Quite a lot of people think you need a computer to subscribe to podcasts, but you don't. In another in our series of Nokia 5800 beginner's tutorials, Tzer2 explains how to browse, subscribe and download podcasts straight onto the phone, with absolutely no need for any kind of PC or Mac. The tutorial is, of course, equally useful and valid for using Nokia's Podcasting application on any other S60 phone. Also, see our new index page to Tzer's excellent tutorial series for the 5800 XpressMusic.
Read on in the full article.
Very nice article, i've learnt a lot thank you!
Have you any plans to produce an article that tells you how to convert a commercial DVD into the best possible format and quality for the 5800xm?
That would be great!
Hi guys, nice article.
Does anyone know if its possible to export my podcast list to, say for example, an OMPL file, so I could import after?
Just a thought.
Thanks,
Darren.
Nope, you cant save feeds to opml or xml. No idea why nokia didnt implement this and its a real pita. Also you cant que downloads or auto clean up and development seems to have stopped on this app which is a shame.
I save my list as opml in Juice and copy it to my phone. Not idea but works.
Have you any plans to produce an article that tells you how to convert a commercial DVD into the best possible format and quality for the 5800xm?
Video conversion is on the list, though there may be legal problems with discussing conversion of copy-protected DVDs.
darren.mac
I assume you mean exporting OPML from your phone.
You can do this for yout podcast subscriptions (send via Bluetooth or MMS) which can be helpful when moving phones.
See the Send option in the application's menu. I would recommend also using Mark -> Mark all so that you select all your podcasts in one go when doing this. You can do this from any list of podcasts (i.e. in the directory too).
If you use MMS it may not work as your operator may remove the OPML attachment as unrecognised. Therefore Bluetooth works best - you can send it to your PC or to another Nokia S60 phone.
Obviously you can also use this to keep two subscription lists in sync, by importing OPML as well. The import process (only available in directories) is available via the Import OPML menu option (and iis basiaclly the same as Tzer2 describes for adding directories).
And yes this functioanlity is well hidden.
BTW, if interested, check out my Podcasting bible at http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum//forum/thread/75987/ , particularly if you have other platforms as well and / or want to compare the features and capabilities of Nokia Podcasting to the podcasting / catching apps on BlackBerry / Windows Mobile. I also provide some additional tips and tricks in the article.
The Nokia Podcasting app is great, i use it on my E90. Loads of listings of all kinds in there.
Couple of things i've noticed and didn't see mentioned however.
1) If you are downloading podcasts via 3G and you use the phone (suspending the data connection), the podcasts DON'T resume when the data connection does. You have to restart them manually, every time. Fortunately i'm not very popular and don't get many calls, but if your phone goes every 5 minutes, this could get to be a pain.
2) Some of those podcasts are ooooold. I'm talking in the region of 400days+ for the most 'recent' update on some podcast listings. Even some of the tech podcasts. Is there anyway of reporting/deleting/ignoring podcast listings over a certain age? Who administers the podcasting server/listings?
If you are downloading podcasts via 3G and you use the phone (suspending the data connection), the podcasts DON'T resume when the data connection does.
If you're using 3G the data connection shouldn't be affected by calls, it's 2G networks that can't cope with data and calls being simultaneous.
3.5G does cut out during calls, but in theory phones can switch data to 3G when they are dealing with a call.
But this is all in theory, and as we all know real life can sometimes be different... 😉
However, if you do have problems it's fairly easy to make a download resume, just click on it and the download will carry on where it left off. You can also pause downloads using the same method.
Some of those podcasts are ooooold. I'm talking in the region of 400days+ for the most 'recent' update on some podcast listings. Even some of the tech podcasts. Is there anyway of reporting/deleting/ignoring podcast listings over a certain age?
To some extent that's the fault of the people who host a podcast, they've forgotten to remove old episodes from their feeds.
You're right though, it would be nice to have a feature in the app that did ignore podcasts over a certain age, but that wouldn't really help if all of the podcast episodes are old because you'd just get a blank page.
Who administers the podcasting server/listings?
Podcasts and their feeds (which is where the old episode problem lies) are administered by whoever hosts the podcast itself. For example All About Symbian's podcast is administered by us.
The directories are hosted by someone else, I presume third parties rather than Nokia itself, though I'm not sure exactly what their URLs are.
Is there any way to bookmark a podcast in between and then start from wherever it was left off.
No, I mean to say if I shut down the application, come back again, open the podcast and it starts off from a select location. Or maybe 2 days later after listening to it, I wanna make my friend hear the interesting part which I bookmarked for him to hear later. Stuff like that? Is it possible?
Thanks for any info related to this and its possibility somehow, anyhow. Thanks.
Yes, I'm aware of the pause feature and multi-tasking. But notice when I said, I want a friend to hear a specific portion whenever I want to and exactly from where I want to. Anyways, it's doable in other ways, yes I know but I'd appreciate bookmarking a lot more and I'm sure a lot many more will too.
There's no bookmarking in the Podcasting app, the only way to stay at a particular point is to leave the app running in the background.
If you can remember where you were on the timeline you can just click on that point to go to it, that's all I can suggest. I know it's not as good as a bookmark, but it does save you having to relisten to stuff.
You're absolutely right that bookmarking would be a great feature, I hope we see it in any future updates. Also, once the S60 5th Edition software world gets a bit more lively we may see some third party podcasting applications appear.
On a related topic, Nokia has an audiobook application which should come to the 5800 at some point, and that DOES have bookmarking. In theory that might make a good playback app for very long podcasts:
http://betalabs.nokia.com/betas/view/nokia-audiobooks