Episode: 1992
Title: HPR1992: How I'm handling my podcast-subscriptions and -listening
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1992/hpr1992.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 12:57:28

---

This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthaus.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15 that's HPR15.
Get your web hosting that's honest and fair at Ananasthaus.com.
Hi, I'm Folkian this time it's my real boss.
I was thinking about my next contribution on HPR.
The usual way would be to talk about what's in my pocket or give you a commanded list of
the podcasts I'm subscribed to, but most of the English speaking ones you already know
because others have talked about them earlier on this channel.
How about the way I'm handling my subscriptions and what I'm doing with the files afterwards?
I think the big advantage of podcasts is that you can get all kinds of media without
looking for it all the time, so it should work once set up automatically.
That's why I'm using a cron job.
Every quarter past the hour, cron is starting podget on my laptop.
Podget is using an easy to manage list of URLs to download what you like.
There's a good manual so I will not describe all features, but one thing is great and it's
also why I'm using just this tool of all command line interface tools out there.
You can download from sites requiring login.
That's something you otherwise only get from bloated programs like G-Podder which wasn't
my cup of tea in the long run.
One more advantage of podget is that you can define the subfolder you will use per subscription.
Most of my podcasts will be placed in a folder defined by the download date so that I can
listen to them more chronological than by genre or theme or title.
Sometimes when you've been away from the net a little bit longer, the amount of files
to download can take a little longer and cron can start more than one instance of podget
and you can get the funniest effects when you listen to files being downloaded two or
more times at the same time.
I heard repeated parts of the same podcast and unsorted bits of shows.
That's why I wrote my own little bash script that controls if the pod process is running
before podget is started and while writing this I took the chance to do some more, a little
bit of logging and cleaning the podcast folder.
I called it RENPOT.
Some files have very strange names like 7354727.mp3 or PDEX-223-AA-2327.mp3 and you wouldn't
know what this is.
All my players understand ID tags so that shouldn't be a problem but I would like to see directly
which file is it is and by the way you can get files without any ID tag at all too.
So I use a graphical tool called PUTTLETEK to rename files and or to change some ID tag
fields.
Earlier I used EZTEK, nothing bad about this program, PUTTLETEK is just a little bit
more in my taste.
As someone with many subscriptions and wish to have as many files in free format as possible
I convert all of the mp3 and mp4a files I am listening to, only I am listening to an
arc verbis or since rockbox now can handle this format fine to opus.
This way the files get smaller too and don't lose any quality at least as my ears can hear
it.
Those shows my wife also will listen to, I left an mp3 because really wise we are using
together connected to the hi-fi only can play mp3 and wma.
For converting I also wrote my own scripts called TOUK and OPKONF.
This uses fast ogeng respectively ffm pack as its main tool and can take any amount
of arguments I wish.
Under the preparation of this talk I put them up on github.
Links will be found in the show notes.
So now I have named and converted the files but I am still not satisfied.
Some shows last more than 1 hour and not all players have a reliable bookmarking function.
So I like to split large files into smaller sections.
For doing this I have written a small bash script called SPALT which is using ogsplit mp3
split without any option it splits in 10 minutes sections and deletes the original file.
I have given the minus s option it searches for pauses it splits on those points but this
time it is not deleting the original file because in the case of 0 split points you would
have nothing left in the case of the opus files I haven't found any tool to split so
I am doing the splitting first and then do the conversion.
I own a Sansa clip plus which is my companion as soon as I leave the house.
As already mentioned there is of course rockbox installed on it.
I like the device updated all the time therefore I at least once a day connected to my laptop
and synchronize.
For this task I also wrote a script situated in my personal bin folder.
I called it BPACPOT.
It deletes all the tracks on the device no longer found in the podcast folder on the laptop
and copies over all new or changed files.
I am listening to all sorts of podcasts every time I have the opportunity and suited for
the different occasions I have different ways to do it.
When I'm on a way or running up and down in the house doing all kinds of stuff I use
my Sansa clip and adjust the speed of the files to manage as many tracks as I can.
I usually listen to English spoken shows between 1.2 and 1.5 times the original speed.
German Swedish ones will be a little bit faster maybe between 1.5 to 2 times because these
are my mother tongue at my everyday language.
I can do this thanks to the function Rockbox is giving the Sansa clip.
When I'm sitting with the laptop I'm using the play command found in the socks package.
I also like to use mock Moc the console audio player but so far this doesn't have any
function for speed up and therefore it's my choice only when listening to music.
When working in the kitchen or sitting room I use our internet radio device that also
can play MP3 files and listen to those podcasts I left in MP3 format.
By the way I'm thinking about another show where I could talk about how I revive this device
with the help of the guy behind listenlive.nl but I don't want to promise too much.
For this time I took enough of your time I hope you caught something interesting from
all of this and you are not bored by my big big accent.
All scripts I named can be found on Github another user named Swaygrips that's SW-E-G-R-Y-P-S
but you could look in the show notes as well.
Have a good time and don't forget to share the software.
You've been listening to HackerPublicRadio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
We are a community podcast network that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday.
Today's show, like all our shows, was contributed by an HBR listener like yourself.
If you ever thought of recording a podcast then click on our contributing to find out
how easy it really is.
HackerPublicRadio was founded by the digital dog pound and the infonomicom computer club
and is part of the binary revolution at binwreff.com.
If you have comments on today's show please email the host directly leave a comment on
the website or record a follow-up episode yourself.
Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released on the earth.
Create a comments, attribution, share a like, 3.0 license.
