Author Topic: Weird filenames for Escape Pod episodes. Suggestions for podcast software?  (Read 10704 times)

flippertie

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I used to use Mediamonkey to manage my podcasts - but was running out of disk space - so shifted them to a different PC, and and decided to try 'Juice' to download them (for transfer to my phone).

All my subscriptions are working fine except Escape Pod and Podcastle.  Whereas before I got things like
EP287_ATasteofTime.mp3   I now get :
EP286__The_76_Goldwater_Dime_sid_2b330be1f4f2a3a37ecc20cfbaa37bc0_l_sid_18601_l_eid__l_mid_2497024.mp3

Same story with Podcastle, but not with say Clarkesworld...

questions:

1)  Has anyone else seen this or similar and found a solution?  (there was a thread with a similar problem, but no solution a couple of years ago)

Given that my network is an itunes-free-zone what other Podcast software do people here use?   If I could find something that would install direct on a Win Mobile 6.1 phone that would save me a lot of effort...

Thanks
« Last Edit: April 25, 2011, 09:16:01 AM by flippertie »



Wilson Fowlie

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I use Juice, too - also iTunes-free 8) -  and I get the same issue. I understand that the problem is actually caused by Feedburner; a few years ago, they started to add that junk to the attachment name and expect the podcatcher (which, for almost everyone else is iTunes, which I expect gets updated fairly regularly) to compensate. Since Juice is no longer maintained, it doesn't 'know' that Feedburner is buggering up the attachment names, because they started that nonsense sometime after the Juice developers went on to other things.

Since I'm a programmer, and since Juice gives you the option to invoke a program on every file it downloads, my solution was to write myself a little Python script to fix up the filenames, and a batchfile for Juice to call to invoke it. This, of course, is not a solution for everyone, but if you think it will work for you, let me know and we can work out a way for me to send you the files.

Short of getting all of Juice's source files and debugging it (which, as it's open source, is an option, though not one that I have the time to invest in), that (or something like it) is the only way to get Juice to work with those names.

If you'd rather an alternative (and I wouldn't blame you a bit!), a few people have recommended Miro as a good, independent (i.e. non-iTunes) podcatcher. Because I've been using Juice for some years now and I'm comfortable with it, I haven't tried Miro myself, but I've seen some good reviews, so it's one you might look into.

And since the most recent version of Miro came out in December, it probably handles the weird name thing that Feedburner does.

Failing that, Wikipedia lists other possibilities.

I'll be interested to hear what you end up with!

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Listener

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I prefer doing things the old-fashioned way.

I actually still use iTunes to catch the podcasts, since I have an iPad and need the bloated monster anyway (and really it's a lot faster for iPad syncing than iPhone). But since my iPhone was destroyed and I switched to Android, I had basically two choices for "easy" syncing: Doubletwist (which is VERY slow) or by hand.

So I do it by hand. In your case, this would require you renaming the podcasts manually, or using WF's script. But both Doubletwist and iTunes have pretty legible filenames.

I use this player to play them on my Evo: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.jshipp.podcastplayer&feature=search_result -- I find it better than the others because of the GINORMOUS buttons and the quick-skip buttons. You don't get any art, but I'm not listening to podcasts to look at art.

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Wilson Fowlie

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I use this player to play them on my Evo: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.jshipp.podcastplayer&feature=search_result -- I find it better than the others because of the GINORMOUS buttons and the quick-skip buttons. You don't get any art, but I'm not listening to podcasts to look at art.

Does it, by chance, also allow for tempo control?  Despite having an Android phone, I'm still using a cheap MP3 player because it has firmware of East Asian origin that allows me to speed up and slow down the tracks. (I believe this feature is for use by Asian teens who want to learn Western music phonetically.)

I love being able to speed up spoken-word tracks (audiobooks as well as podcasts) and get more listening in per commuting minute.

Sadly, my brand of MP3 player has been discontinued and since the hardware is fairly cheap, it's going to die in the foreseeable future, so I'm desperately searching to find a replacement with the same feature.

"People commonly use the word 'procrastination' to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working." - Paul Graham


Listener

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I use this player to play them on my Evo: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.jshipp.podcastplayer&feature=search_result -- I find it better than the others because of the GINORMOUS buttons and the quick-skip buttons. You don't get any art, but I'm not listening to podcasts to look at art.

Does it, by chance, also allow for tempo control?  Despite having an Android phone, I'm still using a cheap MP3 player because it has firmware of East Asian origin that allows me to speed up and slow down the tracks. (I believe this feature is for use by Asian teens who want to learn Western music phonetically.)

I love being able to speed up spoken-word tracks (audiobooks as well as podcasts) and get more listening in per commuting minute.

No, no tempo control. iDevices have that natively, FWIW (in a limited fashion -- 1x, 2x, and .5x speed). I used to use it to listen to SSS's fact articles. I'm sure there is one in the Android Market, but I haven't had a need for it so I haven't looked.

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Heradel

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I think the iPod/iPhone software only implements tempo control for podcasts and audio books.

I Twitter. I also occasionally blog on the Escape Pod blog, which if you're here you shouldn't have much trouble finding.


kibitzer

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Heradel

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Can I just say that I've used iTunes for several years now, and apart from a weird permissions bug on my girlfriend's machine relating to her running Windows in parallels on top of OS X, with the iTunes library located on the OS X side of the divide, I have never really had a major problem with iTunes? So I'm always kind of confused when people declare their networks "iTunes-free-zones" unless they're working in a facility that limits program choice for reasons of security or the sysadmin is a BOFH.

Could someone explain their hatred of the program?

I Twitter. I also occasionally blog on the Escape Pod blog, which if you're here you shouldn't have much trouble finding.


kibitzer

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A lot of people -- and I'm not indicating anyone here -- don't like iTunes because either (a) they find it big, bloated and overblown or (b) they intensely dislike Apple's policies/software/whatever. Often both. It can amount to a religious thing. Friend of mine hates Apple because of what he says as their draconian policies -- will not have anything to do with any Apple product.

Myself, I agree -- I find iTunes perfectly acceptable and workable.

However some of the requirement here is (easy) tempo control. I've never tried to control tempo through iTunes so I've no idea whether it can or does do that.


Listener

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Can I just say that I've used iTunes for several years now, and apart from a weird permissions bug on my girlfriend's machine relating to her running Windows in parallels on top of OS X, with the iTunes library located on the OS X side of the divide, I have never really had a major problem with iTunes? So I'm always kind of confused when people declare their networks "iTunes-free-zones" unless they're working in a facility that limits program choice for reasons of security or the sysadmin is a BOFH.

Could someone explain their hatred of the program?

My problems with iTunes are purely technical and UI-based.

1. It's slow to sync with iPhones that aren't of the "4" variety.
2. Its GUI is passable at best, especially its now-playing screen which has small buttons, preferring to sacrifice everything to cover art. (And speaking of, does ANYONE but Apple's marketing department and Steve Jobs use Cover Flow? It's USELESS.)
3. I feel like every week I have to verify my billing info and/or sign another ToS agreement just to update the apps on my iPad.
4. Many commonly-used video file formats aren't playable in iTunes, so I have to convert them.
5. The awesome selection of iTunes radio stations aren't available on my iPad, which makes no sense. (This may have changed lately; I haven't checked.)

That said -- I do use iTunes as my primary music and spoken word media manager, and I do use it on my iPad when I'm listening to non-streaming audio. However, I feel that Apple has sacrificed too much to the GUI gods and as a result we're stuck with tiny buttons and impossible-to-read text.

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Wilson Fowlie

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My basic objection is that it's less an application for what I want to do than a storefront for what they want to sell me.  I prefer to have my stores and my applications more separate. If I want to buy something, I'll buy something. If I want to listen to something, I'll listen to it. It bugs me to mix the two. My personal preference.

For others' objections, see here.

"People commonly use the word 'procrastination' to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working." - Paul Graham


jrderego

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My basic objection is that it's less an application for what I want to do than a storefront for what they want to sell me.  I prefer to have my stores and my applications more separate. If I want to buy something, I'll buy something. If I want to listen to something, I'll listen to it. It bugs me to mix the two. My personal preference.

For others' objections, see here.

Here's a paired down list from the link -

It’s a store, stupid
The library manager is prehistoric
No web browser/Wikipedia/anything
No plug-in architecture
Massive memory footprint
No support for other music formats Ogg/FLAC/etc.
Drag and Drop sucks
Bloatware downloads
Can’t use iPod as a music transport with iTunes
iTunes is slow

I've been an itunes user since iTunes 1, before there even was a Windows version when i had to use Windows Media Player for all files that weren't MP3 and, I can't even remember the name of the old windows jukebox* I used to use, it was good though an an MP3 player (Someone has to remember their first MP3 jukebox software... if you do, throw a name out because this is going to gnaw at me forever now), before there was an iTunes store, before there it had the capability to show images or play videos, and back when the store purchases all had DRM on them and you not only couldn't share music, but the music you purchased wouldn't work in other programs like iMovie.

Keep in mind the complaints in the linked article are about iTunes 7, which is an easy 5 years old now.

I'll try and put my comments on the bullet list and keep them brief.

The short version - the list is is like "well I don't like them, they wet their nests" quality complaints.

The long version- (all titles theirs)

It’s a store, stupid - if you don't want to see the store, don't click "iTunes store" in the lefthand pane.

The library manager is prehistoric - Baloney. This is a common argument from people who want iTunes to act like Windows Explorer. iTunes organizes by the id3 tags in the MP3 or MP4 files. The article uses iPhoto as an example of how this should work but fails to take into account that pictures taken from a camera have no copyright restrictions, no id3 tags with notes or details, and very little other information but dates and times and filenames.

No web browser/Wikipedia/anything - it's a software front end for a hardware music player (the iPod). Also, the world has browsers to type "radiohead" into whereupon they arrive at wikipedia or the band page, or wherever.

No plug-in architecture - To plug in what, exactly? The article doesn't give any examples other than the visualizer.

Massive memory footprint - not the case in many, MANY years.

No support for other music formats Ogg/FLAC/etc. - Non standardized formats. The format that the store uses is MP4 because of DRM restrictions demanded by the record companies that put music in the store to begin with, and that's based on MP3 format. MP3 is a standard created by Motion Picture Experts Group. Ogg is open source (not good when DRM is a requirement), same with Flac. Because changes to MPEG content require a standards release by the MPEG group, and because those standards make it possible for every device that plays MP3/MP4 format files to read the id tags and process the files the same way, also critically important for hardware devices to do the same thing. But building a device around a non-standard open source format is way too risky for commercial products.

Drag and Drop sucks - No it doesn't. Drag music files to the library or a playlist in the library and they appear in the library and the playlist. Who ads a track (or several) to more than one playlist at a time (another complaint in the bullet)? And for the two linux users who will tell me that's all they do with their library of Ogg files ripped from first press vinyl and categorized by descriptions of the band's combined pheromone signature at least seven times a day, then I agree that clearly iTunes is not the music manager you need.

Bloatware downloads - Baloney also. iTunes is built on Quicktime, no Quicktime no iTunes. Don't want Safari when you download iTunes? click the radio button that says "don't install Safari", it's not that hard, really.

Can’t use iPod as a music transport with iTunes - Or, "How Steve Jobs was able to create a digital music marketplace with the record companies support and songs sold for 99 cents each". iTunes is the software front end for the iPod, and today, for the iPods that don't have web or visual interfaces (shuffle/classic). The point being I can't take my library of 20 gigs to my friend's house and give him all of my music. It's difficult even to move the iTunes library around (believe me, I've deleted one by mistake by not following the, I think, purposefully archaic instructions) so it's hard to copy your library to a removable disk, and you can't make two copies as far as I can tell, of your library.

iTunes is slow - the example in the article asks us to imagine a 200 gig iTunes music library. Seriously? I mean, i can imagine one, and with video and movies and TV shows in HD yeah, sure, I guess. But what's fast? click on a file, it begins playing, are we talking seconds of loading time, or milliseconds of lag in frame refreshes, or what? There's nothing in this comment that suggests slowness.

So there, that and a buck fifty three will get you a small Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

*ON EDIT - WINAMP! That was my the MP3 player I used on my windows machine. Jeez that took forever to remember...
« Last Edit: May 04, 2011, 08:16:48 PM by jrderego »

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EarlyBird100

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I use this player to play them on my Evo: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.jshipp.podcastplayer&feature=search_result -- I find it better than the others because of the GINORMOUS buttons and the quick-skip buttons. You don't get any art, but I'm not listening to podcasts to look at art.

Does it, by chance, also allow for tempo control?  Despite having an Android phone, I'm still using a cheap MP3 player because it has firmware of East Asian origin that allows me to speed up and slow down the tracks. (I believe this feature is for use by Asian teens who want to learn Western music phonetically.)

I love being able to speed up spoken-word tracks (audiobooks as well as podcasts) and get more listening in per commuting minute.

Sadly, my brand of MP3 player has been discontinued and since the hardware is fairly cheap, it's going to die in the foreseeable future, so I'm desperately searching to find a replacement with the same feature.

For an Android based podcast client, I'd like to make an emphatic endorsement of PodTrapper. You can find it in the Android Marketplace, but it's cheaper to download directly from the developer's website: http://www.versatilemonkey.com/d/products/PodTrapper_Podcast_Manager_and_Player_for_BlackBerry

I've been using PodTrapper ever since I discovered it as a BlackBerry app. One of the features the developer has recently incorporated is variable-speed playback :D. I can't speak to how it works because I haven't thought it would be useful. (Maybe I'll have to give it a try ... I'm starting to get a backlog of podcasts...)

For an idea of the feature set, check out http://versatilemonkey.com/wiki/Things_You_Probably_Didn%27t_Know_PodTrapper_Can_Do

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flippertie

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Original poster here.

it seems there are very few (if any) podcatchers still under active development. For the moment I've settled on gpodder.  It's nothing fancy, but it does the job of downloading the files.

Unfortunately the config option to choose the download location does not work - though after some searching i found a workaround on the authors site that involved editing a python script.

It's still not an ideal solution as different podcasts have different ways of tagging and naming their files (Lightspeed eg).  What i'm now looking for is a batch solution to tag and rename my various files in a way that makes sense when they are downloaded to my phone.

Or I could buy a bigger disk and go back to media-monkey....




Spindaddy

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Android phone user here.

I'm not a big fan of Apple/iTunes, but honestly it's more due to the fact I'm a cheap bastard than anything else. If I can buy something for half the price and it does what I want it to do I'm happy. I've used both PCs and MACs over the years, but as much as I would consider breaking someone's legs for a macbook air(I consider myself a pacifist tho), I just can't convince myself that it's worth the money.

A friend of mine told me about PodCastle when they were doing the narrator drive (I never finished a demo--damn that whole 'work thing') and I've been drinking the Castle Kool-aid since. I don't use a PodCatcher or download the MP3s or anything all that fancy. I just use the phone's native web browser and drive. It works great, I don't have to manage anything and other than some disappointing cell tower interferences, I don't have any complaints.

With that said, I'm reading through this thread with a curious mind to try out some of these podcatchers and actually downloading the audiofiction so that I can listen to it when my phone is having connection issues or I want to listen to a specific story. There is a lot of very interesting information in this thread. Thank you and keep it coming!

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Raj

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I still haven't found a podcatcher that suits me on my Android phone yet.  If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.  I don't really like letting software do my syncing for me, since I like control over what I've got on my device.  I'd like something where I can download podcasts on my PC and just copy them across to my SD card in Windows Explorer, point a podcatcher at a directory and have it read the ID3 information and organise the files into podcasts.  Any suggestions?

I'm currently using DoubleTwist and its desktop client but it's not ideal (although if it properly recognised manually copied files instead of treating them as "other podcast" I'd be very happy with it).

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