A different sort of podcast question
March 6, 2014 11:41 AM   Subscribe

This one isn't about finding podcasts with good content, it's more of a technical issue. Is there a way to get old-time radio episodes on Archive.org to behave like podcast episodes in Downcast, the podcatcher app I use on my iPod Touch?

For example, here's the page for You Bet Your Life. There are all sorts of files available on the page, and I'm hoping one of them is something I could subscribe to like a podcast. I tried manually subscribing to the You.Bet.Your.Life_files.xml file, but that didn't work. Downcast could subscribe to it, but then said there were no episodes available, even when I selected "view other available episodes."

I know how to import single episodes into Downcast in a pinch, but it's not ideal. I could also download the MP3s to my PC, assemble them into an Album or an Audiobook in Media Monkey and then sync them over to the iPod. I've also read a little about Huffduffer. But I have this feeling I'm missing something, that there's an easier way I'm just not seeing because I don't understand all the different sorts of files available on the Archive.org page.

Any ideas?
posted by Librarienne to Computers & Internet (3 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm afraid it won't work out of the box. The .xml files are not in the right format for podcast clients (RSS).

Huffduffer might do - but you'll either have to add each file manually, or to do it programatically with their api.

It is a bit weird, but archive.org seems to have a separate directory for podcasts, which does not include radio shows...
posted by motdiem2 at 12:04 PM on March 6, 2014


No, I, too, have had to download them and gin up an album title & cover art & other tags to manage them in iTunes.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:08 PM on March 6, 2014


Response by poster: OK, thanks. At least now I know I haven't missed some obvious solution. And now I know that archive.org actually has a podcast section, which I didn't know before. :)
posted by Librarienne at 8:07 AM on March 7, 2014


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