Help me import my old podcasts into Itunes 7!

December 28, 2006 11:28 AM

I am new to the Itunes world (but not to Ipod ownership). I have a ton of Podcasts I got through Ipodder..

How do I integrate those into Itunes 7?
Do I have to "add folder" like I do for Mp3 songs? Won't that put them in albums and not in podcasts?
Thanks in advance!

posted by Asbestos McPinto to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

The only way to get them into the "Podcast" section of iTunes is to download them via iTunes. Even if you change the "Genre" of each podcast (by right-clicking on the track and going to "Get Info") to "Podcast", they will still show up under "Music." This is incredibly annoying. It's like on the iPod every video shows up under "Movies", unless it is a TV show purchased and downloaded via iTunes. There may be a work around, but, if so, I've never heard of it.
posted by JPowers at 11:44 AM on December 28, 2006

If you are on a mac, this might be of assistance to you. I haven't tried it myself.
posted by chairface at 12:01 PM on December 28, 2006

JPowers, you can change the video type in iTunes to have the video show up in "Music Videos" or "TV Shows". It's in a tab under "get info" somewhere.

Sadly I don't know anything about the podcast question at hand.
posted by flaterik at 12:51 PM on December 28, 2006

Instead of re-downloading them, as JPowers said, you can make a smart playlist out of them. This is what I've done for a certain podcast which the iTunes store didn't have full archives for. The shows I downloaded from iTunes were under the podcast category and the ones I downloaded myself were under songs. So I just changed the Artist to the maker of the podcast and made a smart playlist that is auto-updated using the artist as the key, and now anytime the podcast is automatically downloaded it's also updated as a playlist.

In addition, to save space on my iPod, I elect NOT to have the podcast synced, and instead just sync the playlist, which has the same songs. I like this better anyway because podcast playlist do not automatically continue on to the next track when one track is over, where-as playlists do.

I hope this makes sense. Post back if it doesn't and I'll try to explain better.
posted by Brittanie at 3:27 PM on December 28, 2006

I'm pretty sure I asked about this before (no problem with that -- just illustrating that your frustration is common). JPowers is pretty much right; I share (and amplify) the annoyance he speaks of. I thought that shoddy bit of programming might have been fixed in the latest update. Guess not.
posted by RavinDave at 3:28 PM on December 28, 2006