The podcasts need to be in the mp3 format. If they are an Apple format (m4a, m4p) then they won’t play on the Fuze and the Fuze won’t show them on the screen. Apple and the other children don’t always play nicely together.
I would guess that is what is happening to you.
You need to see what the filetype is. If you’re using Windows, search the Help file for “show extensions.”
Assuming they are Apple files, iTunes can convert them to mp3. Put the podcasts where iTunes can find them and under Advanced you’ll see Create Mp3 Version.
I don’t know Hermes but you may also have an option in there to get podcasts as mp3s. Look around Configure, Settings, whatever.
Something else just occurred to me. If they are mp3 files they may have tags–the electronic labels in the files–that the Fuze doesn’t read. The info the Fuze displays is from the tags.
So you might have to tweak the tags before they go on the Fuze.
Install mp3tag. When you install, let it add itself to context menus (an option while installing).
Open mp3tag and in Tools/Options/Tags/Mpeg make the Write option ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1. The Fuze prefers ID3v2 and doesn’t read ID3v1. ISO-8859-1 is standard Windows encoding for text. (Apple encoding is different.)
Go to the folder of podcasts. Right click, and just below Search… you should see mp3tag. Click it, mp3tag will list the files.Highlight them all, make sure there’s correct information in Title, Artist, Album and Genre (podcasts) and Save. That will make them all ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 and the Sansa should read them.
