Sort by [Most highly rated]

You can use many different attributes of your media files for smart playlists - including Artist, Album, Bit depth, Duration, File type, File size, Genre, Height, Width, Year, Title and Rating.

Choose a location in your library where you want the smart playlist located. Click the Browse button to choose a new location.

Enter a name for the smart playlist that best describes the media files that will be added into it. For example, if you are searching your Mezzmo library for all your Beatles music with a rating of 5 stars, then the smart playlist may be called 'Top Rated Beatles Music'.</p>

Enter a description of the smart playlist that may be helpful for you to understand the contents of the playlist. For example, if you are searching your Mezzmo library for all your Beatles music with a rating of 5 stars, then the description may be 'All my favorite Beatles tracks'.

Click the browse button to select a content rating that best describes the files that will be listed in the playlist. This content rating will be used by Mezzmo to either list or not list the playlist on devices or web browsers depending on the content rating settings for the device or user.

Click this button to edit the display titles for this smart playlist. Display titles let you set format for the titles of your files when they are displayed in Mezzmo and on your devices. You can set the display titles for all playlists and folders in the Options dialog (General page).

Lets you change the poster artwork for the playlist. Mezzmo will display this artwork in its user interface. Mezzmo also streams this playlist artwork to DLNA devices, web browsers and Mezzmo (Android) app. Both web browsers and Mezzmo (Android app) will display this artwork. Some DLNA devices will display this artwork - however, it depends on each device's implementation of DLNA.

• Add Picture - Click to use an image from your hard disk.
• Get Internet Artwork - Click to search for artwork from web sites.
• Delete Picture - Click to remove the current artwork thumbnail.

If you have multiple rules in your search criteria, you can choose to have media files match all the rules or match any of the rules.

To enter a rule, choose a field from the first combo box (for example, Genre or Artist or Album). Then, choose an operator (for example, 'is' or 'starts with'). Then, enter the value to match with (for example, 'Rock').

To add a new rule, click the + button at the end of a rule. A new empty rule will be added into the dialog box.

To remove a rule, click the - button at the end of a rule. The rule will be removed.

Choose the types of files that you want contained in the smart playlist.

Choose the file attribute that you want your files sorted by.

Tip: Choose Random Shuffle to have the files sorted and listed randomly on your devices.

Limiting playlist is useful if you do not wish to see all matching media files, but just a certain number. For example, the top 50 rated songs, or the 100 recently added videos.

Limiting can also be useful for collecting a set of matching media files to be written to removable media (USB/CD/DVD). For example, you can limit the duration to 80 minutes so you can burn the smart playlist to fit an audio CD, or you can limit the total file size to 64GB so you copy the files onto your USB flash drive.

To limit your smart playlist, enter the amount of the limit and type of limit you wish to apply. You can limit by:

• the number of items - for example, limit the playlist to 100 media files.
• the duration - for example, limit the playlist to 80 minutes total duration.
• the file size - for example, limit the playlist to 64GB total file size.

Lets you change the artwork backdrop for the playlist. Mezzmo will display this artwork in its user interface. Mezzmo also streams this playlist artwork to DLNA devices, web browsers and Mezzmo (Android) app. Both web browsers and Mezzmo (Android app) will display this artwork. DLNA devices will not display this artwork.

• Add Picture - Click to use an image from your hard disk.
• Get Internet Artwork - Click to search for artwork from web sites.
• Delete Picture - Click to remove the current artwork backdrop.