Craig's Blog

Testing a New Podcast Receiver

A few months ago I ditched the podcast receivers I was using because they seemed to be hogs at Windows start-up. For a while I didn't miss them, but early last week I picked up on TavernCast, a podcast related to World of Warcraft.

So I decided it was time to check out the latest in receivers. I was about to consider re-installing iPodder and found it was renamed to Juice. Then I stumbled upon Ziepod and really like the look and feel of it.

I downloaded it and started using it to gather up all my old favorite podcasts (Catholic Insider and tWiT for example). I was also able to use its search feature to some new ones as well.

One feature that is missing is the ability to create Windows Media Player playlists. Ziepod does allow you to shell out to an application after a feed is downloaded, though. So, thinking I'd just create some auto-playlists in WMP, I went in search of a command-line tag editor.

My strategy was to set a tag value and then search on that value to create the playlist (I gave up relying on podcast publishers to be consistent with title, artist, and other tags). But then I found Tag.

In addition to being a tag editor, Tag will also create playlist files recognized by WMP. Using a simple command line I was able to automatically create the playlist every time a feed is downloaded.

To set this up:

1. In Ziepod, right-click a feed in the Folders tab. Select Properties.
2. Click on the Download tab.
3. Check the box labeled When download finishes, apply following shell command on downloaded file
4. Enter the following command line (changing paths as necessary):
   c:\mp3tageditor\tag.exe --playlist --plname TWIT "C:\Documents and Settings\You\My Documents\My Ziepod Downloads\this WEEK in TECH\*.mp3"
5. Click OK and you're finished!

posted by cre @ 12:18 PM