vinnielo

I would like to be able to view the feeds on http://news.sky.com/skynews/fixed_ar...228668,00.html with an feed viewer.
This viewer should list the videos and allow the playing of the videos in TCPMP.
Can anyone suggest a piece of software that'll do that?

I'd also like to add that I'd prefer to stream content than set for automatic download onto card.

MobileSmith

FeederReader will give you the ability to stream the podcast enclosure without downloading it. As long as the player (TCPMP in this case) allows streaming that type of enclosure from the command line. I'm not sure that TCPMP does. Last I tested this, MortPlayer was one of the few players that could stream from the command line (MortPlayer is audio only).

To turn the feature on in FeederReader, go to Tools | Options... | Details Tab and select "Encl List: Stream". This will give you the ability to stream the enclosure from any Enclosure List in FeederReader.

Greg Smith
Author, FeederReader - Windows Mobile news, blogs, audio, video, podcasts downloaded direct to your Smartphone or Pocket PC
www.FeederReader.com - Download on the Road

vinnielo

Originally Posted by MobileSmith

To turn the feature on in FeederReader, go to Tools | Options... | Details Tab and select "Encl List: Stream". This will give you the ability to stream the enclosure from any Enclosure List in FeederReader.

I tried this and it made no difference. Video files are still popping up in my "Enclosures" folder in File Explorer. Is this because of TCPMP?

MobileSmith

By default, FeederReader will download enclosures, but you can set it to not download any enclosures.

To optimize this for streaming only, you can turn off the default downloading of enclosures. To do this, go to Tools | Options... | More toolbar and change Enclosure: Num to "0". This will tell FeederReader to set all enclosures to "On Hold," which prevents them from being automatically downloaded. See this post for more details on "Enclosure: Num" (starting in the fifth paragraph) http://feederreader.pocketcasting.co...hp?p=3070#3070

By changing the settings, you can set up some feeds or categories to stream and some to download. It's all up to you!

With the stream setting, when you list the enclosures you will see a "0%" followed by three icons: the "Play" icon, the "Stream" icon, the "Delete" icon. This is follwed by the enclosure type (typically "audio", "video", "image"). You can tap the "Stream" icon (which looks like a tilde "~") to stream the file without downloading to the Enclosures folder.

You can list all Enclosures on the Pocket PC version or limit it to one category or feed. You can also change exactly how the listing looks by changing the settings on the "Details" tab in Tools | Options... .

I hope this helps! Let me know if you need further assistance!

Greg Smith
Author, FeederReader - Windows Mobile news, blogs, audio, video, podcasts downloaded direct to your Smartphone or Pocket PC
www.FeederReader.com - Download on the Road

vinnielo

Wow. This program really isn't designed for beginners.
You try the most obvious options for what you'd like to happen, and 9/10 times, it doesn't work.

When you mess about with the options from the menu at the bottom, it turns out that it affects none of the existing RSS feeds in your lists.
You deselect "Download enclosures" in the update menu, but it still happily decides to download enclosures.
You decide to update the list items in your RSS feed, so you hold and tap on the feed, and logically select "Update feed". The bottom bar turns green for about a second, and then nothing - not even an information window or error message.
You try to play an enclosure by loading up a feed item, then tapping on the "Play" triangle button. A picture from an unrelated feed pops up, in this case, it appears to be something from Wired News. Great(!)
I try to optimise for streaming only by making Enclosure: Num = 0, but these icons I'm supposed to see are still as hidden as they were before.

It's not the most user-friendly program, and the behaviour's rather unpredictable. It may possibly be a feed-developer's dream program, with the scores of tweaking you do. But to the standard user, it's very off-putting. Thanks for the suggestion, anyway.

Any other programs out there?

MobileSmith

I'd be happy to work through each of the issues you mention. I don't think any other podcasting program allows you to optionally stream the enclosures.

One of the reasons FeederReader seems complicated is the enormous flexibility. It lets you optionally stream enclosures, for example. Let me know if you'd like me to help you.

Quote:

You deselect "Download enclosures" in the update menu, but it still happily decides to download enclosures.

This setting affects new enclosures only. Your existing enclosures will download, but only if you select Do | Update Enclosures or hit the download icon. This setting doesn't affect already-found enclosures. For any existing enclosures, you can either delete them or set to "On Hold".

Quote:

You decide to update the list items in your RSS feed, so you hold and tap on the feed, and logically select "Update feed". The bottom bar turns green for about a second, and then nothing - not even an information window or error message.

If there is no message, then that means there are no new messages in the feed. If the source feed/host supports it, FeederReader can check the feed for updates very quickly without downloading the entire feed. For someone with a lot of feeds and frequent updates, these messages you suggest would get tiring very quickly. You can turn on the extra messages if you like with Warning List tab | Show "No New Messages". When you do this, a message will be put into the "Warning List" even if there are no new messages. To view the Warning List, tap the number on the left on the status bar (the number with the exclamation point).

Quote:

You try to play an enclosure by loading up a feed item, then tapping on the "Play" triangle button. A picture from an unrelated feed pops up, in this case, it appears to be something from Wired News. Great(!)

The "Play" triangle button searches for the next downloaded enclosure to play from the currently-selected item. If you had the correct message selected, then it must not have been downloaded completely yet.

Quote:

I try to optimise for streaming only by making Enclosure: Num = 0, but these icons I'm supposed to see are still as hidden as they were before.

It's not clear where you have looked for the icons. Did you select Tools | More | List | Enclosures? Or you can select any feed or category and select the pop-up List | Enclosures. Did you try that?

Let me know if you need further assistance!

Greg Smith
Author, FeederReader - Windows Mobile news, blogs, audio, video, podcasts downloaded direct to your Smartphone or Pocket PC
www.FeederReader.com - Download on the Road

vinnielo

Originally Posted by MobileSmith

If there is no message, then that means there are no new messages in the feed. If the source feed/host supports it, FeederReader can check the feed for updates very quickly without downloading the entire feed. For someone with a lot of feeds and frequent updates, these messages you suggest would get tiring very quickly. You can turn on the extra messages if you like with Warning List tab | Show "No New Messages". When you do this, a message will be put into the "Warning List" even if there are no new messages. To view the Warning List, tap the number on the left on the status bar (the number with the exclamation point).

There are certainly updates as http://skyscape.sky.com/skynewsradio/NEWS/topstory.xml shows.
For some reason, the feed has a red F in a yellow circle, if that helps.
There also appears to be no warnings.

Originally Posted by MobileSmith

The "Play" triangle button searches for the next downloaded enclosure to play from the currently-selected item. If you had the correct message selected, then it must not have been downloaded completely yet.

Again, not the behaviour a typical user would expect.

Originally Posted by MobileSmith

It's not clear where you have looked for the icons. Did you select Tools | More | List | Enclosures? Or you can select any feed or category and select the pop-up List | Enclosures. Did you try that?

I've looked for the icons when I've expanded each list item.
You didn't explain how to apply this "stream" setting, so I just assumed you meant I should "optimize this for streaming only, you can turn off the default downloading of enclosures. To do this, go to Tools | Options... | More toolbar and change Enclosure: Num to "0"." , which I did.
You said the stream icon looks like a Tilde, which I cannot find anywhere in the bottom half of the window.

vinnielo

What's more, I tried to restrict the enclosure download size to about 0.2Mb (as that's realistically all I want to fit in my built-in storage). I went to the feed's properties, entered the figure in Enclosure Size - the most logical option), but the software completely ignores my setting and resets it back to 999Mb.
Thinking perhaps it is unable to take non-integer values (I'm having to completely guess here as there's no warning or anything), I put in 1.
It finally saved, but yet it was still happy to download more than 1MB. I tried tapping on the white X in red icon, but it completely ignored my command and continued to fill up my memory. GGGRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!
I kinda expected the possibility of deleting the enclosure by tapping and holding on the related list item and finding "Delete Enclosure", but as expected, there was nothing of relevance in the menus. I had to go into File Explorer to get that file off my system, in the end, and most likely corrupting any tables used by the software.