Developing a podcast stream/download client script....
#1
i've built a podcast player/downloader, that allows you to browse categories, select podcasts to subscribe to, listen to them etc...

and i will be releasing it in a few days once the remaining bugs are ironed out (mostly involving control focus change)...

but i was wondering if anyone knows of an accessable index of podcasts available. i don't want to have to build a website scraper for podcastalley or other index site....

does anyone know of a freely downloadable list that my script can download and incorporate?
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#2
how about itunes? i'm aware quicktime script is using the itunes xml feed. i'm pretty sure podcasts will be updated there as well!
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#3
isn't it easy to use the rss feeds. so people can deside with stream they want to listen to. also isn't it posible to put this in native in xbmc?
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#4
(cryptkeeper @ july 22 2005,17:09 Wrote:how about itunes? i'm aware quicktime script is using the itunes xml feed. i'm pretty sure podcasts will be updated there as well!
umm.. yeah. but what is the url where the rss/xml file containing this indexed list? this is what i was asking about.

as i mentioned in my first post, i know that there are websites on the net that have a podcast directories (such as apple's itunes site), but without having a reachable url where i can download the list, it's not much help. i don't want to have to do a html website scrape manually. i'm looking for a prepared rss/xml list of podcasts.


(jnaeff @ july july 24 2005,10:40 Wrote:isn't it easy to use the rss feeds. so people can deside with stream they want to listen to. also isn't it posible to put this in native in xbmc?

yes. again, you also seemed to miss the point. as you surmised, handling rss feeds is relatively simple, and i've got my podcast player working no problem. my player allows the user to manage their subscribed podcasts (download/play/delete), it allows them to also subscribe/unsubscribe from podcasts.

but i'm looking for a site on the net that provides a downloadable list of current podcasts available and their respective urls. the list i would like would be in rss/xml format, and already be prepared.
i don't want to have to write code that downloads a proprietary website, extracts the rss feed info from the html, follows the link to get the url of the podcast.... etc. this is known as website 'scraping' and is annoying to do. especially when the website owner makes changes to their site which would break my podcast script until i updated it again...

i could just read from a locally (on the xbox) prepared list as i'm currently doing , but i would rather have an live & up-to-date list available for my player.


steb
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#5
ok. i've started stripping urls from the itunes tcp communication stream.... using a sniffer program i wrote a few years back, i've started sniffing itunes communications.

first url is : http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/webobje....h=%2f26

"26" seems to be the category id for podcasts.

i should be able piecemeal things together as long as apple hasn't totally mangled the rss and isnt encrypting things further down the line. i have some indications that they may be doing this....
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#6
i'm aware of what you wanted Wink however since i'm not a coder, i cannot provide it. i looked into the qt script (as i'm sure you have too) and this is what it contains:

Quote:user_agent = 'itunes/4.7'

base_url = 'http://www.apple.com'
main_index_url = base_url + '/moviesxml/h/index.xml'
excluded_movie_urls = ('info.xml')
standard_urls = ('small.xml','medium.xml','large.xml','fullscreen.xml')

now, i'm sure that the user agent must remain itunes (and possibly changed to 4.9 since that is the version with podcast support, right?) however, the main inxed must be changed. using their current naming convention i would manually try connecting to musicxml/, /itunesxml/, podcastxml/ etc.

this would all be easier with the use of a directory scraper (ala: netstumber i belive)
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#7
i am a fairly technical person, and i already know java and php, as well the fundamentals of object oriented programming. i developed a server array administration tool using php a while back, so it's not like i'm just some random guy who said "hey, i think making a python script would be fun!" Wink

anyways, as it says in the topic title, i want to develop a proper podcast client script for xbmc. what i mean by this is a script that would effectively duplicate most of the functionality found in itunes with regard to podcasts.

from what i understand, the script would work in the following way:
first, the script would check for an active internet connection, and shutdown if one is not found. is there some way to verify the system's current date & time? anyways, then the following procedure would be called for each subscription:
-the script pulls down & parses the rss feed for the current podcast.
-it compares the pre-defined local download directory against the rss feed to find any missing (aka "new") shows. probably a better way to do this would be to keep track of episodes downloaded. anyways, for each "new" episode found, prompt the user for a confirmation to download (this behavior optional?).
-get properties of file to be downloaded to determine size (this is do-able i hope), compare against free space on partition where download directory is located. if insufficient space, halt processing of subscription & prompt user, else continue
-after download is complete, proceed to next subscription & repeat procedure.

as you can probably tell, this is just a sketch for the roughs on how this script would work. i believe i can pull this off simply because podcasting is actually dirt simple.

can any of the developers here offer advice & comments to a python novice? are there any nice things already built for handling the rss parsing? i haven't screwed around with rss on this side of things before so it'll be a learning experience for me Wink
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