tgm4883: though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U has 3 options for specification sounds like we should have no dir unless we include the http:// (and hostname/port) i.e. we're mid-way between "a local pathname relative to the M3U file location" and "a URL" (which, technically is a URI, but, hey, it's wikipedia :) yea so it's getting confused if you modify the m3u and put in http://: at the beginning, does it play?