Audio to go: Tivo the Web

2006.02.27 — Business | Web | by Derek Jensen

If you haven't checked out podcasting because of the stupid name, now is the time. (Well, not right now. At least finish reading this article.) In some ways, it's really nothing special. It's just a dumb name for downloading audio and video from the Web. Or, more accurately, it's a dumb name for making audio and video available on the Web for other people to download. See, it's like broadcasting but done on the Web, so that's why they call it Webcasting. Wait. No. That's something else.

The downloading part is important. It assumes you're downloading to an iPod, which is a stupid name for an MP3 player, altho that's not accurate either, since MP3 players play a variety of file types, not just those that end in ".mp3". Look I don't have all the answers here. This isn't Slashdot.

Find a content producer and look for little orange podcast buttons that say "RSS" or "XML" or that that specific to the type of podcast software you're using.

They are feeds that enable you to download your favorite radio shows or Internet media programs. NPR has recently made podcasts available, altho only for a couple of shows. You'll have to pay for Car Talk podcasts, which actually isn't from NPR. Air America used to offer downloads for free, but has recently switched to a pay system. Former-MTV-VJ Adam Curry was a pioneer of podcasting and hosts Daily Source Code. Rocketboom and Geekbrief are both video blogs that feature pretty young female hosts, neither of which is all that good, but your mileage may vary. Podshow has other stuff too.

Bloggingheads.tv offers mostly-political commentary from Mickey Kaus of Slate's Kausfiles and author and wry-wit Robert Wright in either audio-only or video form. Watching the no-frills, two-dudes-in-their-home-offices format doesn't add much to the content, but it's at least different (they occasionally splice in video of news events they're commenting on).

If you're not sure what podcast software to use, there are several free applications, including the ubiquitous iTunes. I use RSSRadio, a very intuitive shareware tool that I found to be simpler and more reliable than Nimiq. In RSSRadio, you set up subscriptions (up to 5 feeds with the unregistered version) to podcast pages and tell it to keep an eye on that location for something new. New items show up in a kind of in-box like e-mail.

RSSRadio has a player built into it, but I right-click the "unread" items and send them to play in Microsoft Media Player. I like Media Player because it's easy to control and lets me crank up the speed to 1.4x or even 2x and rocket thru the show even while Media Player keeps the pitch adjusted to sound natural. I use it so much that at normal speed the hosts of my favorite shows now sound to me like slow-witted drunks (which, come to think of it, they may be).

You don't have to download podcasts to an iPod, of course, of even to an MP3 player of any kind. Since I'm never without my laptop, I download them to my laptop and listen to it with earphones. Of course, if you're actually on the go a lot, running, flying, or driving, a good MP3 player could help pass the time without subjecting you to endless repetitions of your minuscule collection of legitimately-purchased songs. (Right? Nod your head.)

There are some quirks. NPR's Science Friday comes in several segments instead of all in one file. The multi-part format was an annoyance even when I listen to it in streaming form straight from the NPR Web site because, even tho the whole show plays sequentially, the speed drops back to normal from 1.4x with each segment. But as a podcast, I have to kick off each segment separately, which is doubly annoying.

These quirks will get ironed out in time as the podcasters get feedback from listeners. Either the feed will change or the software will figure out how to string them together. Back in the early days of televisions, viewers had get up and shake their TV set to clear the screen after each show. Then came automatic set-shaking technology, and the rest is history.

Update 2006.03.20

I tried iTunes and Happy Fish and I'm not satisfied with either. Both have a slicker interface than RSSRadio, but neither was able to smoothly import my podcast subscriptions. Happy Fish refuses to consider the Al Franken Show, which requires a password login; and iTunes accepts it but refuses to download it unless I go to the Air America site and login manually (apparently it's supposed to ask for my password itself and remember it, but it doesn't).

Happy Fish keeps pulling down every available episode for a given feed, oblivious to the fact that I listened to and deleted them already.

And iTunes is unable to play WMV files, so it refuses to download Bloggingheads.tv video podcasts, even tho I'd rather launch Media Player to watch them, like I do with RSSRadio. Oh well. iTunes did turn me on to some other cool podcasts I didn't know about, like Scientific American and Harry Shearer's Le Show.

As a result, neither of these is any substitution for RSSRadio, but since I've reached my 5-subscription limit on the free version, I may have to cough up $18 to register.

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