Podcatching Help NEEDED!

[Phog Allen]

Good afternoon chaps. I have been just about to pull my hair out trying to sort out this whole pod catching thing. I know what they are, I just have a horrid time subscribing to and managing them later.

Here is where it stands now. I have used Juice, Doppler, and Foobar_2000 player with the Foo_Catcher pod catcher component. I will not use iTunes since I have no other use for it and do not like its bloat. I have had major issues using all three applications mentioned above. Juice and Doppler are stand alone apps for pod catching. Simple eh? Well, not so much. Both of them installed easily and I managed to add feeds to them but after awhile they essentially stopped operating correctly. Refeeding the same podcasts, and just not too intuitive about what to do once you had them downloaded.

Foobar_2000. Where to start. This highly customisable audio player is the choice of millions. The customisation is what makes it so hard for me to use. Its base installed layout is not overly complicated but using it is. At least for me. It has so many customisable skins, components, "columns", etc that I just don't know where to begin. Podcatcher is a component developed by an enthusiast and to see the postings on the Foobar forum, it works okay. In fact, the first time I used it I managed to get some podcasts subscribed and downloaded. After some updates I cannot seem to get it to do anything. I think if I understood Foobar better it may be easier to configure it.

I am also confused about what types of feeds I should be looking for. In Firefox browser I subscribe to RSS feeds including Badger and Blade. In the RSS folder it will show headers of posts on B&B. So it does not download all the articles(which I like. I don't want thousands of postings downloaded to the pc!). I can just click on them and go to the posting I like. How does this work with podcasts? I gather you need to actually download these since they are not for streaming. Yet I see RSS feeds for these as well as XML, whatever that is.

I guess what I am asking for is a some sort of fairly simple to use pod catcher app and just a bit of coaching on how and what to do with them. I don't know if a web browser is the right app for this. And take the Foobar player. Even if I don't use the podcatcher component to download them, it would be nice to use Foobar to listen to them. That is easy enough doing it one at a time but how about a playlist? Sorry guys, I am a real greenhorn with podcasts.

Regards, Todd

P.S. Here are links to two podcasts I like. The first is more what I call a conventional pod cast(at least I think so). It is Fiona Ritchie's Thistle and Shamrock or Thistlepod

The next looks different to me. 12 Byzantine Rulers. It looks like direct downloads but how would this work with pod catching apps? Thanks guys.

P.P.S. I just clicked on the RSS feed icon at 12 Byzantine Rulers and it gave a pop up menu for subscribing to Google Reader, iGoogle, and several others. I might add this is while using Chrome browser since I am typing from my wife's netbook and Chrome is a much lighter weight than either FF or IE. How do you listen to RSS feeds? I thought they were links to print type articles?

 

[RF1963]

I have to say the quick and easy solution has to be iTunes...

 

[Mr. Imperial]

Unfortunately I can't offer any practical help since I use iTunes, but I will say that the 12 Byzantine Rulers podcast was one of my faves. Lars Brownworth is an alum of my undergrad college!

 

[Phog Allen]

Thanks guys. I know the defacto app for this anymore is iTunes. It is just that I don't want it installed on my pc for nothing more than podcasts.

What I really wish I understood better was Foobar_2000 and its third party components. I have the latest version installed with foo-podcatcher component. I have subscribed to Thistlepod but it shows no activity when I select "update podcasts" from the menu. Frustrating all round. I know it is just my fumble fingered way. Everyone else who uses the component seems to have no issues with it.

Regards, Todd

P.S. Yes, 12 Byantine Rulers was fantastic. I read the book as well. Mr. Brownworth did a top shelf job. I love the history of Byzantium and lament its lack of respect in the historical world. Byzantium kept the west safe from Islamic overrun for nearly 700 years. It is hard for most of westerners to think of it but the Roman Empire of the East, and that is what it was, lasted 1123 years. Much longer than the lamented western part of the empire. I would have loved to walked through the doors of the Haggia Sophia with Justinian and listened to his famous comment; Solomon, I have surpassed thee.

 

[bradyarz]

i don't know much about pod casting, but have you looked into vlc player? it works with just about any os out there and is very versatile. i've never used it for pod casts, but a quick check of the help file reveals that it can handle them.

 

[dpm802]

I have a Zune-120 (currently broken, dammit) and the Zune software is very easy to use for Podcast maintenance. In fact, that was my primary purpose for having a Zune in the first place.

The software is free, and you don't need to have a Zune hooked up to use it on your PC. Subscribing to Podcasts is also free, although you do need a Zune pass @ $15/month to subscribe to an unlimited music library.

http://www.zune.net/en-us/products/software/download/

If you just want to listen to Podcasts on your PC, this will do fine ... but the Zune software will not work with any other portable player except the Zune. Likewise, the Zune player is not recognized by other software, not even Windows Media Player, which is odd since they're both Microsoft products.

 

[Phog Allen]

Thank you for the good responses guys. I had not thought about Zune software or VLC. I have used VLC before and it seems a good player. I may check it out for the netbook.

I also reinstalled Foobar2000 and added the podcatcher component again. I did some fiddling with the layout and subscription functions and got the Thistlepod casts downloaded. However, Foobar has a BIG learning curve. At least it does for me. It took some Googling to find even a rudimentary tutorial on layout and functionality. It is odd but for such a popular player with a huge support base at Hydrogen Audio, there is very little in the way of setup tutorials for it. I will keep fooling around with it for podcasts and see how it goes. No matter what I will keep it for music playback. But hey, I cannot even figure out the whole playlist thing, let alone properly customise it.

Regards, Todd

 

[Edcculus]

Just out of curiosity, what is the problem with iTunes? If it does exactly what you want, why not use it. Seems much easier than some complicated hop-skip-jump set of freeware programs that don't really do what you want and have a huge learning curve.

 

[Phog Allen]

Well I don't know if iTune is the PITA their Quicktime player is but I do know it is fairly heavy for something just to load podcasts. And you cannot install iTunes without Quicktime being automatically added. I DESPISE Quicktime. No matter how you set it when you install it, it takes over EVERY SINGLE audio/video file on your pc when you install it. It takes over your browser plugins as well. So even if you want to just view an embedded video at a website, it will open an instance of Quicktime anyway. At least it used to. Back when I didn't know much about all this I let Apple just update QT at will. What a mistake. It took me forever to get QT completely uninstalled. Searches revealed QT associated files all over the pc. I don't know if this has changed with newer versions but it was enough to keep me away from it.

Foobar is simple yet complicated. A basic layout is not too hard to do. I love it for playback. It is approximately a 3mb download and it just sits there. Doing its thing without hiccups or update nags. What makes it complicated is when you are trying to make up an interface with third party components like the podcatcher. So this is why I was approaching it for this purpose. It may not work out. I don't know. BTW, I downloaded the Zune software and to MS's credit they let you associate only what you want to with Zune. It is still a big old honking program with a lot of buttons, gadgets, and settings. This may not be so great either. The search continues.

Regards, Todd

 

[Edcculus]

Ah yea, I've been on Macs for so long now, I completely forgot about the Quicktime mess on a PC. I hate Real Time player for the same reason.

 

[arghblech]

I have used Miro in the past and found it acceptable. It's primary feature is that it is a video player. I find the podcast/videopodcast subscription management feature to be above average.

 

[RF1963]

Just out of curiosity, what is the problem with iTunes? If it does exactly what you want, why not use it. Seems much easier than some complicated hop-skip-jump set of freeware programs that don't really do what you want and have a huge learning curve.

+10 - then again I am on a Mac and everything just flows along neatly

 

[Phog Allen]

Well this is interesting chaps. After installing Zune software it was easy to go through the settings and have it do nothing but podcasts unless I want it to do something else. Since it only syncs with Zune players(I think this is the same for iPods with iTunes. Yes/no?) it is not really an issue. I don't own a Zune! However, I will have to say that other than fishing through a few menu layers, pod catching is a breeze. I adjusted a few settings, pasted the urls, and a few minutes later had a folder of podcasts. All properly tagged an chucked in a folder with the proper name on it. Painless for the most part. Zune is HEAVY though. It went 60.5Mb after install. That is nothing like an office suite app but is pretty hefty considering Foobar is 3Mb. Right now, Foobar is too clunky on the pod catching front. I will say the gent developing the third party component for it is talented and keeps updating it. I hope I can sort it one of these days.

I have heard of Miro. In fact, when I was Googling pod catching apps old references to it as pod catcher kept coming up. When I went to their website I was taken by surprise at the video player qualities it has developed. This one may get a trial as well.

And yet another app that comes up is Songbird. I saw a shootout between it, Zune, and iTunes. There was much to recommend it but it had it detractions as well. There is certainly enough choice in apps out there to get the job done. BTW, to show you just how good people think iTunes is, when pod catching functionality was added in something like version 4(according to the wiki article on pod catching) almost all development of third party catchers stopped! That is pretty impressive stuff and quite the accomplishment for Apple. Thanks again for all the help chaps.

Regards, Todd