The problem with this playlist file is that it is specific to your computer. Opening up the .m3u file in your favorite text editor (preferably BBEdit) will reveal every item in your playlist and its link. Changing the link to something relative will allow you to use this playlist on both VLC and the XBox Media Center (XBMC). Take my setup for example...
Using the previous tip, I made a separate "xbox" user on my Mac and made symbolic links in the "xbox" home folder to my Music, Pictures, and Movies folders from my "adam" user. I then turned on Windows File Sharing, and made the appropriate bookmarks in the XboxMediaCenter.xml file:
<bookmark>
<name>Adam Renie's Videos</videos>
<path>smb://xbox:[password]@[Mac's local IP]/xbox/Movies</path>
</bookmark>
etc...
The path to my music video collective is /Users/adam/Movies/Music Videos, and the path to my playlist is /Users/adam/Movies/Music Videos.m3u. An entry for an item in the .m3u file generated by VLC looks like this:
#EXTINF:0,Numb.mpg
/Users/adam/Movies/Music Videos/Linkin Park/Numb.mpg
The problem is that all the links are broken when using XBMC, since I'm not sharing from the root directory of my drive. So I changed all the links to look like the following entry using Find and Replace, and then saved the file:
#EXTINF:0,Numb.mpg
./Music Videos/Linkin Park/Numb.mpg
You can change the #EXTINF entry to a title more specific if you so desire. Following this method, and if all goes well, you can now open up your playlist in XMBC and be able to play all your videos in a row, or shuffle them to your hearts desire.
Making a playlist of music would work the exact same way, but the later builds of XBMC actually have support for iTunes sharing, so that would be redundant and more of a hassle! Unfortunately, XBMC will stop playing a list if it hits a file it cannot play (like some .mov files). Occasionally, you may have to correct some permissions if you get a "Permission Denied" error opening a folder on XBMC, or a particular file simply refuses to play. Additionally, items and links with accented or non-latin characters will fail to play. I don't know if this is due to VLC's method of creating .m3u files, the SMB sharing protocol, XMBC's method of handing such characters, or a combination thereof.
I hope someone else can make use of this hint. With my 450-some music videos, it's like having my own personal MTV, but full of good videos, no commercials, and most importantly ... no Carson Daly. Being able to free up my screen real estate and processing power by pushing video off onto my modded Xbox hooked up to a TV is certainly a benefit to me. Enjoy!

