I lost my iPod Shuffle and am thinking of replacing it with a Clip. My needs are as follows:
I want to be able to go to the next podcast on the by just pressing the Next Track button. I don’t want to have to navigate a menu to choose a different podcast. The shuffle does this because it doesn’t have menus - you can only go forward and back.
Automatically have podcasts downloaded directly to the clip. I know there are various programs for subscribing to podcasts, but I’m not sure if any of them can actually download directly to the Clip without user intervention. On my old shuffle I had to manually drag the podcasts to the shuffle.
Juice (http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/) allows podcasts to be saved wherever you want; you simply set the location in your preferences. Of course, your Clip would have to be on and connected to your computer when the download occurs; you can set a time or interval for podcast checking and downloading to occur, or “manually” can have podcasts checked and downloaded, by clicking a button.
And I just checked with my podcasts, which are labeled as Podcast in the ID3 genre field: if I play one of the podcasts by selecting the genre field and then selecting Play All, clicking forward or reverse indeed goes to the next/previous podcast.
edit: And I should add that in the next firmware upgrade in a couple of weeks, my understanding is that there will be a separate Podcasts folder on the Clip into which one may drop/direct podcasts, for recognition as such by the Clip; there then will be a Podcasts selection option on the Clip (without having to drill down and select the genre ID3 tag field). The particulars remain to be seen.
Message Edited by Miikerman on 04-02-2008 11:53 AM
Juice (http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/) allows podcasts to be saved wherever you want; you simply set the location in your preferences. Of course, your Clip would have to be on and connected to your computer
Miikerman, does the juicereceiver allow you to download podcasts directly to your Clip?
Dfin, I love my Clip,but it’s kind of a pain managing podcasts on it. Since you can’t browse by folder, it’s a pain having to rename, change the genre, etc. to find the files (if you add new podcasts frequently)! I hope the next firmware lets us drag and drop podcasts directly to a podcast folder, then allows us to access them from there.
Message Edited by Jay_Dee63 on 04-02-2008 01:30 PM
I just experimented and Juice indeed lets you download directly to the Clip–you just direct the download output there rather than to your computer. It really is a sweet and easy program to use. Highly recommended.
Agreed as to podcast issues, although I’ve been finding, recently, that the podcasts I subscribe to tend to come pre-tagged in a decent enough fashion (thankfully!), making it all easy. My understanding is that the new firmware version will have a dedicated Podcasts folder to drag and drop to, and a Podcasts selection in the menu–but I would imagine that you still will have to have tags of some sort, to know what’s there (unless you don’t mind playing “Unknown” Russian roulette). Will be interesting to see.
Thanks, Miikerman! I’ll have to try that out. Does it work on any website? The site that I get my podcasts from doesn’t allow me to download directly to my Clip, and leaves the genre tag empty in their files. I hope the new fw will let us browse the podcast folder by folder without having to change any tags.
The way Juice works is the basic podcast system: you “subscribe” to the podcast by putting its podcast feed web address into Juice (e.g. for “This Week in Tech,” it’s http://leo.am/podcasts/twit); and then Juice checks the feed every so often if you’ve set it to do so (mine checks daily at lunchtime), or you hit a “Check now” button and it does so; if there’s a new podcast, Juice downloads the podcast to wherever you’ve told it to. Of course, your computer has to be on for this to happen.
Juice is an aggregator–you tell it the feeds to check and it does so, and downloads new podcasts. But there has to be a podcast feed to check–Juice doesn’t look at a website as a whole to see if there is something new there.
I use MediaMonkey 3. It works great with the clip. I have it sync with my podcast playlist and whatever other playlist will fit. MM3 has podcast downloading built in. I just select the newest episodes, aggregated in a smart playlist and add them to the play list. I can go to my playlist and move episodes wherever I want them. When I’m done, I just connect and sync.
Hey, Leo Laporte is on a talk radio station that I listen to a lot, KFI AM 640! Do you listen to KFI?
Actually, podcasts have spolied me: I rarely listen to radio anymore and instead listen to podcasted shows when I want to and when they fit my schedule, not when they might be broadcast …
Actually, podcasts have spolied me: I rarely listen to radio anymore and instead listen to podcasted shows when I want to and when they fit my schedule, not when they might be broadcast …
Me too, except for the stuff I listen to is mostly talk radio news. It makes it a little less exciting when the news I listen to is a day late (since it takes them a while to post the podcasts), but it’s worth the trade-off of not having to listen to those annoying (life-ruining) commercials. I do wish there was an AM tuner on my Clip, though!
Message Edited by Jay_Dee63 on 04-02-2008 08:40 PM
Squeeeze the Juice! Love that program! Once you figure out the interface (it allows you to configure, import, and clean up the podcast clutter in one place), it’s great. I haven’t tried it with directly loading the Clip or e280, but that sounds interesting.
I use Juice with WiMP, as it is currently managing my podcasts as separate playlists automatically- and yes, you then can switch among the individual podcasts simply by tapping forward / reverse once. The e280’s scan through song function (with the scroll wheel) is convenient too.
I can receive KFI AM640 here in northern California using the trusty Sony world band receiver, though during the day I can’t lug the big beast around. I liked John and Ken every morning when I was down there.
I can receive KFI AM640 here in northern California using the trusty Sony world band receiver, though during the day I can’t lug the big beast around. I liked John and Ken every morning when I was down there.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
Cool, I’m a big-time KFI listener! I listen to John and Ken almost every day on podcasts or in the car if I’m driving. Ziggler was pretty good. I’m surprised they got rid of him. Did you used to listen to Phil Hendrie (the guy who did fake voices to trick people) when he was on a few years ago?
Thanks for all the info. One more question: if I turn off the clip while in the middle of a podcast and then turn it back on later, does it automatically resume where it left off, or do I have to go through the menus and select the podcast again?
It will resume the podcast on power on. The next firmware version will even remember your place if you select other content and come back (available in a few weeks).
@sansafix wrote:
It will resume the podcast on power on. The next firmware version will even remember your place if you select other content and come back (available in a few weeks).
Sansafix, will the new fw allow us to “browse by folder” in the new podcast folder that it’ll have?
@sansafix wrote:
It will browse the Audiobook folder and sort it by BOok and Chapter based on ID tag and / or title info. SO it will be a bit of a hybrid.
I don’t want to have to mess around with the tags. It doesn’t sound like it’s going to do what I was hoping for. Oh well. Why can’t you guys at least make a couple dedicated folders that can be browsed by folder without having to waste time/screw around with the tags? That would make a lot of people happy, including myself.
But you generally cannot look through your collection in a folder view, as on your computer. Rather, the Clip’s listings are based on the ID3 tags. Some people would like to have a folder view as well, as they don’t care about ID3 tags and don’t want to have to add tags if they are not there originally (such as, with podcasts that may have a short lifespan).
