Alternatives to iTunes as a Podcatcher
Posted on September 14, 2007, under Podcasts, Software.
I have had a love hate relationship with iTunes through out its existence. Recently after deciding to go back to iTunes, because surprise it works best with the iPod, I have decided to drop it as a Podcatcher. iTunes for Windows is not as stable as it is on the Mac. I have some 30+ podcasts that I am subscribed to, and on a daily basis when it’s time to download new episodes iTunes locks up. No it’s not the computer, no it’s not my hard drive; I have determined that it is the simple fact that iTunes does not multi thread well on windows. When it is doing intensive downloads, it is just outright not responsive. I contribute part of the problem to the lack of options that iTunes allows you to set for downloading media.
So I have set out to find a better alternative to downloading my podcasts. Here is what I am now using:
- PodNova: I have had a PodNova account from way back when the podcasting boom was happening; you know back when Odeo and others were getting love. They have done a lot with the user interface, and it now serves up a lot of AJAX goodness to make finding and subscribing to podcasts easy. With PodNova, you can take your personalized OPML feed and use it in a Podcatcher to always have an up to date list of your subscriptions.
- Juice: An excellent open source and cross platform Podcatcher. It has all the right features: The ability to tweak download threads, the ability to import directly into iTunes as well as other media players, ID3 tagging, etc. A perfect match.
You can get this up and running in under 10 minutes. Juice has direct support for PodNova and any OPML feed. I have been looking at Google Reader as an alternative as well, but they do not handle all video Podcasts; with the codecs and all.
I am hoping this works out, if you have any other good alternatives i am open for suggestions.
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