How do I fill iPod Shuffle from two smart playlists?

[minckster]

I'd like to fill my iPod Shuffle from two smart playlists. I do so manually now, but figure there must be a better way. Can anyone help?

The two playlists are: 1) Music rated 4 or 5 stars, and 2) Music rated 3 stars.

What I do now is copy all of my 4 and 5 star music, ordered by decreasing Play Count, to the iPod's playlist and then fill the rest of the iPod's playlist with randomly selected 3-star music. The downside is that the iPod doesn't automatically grab new 4-5 star music. I have to recreate the iPod's playlist.

I'm willing to forgo ordering the 4-5 star music by decreasing play count if that helps to automate filling my iPod.

 

[lbj]

Hmmmm, are you sure you have created smart playlists and not just playlists?

When setting up your smart playlists, you should be able to specify what you're criteria are. Seems like you would want to make one playlist with the rating range of 4-5. Then a second playlist with 3 rating songs only. Select live updating, and anytime an unranked song is ranked accordingly, it will automatically be added to the correct playlist.

Now, you can go to iPod settings and have Shuffle set to automatically fill using the selected playlist(s), and selecting those two playlists.

Everything should be automated for you now.


ETA: Oh, and in creating your playlists, you can cap the megabyte totals to keep from getting the dreaded message that your playlists are too large and therefore we won't load anything.

 

[minckster]

Thanks lbj! The two smart playlists are indeed smart playlists and they work fine. The problem is that I'd like to get a particular intersection of those two playlists on the iPod. I only see a way to import one playlist (picture attached).

What I do now is highlight every song in 4-5 star playlist and drag them to the iPod. I then autofill whatever's left over with the 3 star playlist. When the 4-5 smart playlist updates (say I add a song to my library), it doesn't get added to the iPod, although it does get added to the smart playlist.

I think I'll have to create one smart playlist which is all of my 4-5 star music plus a random selection of my 3-star music until I get 1 GB.

 

[minckster]

I think I got it. I wouldn't have thought this was possible - much less so easy. Does it look right?

 

[symphonix]

That look like it would work fine.
As a tip, I did a similar thing with my Nano. I made a playlist folder called "iPod playlists", and in it I put a few lists:
- 300mb randomly selected Five star songs
- 300mb randomly selected four star songs
- 300mb songs that have not been played in the last year

I then made a new playlist called "iPod playlist" in which the criteria was "is in the playlist" "iPod Playlists" and it seems to make a list containing anything that was on the lists in that folder.