XML Shareable Playlist Format

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XML Shareable Playlist Format (XSPF), pronounced spiff^[1], is an XML-based playlist format for digital media, sponsored by the Xiph.Org Foundation. Lucas Gonze of Yahoo.com/Webjay.org originated the format in 2004.

XSPF is a data format for sharing the kind of playlist that can be played on a personal computer or portable device. In the same way that any user on any computer can open any web page, XSPF is intended to provide portability for playlists.

[edit] Features

• A playlist format like M3U or ASX
• MIME content-type of application/xspf+xml
• Patent-free (no patents by the primary authors)
• Specification under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 license
• XML, like Atom
• Unicode support
• Cross-platform support

[edit] History

XSPF was created by an ad-hoc working group which kicked off in February 2004, achieved rough consensus on version 0 in April 2004, worked on implementations and fine tuning throughout summer and fall 2004, and declared the tuned version to be version 1 in January 2005.

XSPF is not yet an Internet standard, and is not a recommendation of any standards body besides Xiph.Org Foundation.

[edit] Specification

For detailed documentation, see the XSPF Version 1 specification.

[edit] Example of an XSPF 1.0 Playlist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<playlist version="1" xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/">
  <trackList>
    <track>
      <title>Internal Example</title>
      <location>file:///C:/music/foo.mp3</location>
    </track>
    <track>
      <title>External Example</title>
      <location>http://www.example.com/music/bar.ogg</location>
    </track>
  </trackList>
</playlist>

[edit] Content Resolution

Traditionally playlists have been composed of file paths that pointed to individual titles. This allowed a playlist to be played locally on one machine or shared if the listed file paths were URLs accessible to more than one machine (i.e. on the web). XSPF's meta-data rich open format has permitted a new kind of playlist sharing called content resolution.

In the simplest terms, content resolution is the local recreation of a playlist based on meta-data. A content resolver will open XSPF playlists and search a catalog for every title with <creator>, <album> and <title> tags, then recreate the playlist with the available matching titles. A catalog may be a collection of media files on a local disk, a music subscription service like Yahoo! Music Unlimited or some other searchable archive. The end result are shareable playlists that are not tied to a specific collection or service.

[edit] Software

• Amarok
• Audacious
• Herrie - reading/writing XSPF playlists. XSPF is also used to autosave the playlist on shutdown.
• Serpentine - GNOME application for writing audio CDs
• VLC (stand-alone player, available on every major platform)
• Visonair.tv Stream Directory (uses XSPF for server list download)
• libxspf (C++ XSPF library)
• Visonair.tv Player (supports XSPF files)
• Clipland Playlists (onDemand video-playlists also in XSPF)
• PHP4XSPF - a set of PHP classes that aims to make it as simple as possible to create XSPF files using PHP.
• XSPF for Ruby - a pure-Ruby parser and generator library
• JointRadio - takes RSS feeds of MP3 files and creates XSPF files
• XSPF Web Music Player - Open Source XSPF player (in the web browser)

Many more applications are listed on the XSPF site below.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Free software portal

• XSPF home page
• Online XSPF Validator
• XSPF discussion interface
• MyPlayList First XSPF picture / music playlist compiler