Podcasting / Zencasting - a step by step account

I'm very happy generally with my Zen 32GB. For music and photos it's great. But when it comes to podcasting virtually every step is a shambles:
. The Zencast organiser offers no way of automatically deleting old podcasts from my PC; surely this is standard in podcasting software?!
2. When I unplug the player from the Sync Manager the screen turns off but the blue light under the on/off switch stays on. The only way I can get it to respond is by sticking something in the reset pinhole, turning it on, and then waiting minutes for the library to rebuild itself. For music and video I generally just copy and paste new stuff into the relevent folders but for podcasting (where I'm deleting as well as adding files) a good sync service is essential and not offered by Creative.
3. The end of the podcasts are cut off in the conversion which is poor and something I thought might have been fixed in software updates since I first got the player a year ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems it hasn't. I like to have all my podcasts in a seperate place from my music files which is why I've persisted with zencast despite this.
So management of podcasts, transfer of podcasts and listening to podcasts are all failures with this player.
Are there going to be fixes to these problems?
A generally happy but unpodcastable customer!
Rob

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I am having a challenge getting an uploaded Podcast to appear on iTunes inventory list although it is present once I click on a left hand column for Podcasts (the extra step may make it too elusive for listeners to find.)

Each week, a Radio Program is uploaded from my website to iTunes for access to our community. The December 17, 2012 episode and January 7, 2013 episodes, although they've been uploaded, will not appear on the Inventory on iTunes. When I look to the left of the running list of Inventory, which appears in alphabetical order, the word Podcast appears to the left with a number 1 next to it - as if there's a message waiting. When I click
there and open, the December 17 episode is listed.
Is there a way for the Podcast to join the other episode titles in chronological order? There will be another new one from this morning to join the list.
(I have not heard back from Express Apple, have tried iTunes Support, Blog Talk Support, etc.)
Thanks for any insights or tips....

Hi Trukntigger,
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Changing email account associated with podcast submissions

Does anyone know if you can change the itunes account that was used to submit my podcast? For example, I had to use my wife's itunes account when submitting my podcast, but now that things are working I want to get an itunes account for my business and have the feed use that account instead.
Thanks!

I'm not sure to what extent you can alter things other than as the Tech note indicates. Of course, to the outside world there's no indication of what account it's associated with (there may be an email address in the feed, but you can change that easily enough and it doesn't have to be the one that iTunes has). Changing the email address iTunes has should result in them using that if they need to contact you.But podcasts don't really have an account in the way that purchased songs do since no money has to change hands.

Newbee: I want to Podcast with Apple - where to start?

Hi,
I am in a WINDOWS environment trying to give apple technology a chance. At Heilbronn university we want to experiment with podcast technology using apples podcast producer. Blue-eyed I tried to install the Server OS and, as the next step, tried to configure the machine using the "podcast producer administration guide". I failed. E.g. the guide tells me to set up DNS to strange addresses, but only HOW, not WHY. And it doesn't work.
So I need help:
I have an environment where the server (mac mini) is attached via ethernet (manual DHCP with static IP address) using our university DNS. Our university has its own mail server, its own LDAP Server, etc.
Attachment to LDAP is not needed but I want to use a macbook air to capture the podcasts.
Where should I start?
Any help is welcome.
Best regards,
Dr. Jörg Winckler

Guten Tag Jörg!
Your setup is similar to one i've just deployed for a college here in England.
Are you planning on using Podcast Capture or quicktime on the macbook air to capture the podcasts? You have to login to the mac server in order to submit the podcasts, and that requires a user account either standalone on the mac server's openldap, or your university wide LDAP.
The other options depend on exactly what you want to do with your podcasts. You might not need a mail server at all if you're not publishing notifications..
As for DNS, its actually fairly simple. You just need the FQDN of the mac server to be published on the network you will be using to connect to the mac server from the macbook air, and it needs a reverse DNS entry for the same.
I hope this helps, but feel free to ask detailed questions on anything i've missed.
Thanks,
Liam Gladdy
GladdyMedia
Message was edited by: Liam Gladdy

Posting Podcast file to user blog entry

Hello,
I have a Apple Xserve (originally running Tiger) that was running a blog for some podcasting training that I was doing with some faculty at our high school. Faculty could subscribe to the podcast/blog in iTunes using the link provided for them automatically on the blog page. This was working fine and would update the podcast subscription for the faculty user as postings were added.
I got my Leopard cd in the mail for the Xserve. The faculty were ready for students (high school seniors) to start working/posting podcasts, the next step for podcasting in our district. I took an afternoon and did the Leopard install in hopes that we might also use the wiki/shared calendar offerings available in Leopard.
I did a standard install for the Leopard server, set up the users and groups, and then starting posting to the newly created user blogs. In the blog for the seniors, I enabled the podcast blog setting. The blog shows a Subscribe in iTunes link which opens iTunes and subscribes the visitor to the podcast. However, it will not load any of the podcast/blog entries into iTunes.
With the help of John Slaughter at Notre Dame, I was able to see that apparently the RSS feed is not parsing the "Subscribe to iTunes" URL correctly. John noticed that "Well, Safari agrees that it's an RSS feed. Not a valid one, but it does load. I wonder what's up with the " <div class="wiki_entry">" in the source code (which gets parsed out to div class="wiki_entry" in the browser.) Are they pasting the Quicktime HTML code into the body of the blog itself or using the upload feature? Because the blog will convert all "<"
On a related note, when posting a new entry to a blog, I cannot use the Podcast upload feature to upload the podcast file. It just hangs. I can add the file to the blog post by using the "Insert images, audio, or Quicktime movies" button in blog entry area.
You can see the blog here
http://podcast.forrest.k12.ms.us/users/nfhsseniors/blog/
I would appreciate any direction/advice on how to 1) get the Podcast upload to work, and 2) get the iTunes subscription to start pulling in the postings. I want to get this available and publicized soon so that our students can show off their work publicly.
Thanks,
Dane

Hi Dane,
I have exactly the same problem. Plus I'm finding it difficult to make progress... Sounds as though we were the same - happily running podcasts under the old system. Upload a file and use RSS Podcast to subscribe. Apparently this was running software called Blojsom.
Apple have changed to their own stuff. It was even difficult for me to find where the old blogs were and to reinstate them - but at least I got them up, trouble is now iTunes won't work because of the RSS feed problem. In fact as the RSS is now so well hidden away it gives me a headache as I had a lot of other things using it - even a mobile phone service linked to the podcast..
Now I can't subscribe or post a podcast up - I get a spinning wheel while it says it's uploading the podcasting material and stops at that. I have all the the right settings switched on to podcast etc, and followed all the other stuff about DNS to the letter.
One of our issues is that we are not using podcast producer (so I found nothing in that discussion group) - which is an automated workflow make-a podcast-as-you-go type thing, we just want to put up a media file (mp4 etc) and have it podcast. Yep it still shows the blog:
http://podcast.ycoastco.ac.uk/users/admin/
but it no longer podcasts or accepts files to be podcast.
I'm sorry that this is no help apart from empathy across the atlantic but I do have a good Apple guy looking at it for me - I'll keep you posted.
kind regards
Mick

I cant add a credit card on my account to make pur...

I just cant add credit card on my account, I've followed the steps (account>payment settings) but acutally i do not have any payment options (it does not appear) then I read that while I click on buy there is going to be an option for payment method and I'd be able to change it, unfortunately I just get a msg which says "server error.." and when I go back I get a msg saying that verification failed that i need to check my card details but... I can not find it!!!
attached is the screenshot of my account page.
Please advise, I've not been able to buy anything
Regards!
Attachments:
account details nokia.JPG ‏56 KB

- You can try editing your acount to say none for credit card but usually that opion is not avaialbe.
- Purchase an iTunes gift card and redeem that for the payment method.

ITunes syncing my podcasts to a different iPod

We have an iMac running Mac OS X (Tiger). I have a 5G 30GB iPod and my son has a 4GB Nano. Each of us has our own account (mine is the admin. account) and our own separate music libraries in iTunes.
Once when I was working under my account, I wanted to charge his Nano's battery. When I plugged it into our Mac, I got the message stating that his iPod was synced to another account. My options were to either erase his Nano and sync it to my library or to cancel. Naturally, I selected "CANCEL". But interestingly enough, the podcasts I subscribed to started to sync to my son's Nano. Once the sync was complete, I checked my son's Nano and, sure enough, there they were.
So, not wanting my 8-year old to hear the exploits and musings of those wacky madcaps at "beer.com", I logged off my account, logged on as my son, plugged in his Nano, synced up with iTunes, deleted the podcasts from iTunes, synced up again and finally set the parental lock to disable podcasts. All is well.
Now whenever I plug in his Nano to charge it when my account is active, the same message comes up as before. When I select "CANCEL", iTunes still shows the podcasts syncing to my son's Nano but (as near as I can tell) they aren't actually getting there. I still make a habit of checking just to make sure they don't get there.
My questions are: Have I got something set wrong somewhere to cause iTunes to try to sync podcasts to my son's Nano, or is this just the way iTunes works? Why does iTunes show podcasts syncing to the Nano when I have both disabled podcasts on the Nano AND selected not to sync it to my iTunes library? Is the parental control to disable podcasts only a part of the iTunes software and not the Nano itself? In other words, can my iTunes library not tell that my son's Nano is not supposed to get podcasts, or is syncing podcasts simply based on the iTunes settings for the active account irrespective of whose iPod is plugged in at the time?
Right now it is not a big issue as all podcasts are currently disabled on his account. If he ever wanted to subscribe to some more age-appropriate podcasts, however, then I assume I'll be able to set something somewhere to keep the more adult-themed material from getting on to his Nano irrespective of whose account is active when I plug in his Nano to charge it. The other options, of course, are to only plug in his Nano to the Mac when his account is active or to charge it from a plug-in.
Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me on this issue.
Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Sorry I forgot to ask How. Do I export the library? When I choose this my only choice is a .txt file. Or do I backup the whole library.
As much info. as possible would be appreciated
Thanks

How to change the author and "podcast website," in iTunes store?

Hi,
my itunes store page is http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-fallacy-a-day-podcast/id469610386 and my podcast is hosted on a free account at Podomatic.
It seems that the information on that page is drawn from the data on my Podomatic feed, including the "iTunes" page in my Podomatic account. All I ever did on iTunes is to go into the store section of iTunes and submit the rss URL.
I've read the FAQ but can't see how to change these features of my iTunes store page:
1. On my itunes store page the title is: "The Fallacy-a-Day Podcast By The Fallacy-a-Day Podcast" but I would rather it be "The Fallacy-a-Day Podcast by fallacaday.com"
2. Also on that page, under "Links" on the right, if you click Podcast website it takes you to fallacyaday.podomatic.com but I would prefer that iTunes store visitors are directed to my podcast's home page at fallacyaday.com.
As it stands, my homepage is being completely bypassed by some downloaders (although I do mention it in the podcast episodes themselves) and I have no metric on how many people are downloading the podcast. My Google Analytics indicate a constant number of visitors each day while the Podomatic bandwidth usage is increasing. I have no idea of what proportion of downloaders are doing so on Podomatic vs iTunes. Podomatic's own statistics (for the free account) are almost totally useless because they oscillate wildly from one day to the next.
Thanks to anyone who can offer help on these two questions!

Everything in the iTunes Store about your podcast is carried in the feed: the title is in the 'title' tag and the link in the 'link' tag. Although I'm not familiar with Podomatic my understanding is that you don't have access to the feed yourself, but have to set the details within Podomatic.
It should be easy enough to change the title by changing it wherever you originally set it. As to the link, I've seen others complaining that it directs to the podomatic site and can't be changed. Obviously they want to attract attention to their own service. I imagine this can't be changed but it's something you would need to take up with Podomatic.
Even if you had the correct link most visitors probably won't bother with it. If they are interested they will subscribe to your podcast in iTunes and listen to the episodes there - there's no reason to go to the site. iTunes does not provide usage statistics, and visits to your website aren't really relevant.
I'm afraid that the problem with all these online services is that they are what they are - they make it easy to get a podcast up and running but the facilities they provide may not always be exactly want you want and can't be changed.

How to measure the exact count of your podcast downloads

Hi,
While their are many ways to measure podcast preformance (e.g. Feedburner account and reviewing server logs), the only way to know accurately how many episodes being downloaded is to measure the daily bandwidth consumption of your MP3 or MP4 folder.
Look for the section titled "Average data transferred per day" within the your ISP server logs control panel, and divide that number by the average size of your episodes to determine your download count.
If you don't want to estimate your episode lengths, do like I do and standardize your podcasts to 1.5, 5.00, 10.00, 15.00, and 20.00 minutes long.
The above is an overview; for the details just ask.
Mitchell A.
Creating Success podcast Interviews with successful, creative people.
G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hi Mike,
I never said my technique would state how many listeners one has. This technique is for knowing how many episodes are being downloaded.
Using Analog WWW logfile analysis, I set up the "File Size Report" section to subdivide download requests into size categories that correlate to my episode sizes (e.g. 10MBs). From there it's simply a matter of looking at the server requests for each category to the know how many downloads I had during any twenty-four hour period.
Btw: I verify results by comparing total episode throughput with "Average data transferred per day."
Mitchell A.
Creating Success podcast Interviews with successful, creative people.

Hello My account is locked Please help me Thank you

Hello
My account is locked
Please help me
Thank you

You've asked in the forum for creating podcasts: you don't specify what account you mean but I'm guessing that it's the iTunes Store and I've asked the Hosts to move it to that forum.

How Long does it take for a NEW PODCAST to appear in iTunes?

I was curious if maybe you know the answer to this question- How long does it take for a brand new podcast, once submitted to iTunes, to appear in the podcast section of iTunes? Does it really take 5 days? And, will I receive an email once it's on there? Thanks!
-hdtvguru

Hi,
I found the answer to this question after doing two podcasts.
It takes about week and half to be fully listed. When you first submit you receive an automated email. Emailed to the email address of your podcast feed. Then your podcast page is created for itune store and you receive another email that it's approved. You should receive this email sometimes two days after you received the first but it still won't be browse able until another few weeks(ie. listed in category). In the mean time don't remove your podcast feed file from your hosting account and don't make changes which will change the link to the feed you submitted.
The only other part I couldn't figure out was why podcasts episodes don't come up when keywords from episode sections of podcast feed are typed in itune search box.
-keep on keepin' on

This sounds like a silly question about podcast capture.

To be honest, I'm not a native English speaker and I don't know much about PC. I got my new Macbook yesterday and the whole point of getting it is to make podcasts. While I was in Account Setup, it asked me to enter a Podcast Producer server to connect to. What should I put there?
Many thanks.
Theresa

I have the same question!

Lost 3/4 of my iTunes Podcasts on my MacPro Desktop machine

Hi,
Recently my 64Gb iPhone 4s crashed after upgrading to 7.1. After restoring the backup up a number of times and the phone continuing to crash, I decided to start from scratch.
I downloaded the Apple Podcasts App onto my iPhone.
This populated immediately with the Podcast headings (subscriptions) that I have resident on my Macpro Desktop (March 2008 running 10.8.5). I have almost 3Tb of Podcasts on my MacPro desktop (many video based) and I was concerned that my iPhone would start downloading many of the podcasts. I immediately deleted all the video based Podcasts (some I have been paying for over a number of years) on my iPhone. I commenced this process on the way to work (at the Train Station) from my iPhone.
When I arrived home and started up iTunes on my MacPro Desktop, the spinning beach ball came up and stayed spinning for 3 or 4 minutes. When it stopped I noticed that 3/4 of the podcasts on my iTunes MacPro desktop had disappeared. In fact, all the Podcasts that I had deleted on my iPhone seemed to have also been deleted from my MacPro iTunes account (approx 2.3 Tb had disappeared when I checked the iTunes Drive-I have a separate 3Tb iTunes HDD for my music and Podcasts). The Podcasts were completely deleted, even the heading so I was unable to re-subscribe. It was a bit of a shock and I searched my Bin (no evidence of it there; the Bin I assume is located on my OS drive (1Tb). I hadn't even connected my iPhone to my MacPro let alone tried to sync the 2.
I am at a loss to try and retrieve the missing 2.3 Tb. I don't believe it is on my iTunes drive, definitely too large for the bin. Fortunately I had done a back up, but this was a while ago.
Questions
1. What happened for this to occur? How can the Podcast App on my iPhone directly affect my iTunes Podasts on my MacPro iTunes account at home? What if I delete the App and use another Podcasting App on my iPhone?
2. I am not sure how I can move the backup iTunes Podcasts to the MacPro HDD iTunes account. How do I also move them so that the subscription is 're-activated?
3. How is my iTunes Library catalogue affected (I have Time Machine connected to the 1 Tb Mac OS Drive on my machine. When I back up the iTunes 3Tb drive, I use a separated 3Tb HDD and use SuperDuper).
Since the Podcasts disappeared, I haven't emptied my bin.
Appreciate any explanations & advice!
Thank you
Mark

Are the music files still in your PC? The default location for them will be in the iTunes Music folder arranged in folders by artist/album.
If the music files are still there, it is just your library database that is damaged and you may be able to recover as follows:
When you upgrade to iTunes 8, a backup library database is created in the iTunes\Previous iTunes Libraries folder. The name includes the date of the upgrade reversed. It will have a name like iTunes Library 2008-10-03.itl
SO try this - close iTunes and drag iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music library.xml from the iTunes folder to your desktop.
Next copy the backup library file from Previous iTunes Libraries to the iTunes folder and rename it iTunes Library.itl - i.e. remove the date from the file name.
WHen you open iTunes it will have to go through some updating, but with any luck you should get your previous library database back.

Podcast Hosting?

Could someone recommend a good hosting service for my podcasts? I am currently using podbus.com and have been very dissapointed with that service. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Compac Windows XP

An RSS file is just a plain text file sitting on your web server, isn't it? I don't beleive there is anything going on special with the server. The big concern you'll have is storage space and bandwidth.
Hostway (http://www.hostway.com) has a great special going on right now - 150GB of disk space & 1500GB traffic for $145/yr). Yes that is GB not MB. They have special podcasting plans, that costs extra and give you a fancy way thru the control panel to set up your podcasts, but you don't really need it to have a podcast. As long as you can edit a text file your all set to podcast.
I recently setup an account and moved my podcast website here and its working pretty good.

Zen X-Fi2 and Zencasts

Can't figure out how to get my Zen(pod)casts. The ZC Organizer doesn't recognize this player. I can get RSS feeds from the websites I want the (pod)casts from, but I don't want to read their texty news- I just want the podcasts/zencasts, whatever. What am I doing wrong? Anybody?

Deenees:
I tried the Zencast Organizer too as I used it for my Zen when I wanted to download Podcasts.
It didn't work on the Zen X-Fi2 stating to connect the media player even though it was already connected.
I searched on the forums and there's a really good explanation how to install podcasts (video, audio, etc) at this link in the Creative forums:
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=53886
Here's another link within Creative forums that shows how to get the video onto the X-Fi2:
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=538445
And actually one at the anythingbutipod Forums (these 2 links are on the Zen X-Fi 2) about a software video converter called Any video Convertor which can convert to any format as well as AVI format. which seems to be what the videos already loaded on my X-Fi2 are formatted in:
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=52479
and one more
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=5444
The Any Video Converter software is free to download and I've gotten it from CNET as a free download here:
http://download.cnet.com/Any-Video-C...html?tag=mncol
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++
I can confirm now that the Any Video Converter works for me.
I'm still using the Zencast Organizer to pull in the podcast videos as it installs into a Zencast folder on my computer and that's where I point Any Video Converter to pick up the video portion of the podcast (don't tell it to take the Cover Art part just select the actual video).
I start up Any Video Convertor and do what is mentioned in the links I posted above for this software.
It converts to my Zen X-Fi2 player (much quicker than some other software I tried and less resource intensive).
It placed the Podcast into my Video folder under a folder named AVI. (I later create my own folder name and copy the video by dragging and dropping it'sinto the newly named folder I've created on the Zen).
I clicked on that video and it's looks and sounds great !
Just as a tip, lots of good RSS podcasts at:
http://revision3.com/
Hope that helps.

Podcasting / Zencasting - a step by step account

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