Podcast management

Hi !

I primarily bought the Clip+ for its podcast features, as I listen to a lot of podcasts… I used an iPod Touch, but the battery is ■■■■ and not reliable (after nearly 3 years of good service though…), so I had to find an alternative and the Clip+ is a cheap one…

Anyway I managed to download all my podcasts with MediaMonkey, and to sync them on my Clip+. The only problem I have is to delete them when I have listened to them…

I tried to delete the podcast on the Clip+, but MediaMonkey puts it back when I sync. And there seems to be no way to tell MediaMonkey (or any other program for that matter…) that I listened to this podcast (something like the blue dot in iTunes).

Is there any way to manage podcasts in an iTunes/iPod way with the Clip+?

Thanks !

I use gPodder and set it to delete podcasts from the local folder after it has synced them with the Clip+. That way they’ll never appear back on the device after I’ve listened to them and deleted from there.

That might not be an ideal solution if you want to keep an archive of all of your podcasts. One way around that is to use some other software to regularly conduct a one way synchronisation of your computer’s podcast folder, to a separate archive folder (e.g. Second Copy, SyncToy or various backup applications).

It could be a good solution !

I installed gPodder, but didn’t find how to synchronize with my Clip+… In the “Podcasts/Additional components” (or something like that, my version is in French…), there’s only missing dependencies, maybe the problem is here ?

Oh and I’m on Windows by the way :slight_smile:

Thanks for your help !

Kinda going back to basics, couldn’t you just copy and paste your Podcasts folder from your computer to your Clip (and then delete them/the Podcasts folder on your computer, if that’s what you want to do), and then delete them on your Clip when done listening (or delete the Clip’s Podcasts folder when you reconnect to your computer)? 

If you wanted to automate the process, a few DOS bat flies on your computer would do the trick.  (I had this in the past and had 2 bat files:  one to copy the podcasts from my computer to my player, and the other to delete them from my computer; I kept them separate (this all could be done in a single bat file) in case there was an issue with the original transfer or I wanted to keep the files on my computer as well.)  You actually could have a single bat file (with a shortcut on your desktop) to do everything, if you wanted:  delete the podcasts on your Clip, copy the new podcasts from your computer to your Clip, and then delete the podcasts from your computer.

matleouf, I’m currently looking at the Linux version of gPodder, but I’m assuming that it is similar to your Windows version. In my version, you need to navigate thus:

Podcasts > Preferences > Device

Then tell it what type of device you have and which folder to sync to.

You will also see options there for what to do after synchronisation. I choose to “delete episode from gPodder” after synchronisation.

There seems to be a problem with the Windows port of gPodder, the “Devices” tab gives me an error Config UI Missing, and gives an URL for the bug, which is planned to be solved…

I guess I’ll  go with Miikerman idea for now and write some scripts to update my podcasts with gpodder…

I, too, am a huge fan of podcasts and other audio entertainment. I was in the same boat as you, used iTunes for podcast management with an iPod. Then after 2-3 solid years of heavy usage, my 2nd gen iPod nano kicked the bucket. So very sad that was, but I’ve moved on. I like my Clip+ and my NEW podcast setup much more now. I’d like to share with you my podcast management setup. I use Juice to download podcasts and Synctoy to synchronize podcasts with the Clip+.

The great thing about Synctoy is how intelligent it is, how it syncronizes both ways. It’ll add a new podcast to my Clip+ and then when I delete the podcast directly from the device later Synctoy is smart enough to then delete the podcast on my computer when I plug it in. It doesn’t re-syncronize a podcast that I’ve already listened to.

In Juice’s advanced options, you can set it to run a command after it successfully downloads a podcast. In my case, I have it set to run the lightweight command prompt session of SyncToy:

“C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.1\SyncToyCmd.exe” -R

That way if you have your Clip+ plugged it, it’ll automated be synced with new podcasts as soon as they’re downloaded.

Another good idea is to put the above command in a notepad text document and save it as synctoy.bat and it put on your desktop. That way you can call Synctoy to synchronize whenever without starting the main Synctoy program to do it or waiting for Juice to download another show.

Be sure to set your Clip+'s USB Mode to “MSC.” All this won’t work in the other “DEFAULT” USB mode.

Hey, it’s a very nice setup you described me ! I’m going to use it also as of now, I didn’t know the existence of this nice piece of software that is SyncToy and it seems perfect for what it does !

Thanks a lot for sharing this :slight_smile:

One thing I love about the Clip+ that I missed on the iPod Touch : you can play/pause and adjust the volume with the device in your pocket ! That way, I can adjust the volume on my bike without having to stop !

ClipPlus wrote:

I, too, am a huge fan of podcasts and other audio entertainment. I was in the same boat as you, used iTunes for podcast management with an iPod. Then after 2-3 solid years of heavy usage, my 2nd gen iPod nano kicked the bucket. So very sad that was, but I’ve moved on. I like my Clip+ and my NEW podcast setup much more now. I’d like to share with you my podcast management setup. I use Juice to download podcasts and Synctoy to synchronize podcasts with the Clip+.

 

The great thing about Synctoy is how intelligent it is, how it syncronizes both ways. It’ll add a new podcast to my Clip+ and then when I delete the podcast directly from the device later Synctoy is smart enough to then delete the podcast on my computer when I plug it in. It doesn’t re-syncronize a podcast that I’ve already listened to.

 

In Juice’s advanced options, you can set it to run a command after it successfully downloads a podcast. In my case, I have it set to run the lightweight command prompt session of SyncToy:

 

“C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.1\SyncToyCmd.exe” -R

 

That way if you have your Clip+ plugged it, it’ll automated be synced with new podcasts as soon as they’re downloaded.

 

Another good idea is to put the above command in a notepad text document and save it as synctoy.bat and it put on your desktop. That way you can call Synctoy to synchronize whenever without starting the main Synctoy program to do it or waiting for Juice to download another show.

 

Be sure to set your Clip+'s USB Mode to “MSC.” All this won’t work in the other “DEFAULT” USB mode.

Thanks for the Synctoy info.–sounds great.  It pretty much seems to do what my old bat scripts did.

I figured out another way to manage this, all within MediaMonkey.     I installed an extension called “Add/Remove Playstat” to MediaMonkey.     After I’ve listened to a podcast on my Clip+, i go back to MM and use this extension to add a playcount to that podcast.  And I have MM setup with my Clip+ to delete podcasts once they have been marked as listened to.  Then when I next sync with MM, that podcast (or usually multiple podcasts) are automatically deleted from my Clip+.  

This method allows me to manage my podcasts & my Clip+ all within MM.   

I found about “Add/Remove Playstat” by searching the MediaMonkey forums:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31809&f=2

It is all very clean.   From MM, I can see all of my podcast subscriptions and see what is on my Clip+ , all in one UI.  

I only wish the Clip+ could track the playcount itself as an iPod can.     but this is close. 

I hope this helpful.