playing podcasts

[suzanne]

Just started using this lovely gadget.  However when playing podcasts I find that the playing ends.  Is there a way of it playing the next podcast without me having to do anything ?

My last MP3 from an unmentionable rival used to just scroll onto the next podcast.  I use it for radio programmes, some of which are short, and I like to have it playing whilst driving - but cannot really keep stopping to find next podcast!

[jimn]

Suzanne wrote:

Just started using this lovely gadget.  However when playing podcasts I find that the playing ends.  Is there a way of it playing the next podcast without me having to do anything ?

My last MP3 from an unmentionable rival used to just scroll onto the next podcast.  I use it for radio programmes, some of which are short, and I like to have it playing whilst driving - but cannot really keep stopping to find next podcast!

 

If you have a set of episodes of a certain program, you need to put the name of the program into the Artist or Album field of the MP3 tag for each podcast. Then the player will group them together, and will move from one episode to the  next.

 

You can get a free mp3 tag editor called MP3Tag from http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ . It can help you automate some things like putting the same text into the Artist field of 50 mp3 files, moving the file title into the tile field in the tag (or the other way around).

 

Unfortunately, podcasts are notoriously inconsistent in their naming conventions, so you have to do it a bit differently for each one you subscribe to.

–

Jim

[neutron_bob]

To have your podcasts play in sequence, they key is to have matching metadata entries in the ID3 tags for the individual episodes.

Editing these fields, the genre, and artist entries must match for the episodes.  As long as the titles of the tracks are in sequence, the player will run them in order automatically.

On my player, for example, the artist is BBC World Service, the album is Global News, and the genre is of course podcast.  As long as the genre is “podcast” the player “steals” the playlist and places everything into podcasts.  Using any one of several ID3 tag editors, MP3Tag being a favorite, as long as the episodes are in sequence, they will stream in order.

I currently use the RSS feed function in Internet Explorer to pull daily episodes of several podcasts, then Windows Media Player handles the playlists.  If you use Windows Media Player, the play sequence can be set automatically for each podcast, as simply as dragging the episodes into the desired order as a playlist.  I use the Clip Zip’s automatic podcast capture to move them to the proper location under books > podcasts by simply having the correct genre entered.

It sounds more difficult than it actually is.

Windows Media Player has a tag editor that will show you what the existing tags are, and will allow you to edit them with a simple click.  If you’re running Windows 7 , there is a super handy little shortcut if you use Windows Explorer.  If you click on any podcast file, the information displayed at the bottom of the screen can be edited right there if you simply run your mouse pointer over the individual fields at the bottom of the screen.  You can right click on the file itself, and select properties_,_ and you can even edit them there.

In short, whichever method you find most comfortable will work fine. The trick is to have each podcast have matching artist and album fields, and the player will run through them automatically without interruption.

Let us know which method you’re comfortable with, and we can walk you through the process.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

[miikerman]

Hey, Bob, thanks for the info. about tag editing within Windows 7–I hadn’t realized that the tag info. shown at the bottom of the Win7 screen can be edited after a file has been selected.  (Too bad that all tag fields aren’t shown and available for editing.) 

A tip of my own:  if you find that you need to edit the same tag for a bunch of files to the same thing (for example, the album tag), you can select all the files you want to change, right click on the selected block and then choose Properties and Details, and then change the tag once for all the files.  A nice timesaver.

I still miss my favorite simple tag editor of all time, MP3 Tagger–unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated to 64-bit Windows systems and won’t work with them . . . .    :( 

[drlucky]

@miikerman wrote:

Hey, Bob, thanks for the info. about tag editing within Windows 7–I hadn’t realized that the tag info. shown at the bottom of the Win7 screen can be edited after a file has been selected.  (Too bad that all tag fields aren’t shown and available for editing.) 

 

 

if you right click the bottom part and change the size to large more feilds are shown. 

[miikerman]

Thanks–and more tips!