Zen and Podcasts/Zencasts

[bodotdot]

I have a Creative Zen player, and would like to use it to listen to podcasts. Right now, I'm downloading them through iTunes and drag-and-dropping them onto another MP3 player. My Zen came with the Zencast service, which gives access to podcasts...but only a very few. How do I direct Zencast to go find specific podcasts that aren't on their limited list?

[CrowdAds]

[BobbyRS]

bodotdot: Thread merged with main Zencast thread. Please check for existing on topic thread before starting a new thread. Thank you and welcome to ABI!

[Gadget73]

I have a 4Gb Zen. I am looking for a good podcast aggregator, which also converts video casts to the proper Zen format. Any suggestions?

[BobbyRS]

Hello Gadget73. Welcome.

Merged thread with main Podcast/Zencast thread.

You may want to check out this thread for some information.

[dubhousing]

Hi --

I just got a zen 8 gb and love it!

Two issues I'm facing:

I listen to a lot of pod-- err... zencasts, and none of them seem to play to completion (i.e., the player will stop suddenly with about a minute to go, and return to the zencast menu). I can go back into the zencast and use "seek to" to get past the point where it stopped, but within say ten seconds it will stop again.

My second issue: sync manager is really, really slow for me. Does anyone know of helpful tutorials for syncing with winamp or wmp? Do those actually work better?

[BobbyRS]

Hello dubhousing. Welcome.

Merged thread with main Podcast/Zencast thread.

You may want to check out this thread for some information.

Just about any other syncing software will be better, for the most part; WMP11, Mediamonkey, Winamp.... Here are a couple of WMP tutorials I know of here and here.

[sterankin]

I have just received my new 4GB Zen, and after playing for a few hours I'm pretty happy.

I am new to podcasts so I thought I would try out the ZENCast feature, which seemed pretty good until I got the cutting off problem before the end.

After recommendation from raster on page 2 of this thread, I am using ZiePod to subscribe, and download podcasts (and retag them) and then using the sync manager from creative to transfer to the music folder.

Good workaround if less than ideal. I take it there is still no fix for this stopiing issue since I have the latest firmware..


Edit: I forgot to add these questions regarding podcasts and the Zen.

1. Now that podcasts are being put synced from my podcast folder on my pc and being put into the music folder on the ZEN - does this mean that if I random play all songs, they will be played as songs (even though the genre is podcast)?

2. If I delete them from the Zen, will they be deleted from the podcast folder on my PC?


also: Can anyone recommend any good podcasts since I am new to this? Or at least how to find some?
Thanks!

[fabunobo]

Hello! I have been using zencast for a while on a desktop pc. I recently got a new laptop and installed. I imported all my subscriptions but cannot get it to connect. I get an error that says “Unable to download. The download address is invalid.” I am connected to the internet via wireless on my laptop. It’s windows xp. I’ve puttered with it for hours and hours but cannot figure out what’s wrong. All the properties of the specific subscriptions look fine.

[BobbyRS]

Thread merged with existing Zencast thread.

[juliofromny]

After much frustration this past weekend I've conceded that iTunes/iPod is a much better overall integrated simplistic and enjoyable experience. However, saying that, I don't want to fully give up on the Zen x-fi b/c the sound is just kick ass and I don't want to be tied down to one brand. So saying that I have a few questions that I would like some help with:

1) There are some podcasts that I've listened to on my iPod that apparently are m4a format (the icon is very quicktime like) that don't seem to be compatible for my zen, couldn't be converted with the very crappy zencast software and wasn't viewable on wmp until i found some codec that made it possible. Is there a way for me to make those podcasts viewable on my zen x-fi in a relatively easy fashion (they are: Iodacast, Radio Dysentary & Ritmo Latino)?

2) Is Winamp and/or Media Monkey compatible with Creative Zen and are they much better than WMP (especially in the auto-playlist department)?

3) Is Juice my best option for downloading podcasts and if so why am I having problems with some of them (it stays on a repetive download mode for wormwood: a serialized murder mystery podcast)?

Any and all answers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[qwerty_uk]

Lately, I've been using mypodder (from Podcast Ready), which sits on my USB stick so that I can download my chosen poscasts on any PC (even Linux) or Mac. I then transfer them to the zen by connecting both and dragging them across to the Zencast folder.
I have no idea whether video or m4a 'casts are supported though.

I think mypodder could even run directly on the Zen (from the SD card, by putting it in removable disk mode), but I haven't tried this and I guess would mean you then have to play the 'casts from the SD card - with all the lack of functions involved in that.

[BobbyRS]

juliofromny:
1. See this thread for more discussion.
2. User preference really. I prefer WMP, but still like MediaMonkey as well.
3. I believe MediaMonkey will do this as well.

[juliofromny]

Originally Posted by qwerty_uk

I think mypodder could even run directly on the Zen (from the SD card, by putting it in removable disk mode), but I haven't tried this and I guess would mean you then have to play the 'casts from the SD card - with all the lack of functions involved in that.

so will the sd card play the same file formats as the zen or are there more limitations?

[BobbyRS]

Yes. When playing back on the Zen, it supports what formats is supports regardless of the content being on the SD card or the internal memory. However, the features and integration between the two are were it is different.

[juliofromny]

Originally Posted by BobbyRS

Yes. When playing back on the Zen, it supports what formats is supports regardless of the content being on the SD card or the internal memory. However, the features and integration between the two are were it is different.

How do you mean? Besides lack of full integration what are the other differences?

Originally Posted by netwiz

Super is fine, but having tried it and some others, I've settled on Format Factory, which I found to give better results than Super. This may or may not be the case for you.
http://www.formatoz.com/

Also, I can't see any difference in video quality between 512 or 1024 kbps. Again, I suggest you try for yourself. The 512 file will be getting on for half the file size. I'd be interested if anyone can tell the difference. I've also tried a number of different codecs, and I've settled on xvid, although again I couldn't really tell much of a difference between it and divx and wmv.

so these conversion programs can change a protected m4a file into an mp3?

Originally Posted by BobbyRS

juliofromny:
1. See this thread for more discussion.
2. User preference really. I prefer WMP, but still like MediaMonkey as well.
3. I believe MediaMonkey will do this as well.

So give windows media player another shot but mm is a good alternative? Also, don't even bother playing with winamp?

[BobbyRS]

Originally Posted by juliofromny

How do you mean? Besides lack of full integration what are the other differences?

The Zen's lack of useful features that work on internal memory storage like bookmarks, resume play, picture zooming.... do not work on external memory storage like the SD card.

Originally Posted by juliofromny

So give windows media player another shot but mm is a good alternative? Also, don't even bother playing with winamp?

WMP and MM are very good. It has been a long time since I messed around with WinAmp.

[juliofromny]

Originally Posted by BobbyRS

The Zen's lack of useful features that work on internal memory storage like bookmarks, resume play, picture zooming.... do not work on external memory storage like the SD card.



WMP and MM are very good. It has been a long time since I messed around with WinAmp.

ahh i see.. Also I noticed that when I juice my podcasts they don't all have the podcast tag on the files and so I have to look for them under various different genres and fixthem. Is this b/c i'm a techtard and I shouldn't of checked the itunes podcast option under the player tab? Or is this just an issue with juice working with wmp. Also I'm still having a weird repetitive download issue with a podcast (wormwood). Is this an issue on my end or the rss feed (i've never had this issue with iTunes before)?

For more info in case you're wondering, when I'm under the subscription tab of juice it keeps showing as partially downloaded. According to the log I have the following information for this podcast:

FeedScanningJob 30470480 'Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery ? podcast' reports: Item 33 has more than one enclosure
FeedScanningJob 30470480 'Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery ? podcast' reports: Item 34 has more than one enclosure
FeedScanningJob 30470480 'Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery ? podcast' reports: Item 35 has more than one enclosure


under my juice.exe log I have the following message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "iPodderGui.pyc", line 3062, in OnCleanupFeedChoice
File "iPodderGui.pyc", line 3091, in PopulateCleanupEpisodes
File "ipodder\history.pyc", line 672, in pretty_name_from_path
File "ipodder\history.pyc", line 23, in mkfilenamekey
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xbb' in position 42: ordinal not in range(128)


is there anything that I can do to fix this issue??

[juliofromny]

uhh, wait.. Does that mean that if I pause something, leave it alone and then hit play, the audio file will just start at the beginning??

[durian]

the only way to copy a protected m4a file is to record it via a headphone socet in to something like audacity and create an mp3 from that.

[BobbyRS]

Originally Posted by juliofromny

uhh, wait.. Does that mean that if I pause something, leave it alone and then hit play, the audio file will just start at the beginning??

No, your usual controls work just fine; Play, Pause, FF, RW.... Just don't let the Zen go into a low power state or turn off becuase it will not resume play from where it was paused if playing from the SD card.