Convert one-song podcasts to "regular" mp3s

[hontzd]

Please choose the appropriate forum for this topic. Thank you. Please choose the appropriate forum for this topic. Thank you. Hello -

I subscribe to a number of music podcasts, and often want to keep the "show" in my music library as a regular song. Sure, you can move the song to your library, but anything coming in as a podcast in iTunes is tagged in a special way that causes a couple things to happen that are annoying:

* Podcast files, even if they are dragged out of iTunes and dragged back into the library, are always kept in the "Podcasts" folder.

* What's worse, when a podcast file stops playing, it stops -all- playback in iTunes. So if you have a podcast in a playlist, once it's played, iTunes stops and the other songs below it in the playlist aren't played (unless you hit the play button again).

There is a workaround, which is a bit tedious and I'm sure could be automated with Applescript:

1) Select the podcast, select "Advanced" then "Convert ID3 Tags."
2) Dumb down the tag version to v1.0.
3) Drag the podcast out of iTunes.
4) Drag the file back into the iTunes library
5) Convert the tag of the copy you just put dropped in the library back to v2.4
6) Add back tag info that may have been truncated by this whole process.

All that to add a song to your library!

Any thoughts on automating this? Or has anyone at least found a cleaner work around?

-Dan

 

[deeg]

Afternoon Dan,

the export/import should be scriptable but i dont think the conversion of id3 tag version is possible via script and iTunes. It might be possible via some other id3 tagger if they are scriptable (have a look on versiontracker ) assuming your method works if we doen version the file after we have exported it from iTunes rather than before as detailed in your method.

I have not played with podcasts much so cannot say if other workflows are an option..

deeg

 

[doulos12]

Anyone made progress with this? Is there a way to uncheck the podcast tag with a script? It shouldn't be that complicated.

 

[thenightfly42]

I'm just replying here so that I will receive an email if someone finds a way to do this easily. Sorry, I don't have an answer, I was searching as well.

 

[FlunkedFlank]

It's totally ridiculous that the "is a podcast" flag isn't scriptable. This is a big gap that Apple needs to close up.

 

[rdeckard]

Podcast Tags & Other Extended Metadata

OK. This is yet another reason why I get frustrated with Apple at times. They INSIST on doing things FOR me without telling me when they do it or why (iTunes gapless playback scan for example).

On that note, it's a bit arrogant of Apple to add proprietary and non-editable tags to the ID3 standard. You can change the Video Type in iTunes, but unless you use some cumbersome 3rd party utility or the import/export method mentioned in other posts, there is NO way to change the podcast flag.

Unfortunately, the iPod itself uses the same tag/database structure as iTunes, so if you use Anapod (as I do) to transfer files, you have no control over how videos and podcasts show up on the pod (Red Chair Software has yet to respond to my inquiries about adding this ability).

Edit the video type in iTunes? Sure. Problem is, it seems Anapod's database structure differs slightly from iTunes... If you mount an Anapod-managed iPod in iTunes, when you unmount and try to play files on the iPod itself, only the ones that were played in iTunes will play!!! All other tracks will get skipped over. This also appears to be a common problem on this forum.*

*For those who don't know how to fix this, go into Anapod Manager Options and click the "Fix Mislabeled Tracks". Everything will be back to normal, until you use iTunes again, etc.

Now, my wife has my old iPod photo with all my music on it, and she likes iTunes. When she opened the iPod in iTunes, about 1/4 of the tracks were labeled as podcasts (some with explicit content...lol). Of course when she later tried to play music on the iPod itself, everything would skip and I had to rebuild the database (as mentioned above). Now she uses Winamp with no trouble.

So... Does anyone know of a GUI (not command-line) based method of editing these "hidden" tags?

Sorry for ranting but thanks for listening.