Anyone found a good funcitional podcatcher that will allow me to DL podcasts when online and then listen to them when Im not? I thot this would be simple, but I am having trouble getting any of them to work. I do have an RSS reader, I am looking to get audio and video podcasts. Suggestions?
It will download the podcasts locally for you to play later. You can also set a schedule for updates (When ActiveSync available, When network is available, or have it connect for you). Its 20$ but there is a 30 day trial available to see if it will work as you need.
I will try those - thanx guys. I have been trying Audiopod - I was just wondering if anyone else could get that one to work as advertised - i.e. DL while online and listen offline?
PS - I Also currently use SPB Insight for my RSS reader - it is great at what it does, but has no DL support for audio and video. Very nice app tho.
Last edited by mknollman : 07-12-2008 at 12:10 AM.
Well, I tried Egress and it works great. There are some options that I imagined would be in a program like this that are not there, but the program does function well.
Does anyone know of a similar freeware program that works well as I am trying not to drop much more money on software for this thing (I am at what feels like too much already).
I've actually been working on one that sounds pretty similar to what you're interested in. My idea was to download podcasts while my device is charging overnight.
I want it to simply turn on, detect a power source(so we don't drain the battery), turn on Wi-Fi and detect a connection, then once connected, update the feeds and download any new media. It's by no means perfect, but I've got it working pretty well for myself and would be willing to let others try it if they are interested in it. It's called WiFiGetPod. Let me know.
What you just explained is exactly what I would love to have. It would be great if you would be willing to attach that file to this thread (either zip it or change the cab to a txt file like Mrailing used to). Man, I would be very appreciative.
Also, I will add that I have never used a "perfect" program at all - functional is great. I keep telling myself that I need to learn to write code - thanks for taking a stab at this one.
Actually - that is the way that SPB Insight behaves exactly. It even has a setting to "use FREE connections" - very cool, but it won't DL and cache audio or video casts - only RSS. If yours handles full multimedia that would be truly B.A.
Ok, so I've packaged up WiFiGetPod into a cab for distribution. Please use it and let me know any feedback you may have.
Just a few notes about its operation. I wanted the app to be suitable for one handed operation, and for the most part it is. Both the main podcast screen and the item list screen are finger scrollable so just tap and drag the list up and down. There are options under the context menus for both feeds and items as well. The settings that are on the settings screen are not committed until the button next to them is pushed and verified with a green OK. Add feeds at the bottom of the main screen, however don't be alarmed if they don't show up if your Wi-Fi is not connected, they are batched and added during the automatic update. Hopefully it is pretty self explanatory.
Overall, great app! I do think that I will be using this as my primary podcathcer to replace Egress, but not sure yet. I do have a few questions/suggestions
-When downoading podcasts of any kind the program goes into "thinking" mode with the little spinning icon and I cannot interact with it at all. In fact, the only way I can interact with my PDA at all during this time is to use my task manager to force it to minimize (not close). I have yet to be able to let it finish this process as the phone runs out of room or I need to use if for something else - see below.
-I can't seem to find a way to get it to DL just the latest podcast of a certain type - i.e. I set it to download TWiT and I get the last 5 or 6 - then I run out of room or forcefully exit the program - I tried using your settings menu, but they don't seem to change that.
-Every time I start the program my channels are gone. If I add NPR and TWiT they DL and I have the actual podcasts, but the little icons in your interface are gone - I have to access them from file explorer and add the XML info back in the next time I want it to catch them. I know that this may be because I haven't been able to let it finish a full DL on those channels (being batch update and all), but I was wondering if there was a way to change when it actually saves the new channels (ie before the first time you DL content on that channel)?
I do not want you to think I am ungrateful - this is a great step forward, but I wanted to mention the snags that I noticed. I think that all 3 problem could probably be fixed somewhat easily, altho I know very liitle about .NET so I could be wrong. Thanks again and I will keep tinkering with it.
Ok so the way I envisioned the app, it would download the pods at night while my device is on it's charger and not at all active, hence my never worrying about the device unresponsiveness while downloading. I'll look into putting an option to scale back the app so the device is more responsive while downloading.
As soon as you see the icon on the main screen, the subscriptions should be saved. You say you are possibly running out of space, are you downloading to the main device, safestore, or a storage card? If you are downloading the podcasts to the same place that the app is installed, it may not be able to update the configuration file in full. I'll look into if I can make this sequence terminate more gracefully.
As for your channels always being gone, can you try the following out? Ensure that your device has some free space(100k should do), close all applications, enable WiFi, start WiFiGetPod, add at least one feed, quit the app and start it again. If you do this, can you still see that feed icon? I hope so. If not, please post more details such as your app settings, where the app is installed(storage card etc.), and any feed(s) that you are trying to add.
I have both the program, and the feeds/podcasts saving to my Storage Card where I have a couple hundred MEGs left over. The issue is it keep DLing like 4 episodes of TWiT and NPR @ 20-60 megs a piece. I changed the setting to 1 weeks but still getting all of these and my card doesn't have the room. I will try what you listed above and exit the program after adding the channels but before DLing content and see how it goes.
I too intend to use this at night mostly, but would like the option to manually update as well w/o my PDA being unusable.
Thanks again for your time on this - it really is a nice looking app.
Oh, OK. The 1 week setting only is applied to newly discovered pod items after the setting was changed. If the pod item is already in the item list for that pod, then it is scheduled to be DLed. You can go through and delete any pod items that you are not interested in and then only the others will be downloaded.
Regardless, the application should be able to handle the out of space issue gracefully and I will look into it.
As we speak, I am testing out an update that does scale back the downloading to a manageable CPU utilization and I think I can post that very soon. I'll let you know.
I love how interactive you are being on this one. I do have to add that my dad introduced me to Beyondpod - apparently this is a popular one. It is pretty great as well but not perfect. I think wifigetpod has a shot at beating it out as far as moving faster and being more adaptable.
I've just posted an update of WiFiGetPod above in my original message. This version scales back the downloading to a background thread so that the application GUI as well as other applications run well while downloading is in progress.
I've also updated the code to save feeds changes a bit better. Hopefully there won't be any out of space issues clobbering the config file.
If anyone finds any further issues, these or others, please let me know. Enjoy!
i cant get it to add. i hit add, the icon ops up. i click on the main icon(rss) and it shows the feeds, but when i close out and open back up it doesnt show any feeds.
Very similar to my issues. I loved the interface but nothing ever stayed after a close and open. I thought that it was that I wasnt letting it finish its full update but I was not sure. I have not yet tried the newest version as I am out of town now on vacation and not spending much time on tech right now. I will mention that Beyondpod is working well for me. But as I stated above I would like to get in on this one once the bugs are worked out.
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