Podcast Beta

IMPORTANT WARNING ABOUT THE BETA (UPDATE 1/31/05):  Podcast can have ANY TYPE OF FILE.  MP3's, Video, Other music formats, EXE's, et al. ANYONE can put up a Podcast, which means if you get a EXE or something like that, be very careful (I would recommend not even running them).  This version of the beta allows you to only download "Valid Media", and it will ONLY play/launch valid media files.  If you want to turn this off you can, but in order to run it (if StationRipper doesn't know what it is), you'll have to browse to the file. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK - If it's EXE or something you are unsure of, don't run it.

A early version of the StationRipper Podcast beta can be found here

This version of StationRipper will "rip" Podcast "stations".  It willl monitor the Podcasts for new items, downloading new stuff once it's available.  Any type of file can be downloaded (music, video, et al.).  From a StationRippers users perspective, it just looks like a on-line radio station, except once it's got everything it waits until new content is available, then starts up again.

Right now, Podcasts can only be found via the embedded Podcast.org.  I'm working on a version that displays a list internally (so you'll be able to get counts of stations, sort by genre, et al.)

As I said, this is a EARLY Beta.  It seems to work, but hasn't been heavily tested.  I'm putting it out to get some early feedback from users on what they thing of it (the idea).  Please post in the "Beta 2.10 - Podcast" with suggestions and issues.

-Greg

i really like the #/# thingy on the main page - i was ripping some streams in the last version but now i can see that i've got dups (it's showing like 2/189 which looking at the log says that all but 2 were dups).  very cool, you can tell when theres no point ripping a broadcast anymore!

and the pdcast thing looks cool even though i don't exactly understand it. and that page thingy it's using to get to the 'cast is kinda annoying to find stuff you know?

alfie.

New version here.

A lot of changes in this one.  Highlights:

• Clicking on the Podcast icon will now allow you to load all podcasts from the directories, get information about them, and rip them.
• Many fixes in the Podcast ripper (more error handling, better handling of "odd" returns from various feeds, etc.)
• Upped max stream's to 600 for the registered version.  WARNING: If you start ripping a few hundred at once, it will peg your system for a bit.  It'll work, but it will take a while to start that many rips.)
• WARNING: I HIGHLY recommend backing up you "StationRipper.mdb" file in the StationRipper directory - changes may still happen between this beta and release.  If they do, the beta version of the MDB may not be compatible with the full released version.

Just a note from my own experience with Podcasts over the last few weeks - anyone can put them up.  ANYONE - You, your 90 year old grandfather that isn't sure what he's doing (and a bit demented), or your 4 year old nephew that's messing around.  So just be forewarned that there's a lot of odd stuff out there, and a lot of it isn't well done.  I'll be working on a "Top Podcast" list for the StationRipper portal next, which I hope will help people find interesting  'casts easily.

Let me know what you think,

-Greg