I was totally amazed when searching the bbs for 'podcast' produced zero hits.
I've fixed that.

That said, has anyone worked out a good way to pull podcasts* into the empeg? At the extreme, this is a jEmplode feature request, but I know Mike hasn't had a lot of time lately.

In batting this around with Tony, I realized that a simple solution, and a generally useful feature in jEmplode, would be thus:

Create a "magic" directory on the PC, the contents of which are always downloaded at every sync. Then the Podcast aggregator could just write what it gets to that folder.

Have I missed something? Is there already an easy way to do this?

(Mike- If you're in town for WWDC, I'll trade beer for features...seems to work with the guys@empeg. )

*For those who don't know what a podcast is, a podcast is an RSS feed with (usually) mp3 enclosures. This started with audio blogs, but now even the likes of NPR have figured it out. Programs like iPodder automate all of this, but talk to iTunes and WMP, not jEmplode.

Could all the .mp3 files in this directory also have a common ID3 tag applied to them, or a database tag applied when imported into jEmplode so that a dynamically generated playlist could be added to the root? Genre = Podcast or such? It would also be cool to be able to generate a playlist by date and subject.

I have always just downloaded the .mp3 file and put it on the empeg (the same way I have been for years before anyone came up with "podcast") I don't listen to that many that it's worth doing some automated thing.

You can just have ipodder download to a folder then just copy the one folder to the empeg. I doubt it would ever be like the ipod where you just plug it in a all the files are uploaded with no intervention.

Well I just did my first search for podcasts today, due to listening to This Week in Tech, and found this thread. Twit is a podcast done by a lot of the old crew from The Screen Savers on the now dead TechTV network, and it's pretty cool to listen to.

So, I guess this counts as another vote towards having Jemplode supporting podcasts in some way. Since there are so many podcast pieces of software, the suggestion of an auto sync folder setup would probably work best.

For me, I just need to dig out my old project to sync a few internet radio streams to the empeg and finish it. I was planning on doing this via my Linux server in the house, and having it ping the empeg IP similar to my empeg webcam. If it saw it online, it would do a sync, but I never did finish all the bits for it.

Another good one is the makezine.com one by Phillip Torrone. I always liked the ones he did on Engadget but he kinda vanished from there.

For anyone who uses mp3tofid and rsync, this should be a no-brainer. Just put your downloaded mp3 files in your mp3 root, run mp3tofid, rsync, and you're all set.

I'm going the mp3tofid+rsync route myself, not for this (which I refuse to call "podcasting" for religious reasons) but because it's a much simpler solution that I can automate when/if I ever get in-car Wi-Fi working.

Pim would probably know for sure, but my understanding is that mp3tofid/rsync and j?Emplode are mutually exclusive options. Not sure how it could be rigged to just "control" one or two playlists, but it sounds like an interesting idea for those who still need emplode for whatever reason.

Here is a puzzling podcast related posting on the makezine blog Link

Don't most mp3 players resume to the same place in the track you were at when you power them off and on ? Am I just taking for granted this feature that has been on every Rio player I have owned ?

It's so sad that features I would expect to be in every player by now are not in the most popular the ipod.

I suppose the drones don't know what they are missing.

Maybe the drones don't care? Sure, it's great for stuff like audio books, or symphonies, or other really long files, but for the average 3-5 minute song that I typically listen to, I couldn't really care less whether or not I'm at the exact same spot in the song I was listening to last when I stopped the player. If it's a good song (and aren't they all, since I put them on my player? ), then more than likely, I'd want to hear it from start to end, instead of all chopped up.

I agree for regular 3-5 minute songs it doesn't matter but I listen to some "podcasts" and many concert bootlegs that are all one track so I would miss this feature.

Hey I'm a "Boo-Pah" what the heck is it ?

As for bookmarking within songs.. the ipod and itunes supports this for mp3 as well as AAC now. They added this with the added podcast support in 4.9

I would also like to throw my vote into the some sort of automated synching of podcasts with jemplode ring.