maemo.org - Talk - Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

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- - Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=29872)

silvermountain

2009-06-25 21:15

Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Short of using gPodder what other podcast-download/management tools are there available for the N810?

I've tried using gPodder (v 0.16.1-2) for a couple of days now but it is simply not a good user experience for me and would love an alternative.

Example of current issues (as I'm open to me and not the application being part of the problem):

1) It is SO slow.. Simply adding a new podcast by a URL is such a time-sink that I'm simply not doing it again.

2) It keeps launching an app up to the status bar. Is there a way for it NOT to do that?

3) When selecting 'Preferences' from the icon in the status bar nothing shows on the screen if you don't have the gPodder screen up. You have to switch to that app and then...you got a window you can't close.

4) When starting up gPodder it takes a good 10 seconds and then it minimizes itself right away to the left panel. Any way to configure that not to happen?

5) More of a guilty-by-association...it integrates with Panucci which has a pretty bad audio quality when playing podcasts on the N810. Someone posted and commented on that the poor sound quality had to do with the program using gstream (sp?). Then again, I could associate it with MediaPlayer which sounds much better so not an issue per se :)

6) You can't set how many episodes you want to keep. I spend quite a bit of time where I am not connected to the web and often find the value in having multiple episodes available to me.

Am I just missing the settings for the 'issues' above and/or is there an alternative out there that sounds like it would be a better fit?

GeraldKo

2009-06-25 22:31

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

I like gPodder/Pannuci, but Canola also has a podcast client. (My biggest wish for gPodder would be quicker-loading of the program itself, and Canola is even slower.)

danramos

2009-06-25 23:15

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

Short of using gPodder what other podcast-download/management tools are there available for the N810?

I know the two other popular ways to get podcasts are with Canola (but I really dislike the way Canola manages podcasts) and bashpodder (which is CLI and sort of a kludge, requiring a little bit of coding knowledge and just plain seems plain unweildy for any ordinary user when things don't go 100% right).

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

I've tried using gPodder (v 0.16.1-2) for a couple of days now but it is simply not a good user experience for me and would love an alternative.

Although I rather like gpodder and it serves me well, I can understand why you wouldn't want to use it. There are lots of things that would be better done with a 100% new program written for maemo to do podcast aggregation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

Example of current issues (as I'm open to me and not the application being part of the problem):

1) It is SO slow.. Simply adding a new podcast by a URL is such a time-sink that I'm simply not doing it again.

Yep. It's slow. I'd bet a brand new, maemo-specific optimized application would fix that. That is... a simple one, feature rich but not heavily burdoned with animation and fancy graphics like Canola. bashpodder shines in this category, at least.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

2) It keeps launching an app up to the status bar. Is there a way for it NOT to do that?

Yes! In gpodder, to go the drop-down menu and choose 'Podcasts' then 'Preferences' and remove the checkmark beside 'Show icon in status area'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

3) When selecting 'Preferences' from the icon in the status bar nothing shows on the screen if you don't have the gPodder screen up. You have to switch to that app and then...you got a window you can't close.

That sounds like a plain old bug, period. If I ever get my arse in gear, it would be one to put up on the bug site. At any rate, I'd just avoid the status bar icon altogether and turn it off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

4) When starting up gPodder it takes a good 10 seconds and then it minimizes itself right away to the left panel. Any way to configure that not to happen?

Hmm... that's not a behavior I've seen at all. Maybe try this: Go to the drop-down menu, choose 'Podcasts', then 'Preferences' and tap 'Advanced...', start entering in the word 'mini' and make sure there is no checkmark next to 'minimize_to_tray'.

Tell me if that works either way--I'm curious about that one, since I'm not seeing it at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

5) More of a guilty-by-association...it integrates with Panucci which has a pretty bad audio quality when playing podcasts on the N810. Someone posted and commented on that the poor sound quality had to do with the program using gstream (sp?). Then again, I could associate it with MediaPlayer which sounds much better so not an issue per se :)

Actually sounds pretty good over here--I've preferred using it with Panucci ever since I started using it. I also tend to use bluetooth as well as speakers and headphones and I'm not noticing any difference in quality except the obvious degradation in quality from using HSP profile bluetooth audio, which is to be expected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

6) You can't set how many episodes you want to keep. I spend quite a bit of time where I am not connected to the web and often find the value in having multiple episodes available to me.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If you mean tha you don't want them to be able to be deleted, there is a menu option to mark an episode with 'Prohibit deletion' so that it won't be able to be deleted and it remains available. If you mean that you want to be able to archive episodes elsewhere by saving them off, you can tap an episode and choose to 'Save to disk' which lets you save the file off onto another card or a specific path (say SMB).

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

Am I just missing the settings for the 'issues' above and/or is there an alternative out there that sounds like it would be a better fit?

It sound to me like maybe you might have fiddled with the defaults a bit and turned on some things that you don't like. At the worst, you can start over with a nice clean configuration by closing it out (you should close gpodder first!), going to the xterm (command line) and typing in the line:
rm ~/.config/gpodder/gpodder.conf

This will remove the config file and allow gpodder, at the next start-up, to generate a brand new config with its defaults.

If you find something better, please let me know--in the meantime, I've tried to do my part and help Thomas Perl and the contributing programmers with improving the application by liberally complaining in bug reports. I feel they've done a brilliant job so far but I can certainly understand the issues and frustrations too.

silvermountain

2009-06-25 23:37

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by danramos (Post 299792)

Thanks! Since it won't cost me anything to try them out I'll download both tonight and see how they fit me. Bashpodder seems pretty promising but I'm not sure it does video podcasts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by danramos (Post 299792)

Yes! In gpodder, to go the drop-down menu and choose 'Podcasts' then 'Preferences' and remove the checkmark beside 'Show icon in status area'.

Sweet! That worked great. Thanks again!

Quote:

Originally Posted by danramos (Post 299792)

I opened gPodder a few more times just to ensure I wasn't wrong but every times it opens up...I see it for split second and then it minimizes over to the left panel.

I double-checked and minimize_to_tray is not checked. I toggled it on..closed the app...went back and toggled it off...but same thing happens every time I open the app. Weird.

Quote:

Originally Posted by danramos (Post 299792)

Not sure how to provide more 'backup' for this one :) I downloaded two podcasts - both have a hissing sound in the background (albeit rather faint) - but that sound is gone when listening either through N810's media player or on my Zune MP3 player. I even had the girlfriend do a 'blind' test of it and she picked out the hissing in a matter of seconds when I played through Panucci.

Quote:

Originally Posted by danramos (Post 299792)

Basically a setting that would download and always keep the latest X numbers of episodes of a podcast. Zune's marketplace works that way and I assume/guess iTunes does as well?

Thanks again for your help!
I'll give bashpodder a try (I checked out Canola while typing this and it's way to 'heavy'/big for what I want.

danramos

2009-06-26 00:03

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299796)

Thanks! Since it won't cost me anything to try them out I'll download both tonight and see how they fit me. Bashpodder seems pretty promising but I'm not sure it does video podcasts.

No problem! :)

As for bashpodder, if it doesn't already do mp4 or avi, you can make it do so by editing the shell script and telling it to grab them. That's part of the upside: flexibility, but the downside being it's more than the casual user might understand to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299796)

Boggling! Try that little trick with starting over with a new config, maybe. (Rather than delete it, maybe rename the file so you can always restore it later if you want to bring back your old settings... Like so..

mv ~/.config/gpodder.conf ~/gpodder.conf.bak

then later restore it, if you don't like what defaults have done..

mv ~/gpodder.conf.bak ~/.config/gpodder.conf

Like that.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299796)

Yeah, that sounds pretty definitive. I'm not sure what to say--maybe it's because I have an N800 and it doesn't do that? Differences in hardware? I saw the posting in the other thread, so I'll leave it to that thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299796)

Basically a setting that would download and always keep the latest X numbers of episodes of a podcast. Zune's marketplace works that way and I assume/guess iTunes does as well?

OH! Yeah, there's that too! Go to the drop-down menu, 'Podcasts', 'Preferences', 'Advanced...', start typing 'per' and you can set the number to keep with the 'max_episodes_per_feed' setting. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299796)

Thanks again for your help!
I'll give bashpodder a try (I checked out Canola while typing this and it's way to 'heavy'/big for what I want.

No problem! Glad I'm resolving a bunch of these little issues for you and welcome to the podcast listening world! :)

Mind if I SHAMELESSLY plug my own podcast? I cohost the Black Rock Lost Podcast (we go over theories about the TV show 'Lost' on ABC). If you dont' watch the show, you won't be interested but if you do, it might particularly be interesting right now since we're re-watching the entire series to prepare for the final season coming up in January. You can catch us at http://blackrockpodcast.blogspot.com/

I started to try to do a Linux gadgets podcast and I REALLY want to restart it but I'm finding that I'm lacking time and money to do so (takes money to buy stuff and to have the time when I'm not earning money.. heh). Aw well. Someday.

OK.. enough shamelessness.

Good luck!! :)

silvermountain

2009-06-26 01:11

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Thanks for all the great info again.

I uninstalled gPodder and re-installed it. Without changing anything I open it up and...it immediately minimizes to the left pane (where I can click it and it opens up full). Weird..

You can pretty much see what apps I got installed here:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=29870

Not sure if any of them can cause a conflict.
(And I've tried launching gPodder from the Extras folder, from Personal Menu AND from Personal Launcher :)).

Laughing Man

2009-06-26 01:15

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

I don't have the minimize issue but it is slow to start. But then again I have 22+ podcasts I'm subscribed too.

silvermountain

2009-06-26 06:21

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Finally found it...I, for some reason, had 'start_iconized' flagged.

Un-checking that stops the auto-minimizing.

silvermountain

2009-06-26 06:25

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by danramos (Post 299803)

No problem! :)

OH! Yeah, there's that too! Go to the drop-down menu, 'Podcasts', 'Preferences', 'Advanced...', start typing 'per' and you can set the number to keep with the 'max_episodes_per_feed' setting. :)

Hm, are you sure this does what I asked for? It seems more of a display setting for how many episodes per feed will be displayed in gPodder - rather than 'automatically download the latest X un-heard episodes'

danramos

2009-06-26 08:12

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299909)

Oh nono.. I see what you're saying. No, what it does is it sets up a threshold for a MAXIMUM number of podcasts to retain. It doesn't automatically download x number of podcasts from a feed. Naw--for that, you have to individually tap the podcast and then tap 'Download', even if there's a bunch.

Used to be that you could swipe your finger down a bunch of them and then when you let go, you could tap 'download to get a whole bunch at the same time--but ever since Thomas went to the sliding lists that you scroll by swiping your finger, that's no longer possible. I seem to recall that he mentioned working on a good way to make it so that you can select a set of podcasts to perform operations (like download, delete, play, etc.). I haven't heard anything new on that front in a long time, though. Of course, it could be that I entirely wishfully dreamed it up during a particularly lucid night of sleep. :)

Congrats on finding the iconizing option that was causing you pain! I'm not sure why you expected uninstalling and reinstalling would help, though. Uninstalling shouldn't touch your home directory (config files).. even if you uninstall gpodder, the config files will still sit in your home directory (since the package manager didn't put them there).

yerga

2009-06-26 08:39

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Also, there is Videocenter, it's done for video podcasts but it works with audio too.
It's a Nokia application (closed-source if you care about it).
When I have consumed podcasts in the tablets I have used this application, it's simple an very efficient IMHO.

thp	2009-06-26 09:06

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Hi there!

(Disclosure: I'm the maintainer of gPodder)

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 299740)

I've tried using gPodder (v 0.16.1-2) for a couple of days now but it is simply not a good user experience for me and would love an alternative.

What would a good user experience be for you in terms of a podcast client? Especially, where is gPodder lacking at the moment (except for the bugs below).

Quote:

1) It is SO slow.. Simply adding a new podcast by a URL is such a time-sink that I'm simply not doing it again.

Parsing takes its time, especially when done on the tablet in Python. We use feedparser, which is a bit heavyweight, but handles "bad" feeds (of which there are many) quite well. The next version will have a more intelligent updating algorithm that will cause parsing to happen less often. Of course, first-time URL adding is still slow, as the initial parsing has to be done always.

A faster parsing algorithm (like bashpodder uses) will probably not work with all podcasts, although for "clean" feeds, it's a lot faster.

Quote:

2) It keeps launching an app up to the status bar. Is there a way for it NOT to do that?

Already solved in this thread, and it should be readily visible in the preferences dialog. Is that really such a big problem? Is the preferences option undiscoverable or is the caption of the option not really obvious?

Quote:

Please file a bug report about this: https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=gPodder Issues like this should always be reported as bug, and then we can reliably fix it and ask questions, and we won't forget that the issue is still there as long as the bug is open. A forum thread is hard to "harvest" for bug reports. Please proactively file bugs as you find them. That's not only true for gPodder, but all apps, and not only on the Tablets, but also on the Desktop.

Quote:

4) When starting up gPodder it takes a good 10 seconds and then it minimizes itself right away to the left panel. Any way to configure that not to happen?

Again, that issue has been solved in this thread already. Did you set this configuration option at the beginning, because it should not be the default (and was not last time I checked).

Quote:

As you said, that's a Panucci-related issue. Panucci has it's own bug tracker at this URL: https://garage.maemo.org/tracker/?at...69&func=browse - I'm sure Nick will be happy to help you out and fix this bug if you can provide enough information and if we can reproduce this bug.

Quote:

6) You can't set how many episodes you want to keep. I spend quite a bit of time where I am not connected to the web and often find the value in having multiple episodes available to me.

Please elaborate a bit here. By default, all episodes are "kept", you can either delete them manually or via the menu item "Remove old episodes". Do you want to have automatic podcast selection based on the "X newest epsiodes" in the "Remove old episodes" dialog? How do you currently delete old episodes in gPodder?

Quote:

Am I just missing the settings for the 'issues' above and/or is there an alternative out there that sounds like it would be a better fit?

The built-in RSS reader has some kind of podcast support, I think (at least you would be able to subscribe to feeds. Then, there is Canola and PenguinTV. There's also Video Center (which, despite its name also works for audio content). And a lot of command-line podcast clients like bashpodder, but there are others like podget. gPodder also has a command-line interface. Try "gpo" on the command-line. It's not feature complete, though.

One could also easily write a "lightweight" UI on top of the gPodder codebase and re-use all the "good" stuff from it - download management, feed update handling, database, ...

I'd be happy to hear your feedback, although bug reports are often more to-the-point and more helpful for developers than going through forums looking for clues what annoys people.

ptaffs

2009-06-26 11:38

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast catching tool

If you are happy with a command line interface, I use a python script, it's quite fast. Has absolutely no frills.

If you can follow these instructions, you would not need my script, if you can't well please don't even try. The only pre-requisite that I am aware of needing is standard package: maemo-python-device-env

Directory /media/mmc1/podcasts/ is hardcoded (nice!) as the working and configuration directory.

For each podcast subscription, create a file named podcastx.url containing one line, which is the RSS, XML URL. eg:
YouLookNiceToday.url

Code:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/YouLookNiceToday?format=xml

When the script is run, it will download the latest RSS feed, and create an xml file in the same directory. It should then compare the feed with an earlier version and download the latest, newest linked media file to a subdirectory. The url, xml and directory all share the same name, bar the extension.

Then you're on your own with file manager, media player or mplayer to find and play the podcasts.

This is the first version of something like a gpodder competitor but as it works for me, I stopped developing.

ppodder.py:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env python



import sys



from xml.sax import make_parser, handler

from xml.sax.saxutils import DefaultHandler



from email.Utils import parsedate

import time

#

import os

import urllib



# --- The ContentHandler



class RSSHandler(DefaultHandler):



    def __init__(self, pc):

        self._pc=pc

        self._text = ""

        self._parent = None

        self._title = None

        self._link = None

        self._encURL=None

        self._date = None

        self._xml_stack = ['Root']

        self._pc._parseFail=False



    def ReadIn(self, xml):

        self._xml=xml

        parser=make_parser()

        parser.setContentHandler(self)

        try:

           parser.parse(self._xml)

        except:

           print "XML Parse fail"

           self._pc._parseFail=True



    # ContentHandler methods

    def startElement(self, name, attrs):

        self._xml_stack.append(name)

        self._text = ""

        if name=="enclosure" and self._xml_stack[-2]=="item":

          self._encURL=attrs.get("url")

        



    def endElement(self, name):

        self._xml_stack.pop()

        #self._parent=self._xml_stack[len(self._xml_stack)-1]

        self._parent=self._xml_stack[-1]

        if self._parent == "channel":

            if name == "title":

                self._pc._Title=self._text

            elif name == "description":

                self._pc._Desc=self._text

            elif name == "lastBuildDate":

                self._pc._RSSDate=parsedate(self._text)

            elif name == "pubDate":

                self._pc._RSSDate=parsedate(self._text)



        elif self._parent == "item":

            if name == "title":

                self._title = self._text

            elif name == "link":

                self._link = self._text

            elif name == "pubDate":

                self._date = parsedate(self._text)

            elif name == "description":

                self._descr = self._text



        if name == "item":

            self._pc._Episodes.append([self._encURL, self._title,self._date])

            self._title = None

            self._date=None

            self._link = None

            self._descr = ""



    def characters(self, content):

        self._text = self._text + content



class PodcastClass():

    def __init__(self):

        self._Title=""

        self._Episodes=[]

        self._Desc=""

        self._RSSDate=None

        self._machineName=""

        self._prevRSSDate=None

        self._parseFail=False



    def upDated(self):

        if self._RSSDate==None:

          for ee in self._Episodes:

            if ee[2]>self._RSSDate or self._RSSDate==None:

              self._RSSDate=ee[2]

        return self._RSSDate



    def newEpisodes(self):

        g=[]

        if self._prevRSSDate==None:

          g=self._Episodes

        else:

          for ee in self._Episodes:

            if ee[2]>self._prevRSSDate:

              g.append(ee)

        return g

          

    def shortName(self):                                                   

        if self._machineName=="":                                           

           for c in self._Title.lower():                                                               

             if c.isalnum():

                self._machineName=self._machineName+c 

        return self._machineName



    def newest(self):

        re=None

        for gg in self.newEpisodes():

          if re==None or re[2]<gg[2]:

            re=gg



        return re

        



def myReportHook(count, blockSize, totalSize):

    print count, count*blockSize, totalSize, int(100 *  count*blockSize/totalSize),"\r",





def uncracklink(urlfile):

    f=open(urlfile,"r")

    u=f.readline()                                                                                                                

    f.close()

    return u



#---+----+---+---+



sDir="/media/mmc1/podcasts/"



d=os.listdir(sDir)

for f in d:

   if f.lower().endswith(".url"):

     print "Reading file", f.lower()

     sPodCast=f[:-4]

     sURL=uncracklink(sDir+"/"+f)

     if not os.path.isdir(sDir+"/"+sPodCast):

       os.mkdir(sDir+"/"+sPodCast)

       print "NB: creating podcast directory"



     prevPC=PodcastClass()

     if sPodCast+".xml" in d: 

       print "Reading previous XML"

       prevPCr=RSSHandler(prevPC)

       prevPCr.ReadIn(sDir+"/"+sPodCast+".xml") 

       if prevPC.upDated()!=None:

         print "Podcast", prevPC._Title, time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S",prevPC.upDated())

     else:

       print "No previous XML"



     print "Downloading newest RSS XML"

     try:

       x=urllib.urlretrieve(sURL,sDir+"/"+sPodCast+".1.xml",myReportHook)

     except urllib.ContentTooShortError:

       print "retrieve fail"



     if x[0]!=None:   

       newPC=PodcastClass()

       newPCr=RSSHandler(newPC)

       newPCr.ReadIn(x[0])

       newPC._prevRSSDate=prevPC.upDated()

       if newPC.upDated()!=None:

         print "retrieved", newPC._Title, time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S",newPC.upDated())

     

       PCtoget=newPC.newest()

       if PCtoget!=None and len(PCtoget[0])>0: 

         print "New episode:", PCtoget[1] 

         print "url:", len(PCtoget[0])

         try:

           x2=urllib.urlretrieve(PCtoget[0],sDir+"/"+sPodCast+"/"+PCtoget[0].split("/")[-1],myReportHook)

         except urllib.ContentTooShortError:

           print "retrieve fail"

         else:

           os.rename(x[0],sDir+"/"+sPodCast+".xml")



       if os.path.exists(x[0]):

         os.unlink(x[0])

It is quick and dirty, doesn't have a GUI, or multi-thread, but deals with the feeds I need. Feedback, interest, questions welcome.

To run the script from a menu, I use:
/usr/share/applications/hildon/ppodder.desktop

Code:

[Desktop Entry]

Encoding=UTF-8

Version=1.0

Name=PPodder

Comment=myPPodder

Exec=/home/user/ppodder.py

Icon=qgn_list_rss

Type=Application

silvermountain

2009-06-26 16:41

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by danramos (Post 299929)

Congrats on finding the iconizing option that was causing you pain! I'm not sure why you expected uninstalling and reinstalling would help, though. Uninstalling shouldn't touch your home directory (config files).. even if you uninstall gpodder, the config files will still sit in your home directory (since the package manager didn't put them there).

Explanation: See my sig :)

danramos

2009-06-26 17:39

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 300047)

Explanation: See my sig :)

You make up for lack of geek, with plenty of wit. The latter is certainly more useful in polite company. :)

jalladin

2009-06-29 20:54

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

This is totally a newbie thing to do but i just wanted to at least ask and thought it would only be appropriate here, i use a program called "Jobee" ( http://www.jobee.com.ua/en/ ) on my PC running vista, for a verity of things but the main thing i use it for is podcast and internet radio. It does a lot more and I know the tablet does pretty much all of it by its self but with different programs some of which are better if downloaded versus using the ones it comes with. but the question is since this is a all-in-one type of program that isnt to bad IMO do you guys know if this program mite work on the n8x0...

P.S
i haven't tried it my self since i have not got my n810 yet, sorry if that was a dumb question just thought i might ask, thanks

danramos

2009-06-29 21:01

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Sounds like maybe Canola is the most similar thing to that application. I'm not sure why you think Jobee would work on the N8x0 tablets... their download page specifically points out it's only for Windows--and then only certain versions of Windows. It certainly doesn't help that it's closed-source, so nobody can port it to the tablet. Sorry, Jalladin.

buurmas

2009-10-13 22:36

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Just stumbled onto this thread. gPodder has since received an update and it's snappier now. FWIW.

slartibart

2009-10-13 23:13

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by yerga (Post 299932)

Problem with videocenter IS that it's by Nokia - which means that it's abandoned by now. Even the N810 page that it links to on the main screen of the app gives you a 404 when you click on it.

Sort of makes you wonder what the hiriing requirements are like at Nokia :)
Anyway, sure doesn't entice me to buy the N900.

buurmas

2009-10-14 18:46

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

I don't mind using abandonware if it works. Are you saying videocenter doesn't work properly or do all you need?

speculatrix

2009-10-15 15:02

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

I started to get into podcasts when I was loaned an ipodtouch (which I mostly hated). I tried Canola but it was quite slow, and also had various problems, sometimes not starting up or not being able to play if the wifi connection was changed.

Switched to gpodder and everything's much better. The only thing I've noticed, and I am hesitant to blame it, is that the UI touchscreen sometimes locks up a bit so I can't switch apps, but this is possibly something else even though it's only started happening since loading gpodder.

gpodder definitely copes well with malformed feeds - I couldn't get the Guardian Tech Weekly podcast to work with canola for example, but gpodder does cope.

VulcanRidr

2009-10-16 14:12

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

I don't know if it will help, but what here is what I do:

1. Download podcasts on my Linux desktop using gPodder. Since I subscribe to thirtysomething podcasts, it wasn't feasable to run gPodder on my N810.

2. copy to my N810 via either usb or wireless.

3. Listen using MediaBox, which seems to be a little faster than Canola.

RobertH

2009-10-17 11:47

Re: Looking for a non-gPodder podcast tool

I am seconding bashpodder.
http://lincgeek.org/bashpodder/
It only downloads the podcasts, but I'm sure you already have a favourite media player anyway.
I haven't used it in a while, but you can customise the way it organises the podcasts once they are downloaded by editing the shell script.

(Hello everyone; I'm Robert.)

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