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.
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
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.
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 , and Yahoo! Music Unlimited or some other searchable archive. The end result are shareable playlists that are not tied to a specific collection or service.
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)
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