Topic: Genre

Hi, chaps.

Sorry that my first post is a (very mild) complaint, but could you possibly change the genre field in the podcast files from 'podcast' to something sensible?

It's just that, 'podcast' isn't a genre any more than 'CD' or 'LP' is a genre -- it describes the delivery mechanism, not the contents.

I know the genre field in MP3s is kind-of broken anyway, but it just gets my goat when I see a good podcast with a broken description. I don't know if iTunes constrains the choice you have, but maybe you could make it something obscurely relevant yet mildly troublesome, such as 'Folk' or 'Religious'.

In other news, I've been watching some movies, such as 'The Prestige' and 'District 9', simply because you've already done them, and I wanted to find out what you guys though of them. Oddly enough, they've been pretty good so far. To show you how far down the rabbit hole I've fallen, I am presently considering watching 'Surrogates', knowing nothing about the movie other than its role as retro-inspiration for movies I do like.

Re: Genre

Hm, don't know how to do that, and a quick Google search has not been helpful. I'll keep looking into it.

And welcome to the forums!

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Genre

When I export an MP3 from an audio editing application, there's normally a dialogue box that appears that allows you to set various MP3 parameters, including 'Title', 'Album' and 'Genre'.

Also, if you're running PHP on a Unixy box, you ought to have a command like 'id3v2' that lets you twiddle the options on an MP3 file.

Re: Genre

Oho. That I can do, but not retroactively, naturally. Good note.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Genre

Just had a quick look at the other podcasts I subscribe to and get via iTunes; sure enough, all of them show Podcast as their genre.  Not sure if this is something that can be altered for the RSS feed, but from here on out we can definitely make the genre of the direct download files something like Commentary.

What I personally do, and this works for any audio podcast, is save them under Music.  Remember, a podcast is really just a way of getting content from someone, you don't have to keep it organized like that if you don't want to.  Select an episode of your favorite podcast, right click and Get Info.  Now you can change the genre, but even cooler is you can go under Options and set Media Kind to Music.  Click Ok, and now that file will show up in your Music library and can be managed like any other album.

One of the things that bugs me about podcasts in iTunes is that you have to select each episode individually.  I tend to let episodes stack up and then listen to them in a marathon session, but I have to keep going in and selecting the next episode.  Moving them to Music allows iTunes to play them one after the other.

Anyway, I recommend everyone play with that Get Info context menu, there's a lot you can do in there to organize your library.

Thanks for the feedback.

Re: Genre

I don't have the problem of consecutive podcasts not playing automatically, but I listen on my iPod, which might follow different rules from iTunes. I also synchronize only the unheard ones, which might also affect how they're played.

However, on iTunes, you could try adding the podcast you want to listen to to your On-the-Go playlist, and playing that. Or even, set up a Smart Playlist that contains unheard podcasts (play count is 0), and see if that will just play through them all.

Re: Genre

When i download a podcast separately from the web into itunes (which is a pain, i'd rather have them all organised in order in 'podcasts'), i just change the genre to 'commentary' as mentioned above and change the EQ to spoken. Then create a smart playlist for 'commentary' and at least you've got them in one place.

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Re: Genre

On an iPod sure, they do play automatically.  As for the rest of my podcasts, I only sync a couple others to my device, and then only the unheard ones.  A playlist would work, but for DIF I like to have every episode on my device, and I'm an iTunes organization fanatic (ask CloeZ about the four days I spent fixing her library); for me it just makes more sense to put them in with my music, but as we say so often, your mileage may vary.

Re: Genre

The reason nobody does that, I think, is that if you stop halfway in, listen to something else, and come back, your place is lost.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Genre

Oh, and, comma.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Genre

downinfront wrote:

The reason nobody does that, I think, is that if you stop halfway in, listen to something else, and come back, your place is lost.

In iTunes, there's a check box in the previously mentioned Get Info menu where you can chose to have it remember your spot.

"ShadowDuelist is a god."
        -Teague Chrystie

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Re: Genre

ShadowDuelist wrote:
downinfront wrote:

The reason nobody does that, I think, is that if you stop halfway in, listen to something else, and come back, your place is lost.

In iTunes, there's a check box in the previously mentioned Get Info menu where you can chose to have it remember your spot.

Exactly.  That one's under options, as well as another useful check box, Skip when shuffling.  You can even set in and out points for tracks with intros you regularly skip.  In fact here's another quick tip:

Got a track with say, a 30 second intro you fast forward through every time, and 5 seconds of dead air at the end.  First scrub to the point at the end where you want the track to stop, note the time. Get Info, Options, set Start time to 0:05, and Stop time to the time you noted.  You can adjust by fractions of a second if it's not quite right.  Now, go into your Preferences / Import settings.  Here you can set iTunes to convert CDs, or in our case files already in your library to ACC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, MP3, or WAV.  Select whatever you want, based on your needs.  Now go back to that file, and either go up to Advanced / Create [insert selected format here], or right click and there should be a context menu for it.  Now iTunes will create a new version of that file, using the format you selected, and it will conform to the time constraints you imposed.  I.e., in this case, the track will be 35 seconds shorter, start at 0 seconds, and end at the end of the scroll bar.

Now just either delete or uncheck the old version.  The advantage is in the fact that because you are creating a new file, if anything ever happens to your iTunes library in the future (it will), you don't have to go back and set that old file up the way you had it, you just import the new file.

Like I said, lots of good stuff under Get Info.

Re: Genre

tend to let episodes stack up and then listen to them in a marathon session, but I have to keep going in and selecting the next episode.

You can just set a smart playlist whose perimeters are 'Down In Front' and 'Podcast.' New episodes will be automatically added, and then you can just play the playlist all the way through without stopping.

Posted from my iPad
http://trek.fm

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Re: Genre

This is one of the reasons iTunes is merely the least-worst of several bad choices for podcast downloading. It regards all audio as being music—unless it is a "podcast", in which case it can suck ass and die, for all iTunes cares. That's why there's no support for increasing play speed in iTunes or iPods or for deleting audio files on iPods. (Correct me if I'm wrong about that.)

Altho, to be fair, Audible also does not support faster playback speeds, so enjoy your 6 hour audio book in exactly 6 hours like a normal person, punk.

/bitter

Am I the only one who listens to podcasts and audio books at 120 to 140%? Do I have some absurdly high listening comprehension rate or something?

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: Genre

You might just be nuts.

I've never listened to a podcast at high speed.

Then again you listen to a lot of them.

This brings us back to nuts.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Genre

Zarban wrote:

This is one of the reasons iTunes is merely the least-worst of several bad choices for podcast downloading. It regards all audio as being music—unless it is a "podcast", in which case it can suck ass and die, for all iTunes cares. That's why there's no support for increasing play speed in iTunes or iPods or for deleting audio files on iPods. (Correct me if I'm wrong about that.)

The only problem with what iTunes does is it has an audio book category which is useless for stuff you rip yourself unless you get a third party program. I finally got Audiobook Builder which will combine and compress mp3 or m4a files into a single m4b audiobook.

I actually like having podcasts separate, as for the most part they will be deleted after one listen and usually are treated differently then other audio.

Am I the only one who listens to podcasts and audio books at 120 to 140%? Do I have some absurdly high listening comprehension rate or something?

No, you just have ADD smile I personally want to hear it the way the speaker intended, and a slow pace may be part of that.
(a production of Camelot came through town a few years ago that had sped up the singing to quicken the pace. I can't think of a worse thing to do with a musical, especially one that's so easy to do badly in the first place)

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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Re: Genre

Pretty sure iPods let you play back certain types of audio at 1.5x, 1x, or .5x; I know my iPhone does for podcasts and audiobooks.  I've never used this function for either though.

I love audiobooks, especially since you can build them with chapters (m4b's).  They're great for anything episodic too, i.e., I took my Star Wars Radio Drama episodes, used the trick I posted earlier to cut off the intro and credits from all the middle episodes, and stitched them together to make one long program; ANH clocks in at around 4:53.  Also because it's chapterized I can jump to or skip individual episodes if I want.  Good stuff.

I've tried Audiobook Builder, and a couple others for Mac, but I still prefer a little free program for Windows called Chapter and Verse.  Audiobook Builder isn't free, and seems to want to convert to ACC even if the files are already ACC.  With C&V I can let iTunes do the conversion over-night or something, and C&V just has to splice the files together.