Podcast quandary

I like the idea of podcasts. There are some I even subscribe to: LugRadio, Ricky Gervais, Mark Kermode’s film reviews and now Channel 4 have their own podcast which allows you to listen to “Jon Snow’s specially commissioned radio programme” (via Fintan).

The problem is, I use a web-based feed reader, but I want podcast mp3s on my local machine, whichever one that might be. I suppose I could auto-download them to my web host and then use something like the del.icio.us play tagger to stream them back, but I don’t always have my browser open (although I do most of the time, it has to be said), and I don’t want to keep a tab or window open just for mp3 playback when I already have Winamp, which minimises away to the tray thank you very much.

Maybe the key is to also have a desktop aggregator which queries my web-based aggregator about podcast feeds I’m subscribed to (or feeds which use enclosures in general), so that it can download them in the background, and it’s just ready to go? That sounds like it might be a good solution, and I think it would be reasonably straightforward. Any other ideas?

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5 thoughts on “Podcast quandary”

  1. Assuming you have a problem with iTunes, which is what I’d recommend first, you could try getting a public Bloglines page with all the podcast posts displayed on it and use Playr’s M3U bookmarklet (or even bookmark the M3U link generated by Playr) to send them to Winamp.

  2. You know that winamp has some facilities to subscribe to podcasts right? (does that make it a podreader? podplayer? podreceiver? who knows) See Media Library > SHOUTcast Wire > Subcriptions > Add

    Having said that, there doesn’t seem to be much of downloading in the background and is a bit poor generally IMHO. Also ducks out the centrally managed subscription list.

    Cheers for the pointers to the podcasts though 🙂

  3. Another reason to use newsgator online.
    They have this thing called “feedStation” which detects embeded audio. When you click on it, it automatically loads it to an app called feedStation where it is available for playback without a browser whenever you want.

    http://www.newsgator.com/BroadcastingHome.aspx

    I use iTunes myself, so I don’t use the feedstation, but as far as I can tell, this is exactly the kind of thing you are looking for.

  4. iTunes brings my home PC to a grinding halt, especially if I’m doing, er, anything elsel, so it’s completely out of the question.

    I might investigate the Playr option, but I really would like the files on disk.

    I’m still on Winamp 5.01 so I’ll upgrade to 5.1 and check out the new podcast features (caveats noted!) , cheers for that Rob.

    Newsgator, pfah. I want to control my own data thank you very much 🙂

  5. let us know how you get on. The alternative could also be to use a desktop aggregator *just* for podcasts.

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