Software Request: Burncaster

That's a GREAT idea...actually.

(snark free)

I agree that is an really good idea. CD is still the primary mode of audio ply in the car and the ability to quickly highlight a number of podcast and burn them of would be great. Hey I just thought of something wasn't built in Podcast support in Media Player something you called for?That would solve the issue on the PC front given it burn to cd abilities.

iTunes will do that for him on PC or Mac. Create a Playlist for the podcast and burn the playlist to a CD, converting to standard CD format on the way.

Philip

iTunes is WAY ahead of you. Create a new Smart Playlist with the Genre set to Podcast and the Play Count set to 0. When you're looking at the playlist there'll be a "Burn Playlist" option in the upper right-hand corner.

That's an interesting idea indeed. For you iTunes guys - I think that the meant to do it automatically - you leave the CD in the drive and in the morning you get your audio newspaper :-) all the podcasts you subscribe which have the new content.
I created a script for my own use that does the following: gets the new podcasts I'm interested in and transfers them to my smarthone over bluetooth so I can listen to them using mp3 player and headphones on my phone.

Well since I have ITunes loaded on a machine I'll give it a whirl. :-)

RTFA. Actually RTF both A's ... iTunes is mentioned in mine, the general ability to burn MP3s to CD is mentioned in Kent's. But most importantly, read Kent's, which has the full description of what the app would do.

The answer is called iTunes!

I agree with most here...iTunes already does this very well.

However, I think that burning podcasts to CD's is extremely wasteful. Unless you have a car CD player capable of MP3 file playback (which does not seem to be as common as I would have thought at this point), you're only going to get one or two decent-sized podcasts on a single disc. And in the case of some (my favorite podcast, TWiT, for example) you're going to have to break the podcast up into multiple discs if you're not recording the straight MP3 files.

I think that, even given the relatively low price of CD's, people will find that a basic MP3 player with a simple FM transmitter (which is fine audio quality for spoken-word content) will be cheaper over the long-haul, not to mention easier on the environment. Seems silly to regularly make CD's for content that you're going to listen to once or twice, and then throw away. As a general rule, most podcast content gets dated extremely soon after release...not much of a shelf life.

This is one of those ideas that tastes really good, then gives you indigestion later.

Years ago I worked in a company that initiated a company-wide rollout of a newfangled thing called "electronic mail." It was decided that EVERYONE in the company would get an email account. But there was this executive who didn't grow up with computers, didn't LIKE computers, didn't WANT a computer OR an email account. So what did this executive do? She had her secretary print out all her email. The secretary would then hand the hard copy to the executive. The executive then would read the email on paper, write her replies in longhand, and hand the replies back to the secretary. The secretary would then type the replies into her computer.

This podcast-to-CD solution reminds me of printing emails. It's a crutch. It's something you do for BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY.

The ideal solution would be to just plug the iPod in the car. That way you aren't waiting for a CD to burn, and you aren't cluttering up your car with dozens of CDs. (Subsequently, you aren't cluttering up your landfill with plastic.) And you've got all your other content (music, audiobooks) with you.

This is what Kent Newsome wrote in the link referenced above:

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I have said before and I'll say again, that as long as podcasting is technologically or psychologically tied to iPods and other portable music players, it will never reach the mainstream. Nobody I know, either socially or professionally, uses an iPod or other portable music player. Not one person. A couple of people I know have iPods, but they tell me that after the initial thrill of having one wore off, the iPods got relegated to a drawer somewhere, rarely to see the light of day.

Granted, I'm sure lots of kids and college students have iPods, and if you don't mind ignoring millions and millions of grownups with lots of disposable cash, then so be it.
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Wow. NOBODY he knows uses an iPod or other portable music player? Where is this guy living, in an isolated band of hunter-gatherers? Yikes. "We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys."

YES "backwards compatibility" is a Good Thing, but like most Good Things, it's good up until a point. I'd rather see car stereo manufacturers universally support line-in and iPod dock connectors (which is what, like, 25 cents worth of hardware?)

CD sales are in decline, whereas digital music sales are skyrocketing. The argument can be made that coming out with a new & popular use for CDs will dent sales of digital music players, and prolong the death of CDs. If your backwards compatibility works TOO well, you're just giving people incentive to NOT switch to a better, newer technology. (i.e. incentive to stick with a dying technology)

Microsoft is STILL begging people to get off Windows 98.

I have never been impressed by the argument, made more than once in the past, that only "kids and college students" have adopted a technology. The same argument was made about "MP3s," "the Internet," and probably about "banging rocks together." The fact that "kids and college students" have adopted this should be telling us something: they are the on the crest of the technological wave. You can look at that wave and say, "Hmmm, maybe this is the future," or you can stick your head in the sand and say, "Well REAL GROWNUPS with REAL MONEY use [insert soon-to-be obsolete technology here] so let's cater to them."

Oh: eventually, the executive got her own computer, and started using it, and started replying to her own email. The wave of technology crashed down and engulfed her. I think she decided that the water wasn't so bad after all.

I've burnt podcasts to CD in iTunes before, but getting a cassette adaptor for your iPod is better.
Getting a car stereo with an audio in jack is better still, but it was a cassette adaptor in my car that got me to write the RSS to iTunes script in the first place.

I have done that about 4 times (burn podcasts to cds) my problem with it is the lack of space on your usual cd. I found I could fit very few podcasts on a cd when I made it a music cd, compared to when I made it a data cd to play them on my home pc.
So it doesnt really work that well.

Shouldn't it be "Castburner"?

Karim has hit the nail on the head.