DirCaster vs Podcastamatic

[Dailysonic_Adam]

As far as I know there are two great pieces of software that will run on your web server and automatically generate RSS feeds.

DirCaster (http://www.shadydentist.com/wordpress/software/dircaster) is a PHP script that automatically generates the XML file for an RSS feed using the ID3 tags of MP3s in a given directory. DirCaster will only read ID3v1 tags. Current version is 0.4.

Podcastamatic (http://bradley.chicago.il.us/projects/podcastamatic/) is a Perl script that will generate both an HTML page, and a the XML file for an RSS feed based on ID3 tags. Current version is 1.0.

I've tried DirCaster, and I can say that its a breeze to set up and is very stable and reliable. I haven't tried podcastamatic yet, but it look's like it will do the same as DirCaster, and more. What are people's experiences with both of these?

-Adam

[Craig]

I haven't tried either, but based on my recent research on both I can say that the two are completely different. While dirCaster generates an RSS feed on the fly each time it is called and is meant to be used in place of an RSS file, Podcastamatic is meant to be run once after each new MP3 is uploaded and will generate an HTML page and RSS file based on the MP3 tags and HTML template info.

If you just want to serve up your MP3s with as little hassle as possible, go with dirCaster. If you want an web site as well and don't mind investing a minimal amount of setup and maintenance time then Podcastamatic will suit your needs perfectly. Here are the links for both:

dirCaster (http://www.shadydentist.com/wordpress/software/dircaster)
Podcastamatic (http://bradley.chicago.il.us/projects/podcastamatic/)

Craig

[bob]

We've been using dircaster since day 1, and it's been solid. The only drawback is that it reads ID3V1 tags, not ID3V2. So things like long comments and such don't make it into the RSS.

Otherwise, it's very nice.

[allthewhile]

I wonder if this software could be integrated with wordpress. I know it sounds kinda counter-intuitive, but I'm going to be creating a site where newbies can create their own podcasts. I wondered if the perl script could have a wordpress user name and password and post to a specific category. That way it could be sorta dynamic and easy for anyone to use.

-jayson

[Dailysonic_Adam]

craig - thanks for pointing out the difference to me, i didn't realize that podcastamatic wasn't as "automatic" as dircaster.

bob - hopefully dircaster will one day support id3v2 tags, i'm looking forward to that. here's a link to post that describes how to override the 30 char. limit of id3v1 tagsin dircaster. (http://www.shadydentist.com/wordpress/archives/2004/10/13/dircaster-01/#comment-15) i haven't tried it yet myself.

jayson - there is a plugin for wordpress taht will let you add media enclosures to posts, its far from automatic, but i would be of help to newbies. here's the link: http://www.ipportunities.nl/wordpress/index.php?p=49

-adam

[TBI]

Being "automatic" has its problems... for instance, if someone tries to access the dircaster PHP in the middle of uploading a large MP3, they will end up downloading half your podcast. And if you have a large-sized MP3 (if you do a 2- or 3-hour show)... this is more-likely to happen.

If anyone has a fix they can invent for such a behavior, please let me know, but, for now, I'm thinking of switching from DirCaster to Pocastamatic

[bob]

To avoid someone downloading while I'm uploading a show, I simply upload it to a sub-folder, and when it's all up on the server I move it into the right folder (which takes .0001 seconds).. Adds a step, but works really well.

[radioclash]

We've been using dircaster since day 1, and it's been solid. The only drawback is that it reads ID3V1 tags, not ID3V2. So things like long comments and such don't make it into the RSS.

Otherwise, it's very nice.

I've hacked Dircaster to work with ID3 v2...makes it a little larger script but works fine...I don't use it any more but happy to post - I was going to send it to Adam Curry then Podcastamatic was written so didn't bother.

Also the site disappeared so I couldn't post this - anyone using dirCaster be careful of certain special characters like ampersands (&) - unless it's been fixed they break the feed (technical reason: it's not using !CDATA, or wasn't, and the XML entities don't like certain characters).

I of course fixed the bugs with this I could find in my version...

[radioclash]

To avoid someone downloading while I'm uploading a show, I simply upload it to a sub-folder, and when it's all up on the server I move it into the right folder (which takes .0001 seconds).. Adds a step, but works really well.

I was going to suggest this too - that's what I did when i was using dirCaster.

The only issue I see with dirCaster is one of server load - especially getting ID3 tags on the fly from large files (since ID3 tags can be anywhere in the file) this could result in a lot of server load - I never had much problems tho, but a few timeouts.

[radioclash]

I wonder if this software could be integrated with wordpress.

I'm nore sure why would you need to do that when Wordpress 1.5 has enclosures?

If you give them posting rights then they'll be able to add their own enclosures?

Otherwise put this script in your upload directory and let people upload MP3 files to your upload directory?

[Dailysonic_Adam]

I've hacked Dircaster to work with ID3 v2...makes it a little larger script but works fine...I don't use it any more but happy to post - I was going to send it to Adam Curry then Podcastamatic was written so didn't bother.

Where can I get this version of dircaster? I'd like to play with it.

Thanks,
Adam Varga

[radioclash]

I can post it here, I think it was Open Source so my hacks are OK, basically hacked in some ID3v2 reading code I found into dirCaster...it works but I'm sure some better programmer could improve it a lot better!

I'll upload it and post it here tomorrow, of course I can't support it or give any guarantees (other reason why I never posted it, I'm not a good enough PHP programmer to support any queries).

[radioclash]

Apologies for the delay - had to dig this out.

Here is the hacked up version of dirCaster 0.3 with ID3v.2 support - read the README for more info.

Released under GPL but with no guarantees or support - I'm not a coder! I just did this for my site and thought others might be able to push it further or find it useful

http://www.mutantpop.net/radioclash/dirCaster-ID3-v2.zip

[bob]

Thanks for putting that up!

[Dailysonic_Adam]

yeah, thanks

[C100]

Ive started using dircaster recently too - so far so good.

I have one issue that I would like to sort out, I want to be able to put some stats/counter code onto the dircaster.php page so that I have an idea of how many hitys Im recieving.

the code I want to place is something like this -


<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
var sc_project=999999;
var sc_partition=0;
var sc_invisible=1;
</script>

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/counter.js"></script>
<noscript>
http://c1.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=999999&amp;java=0&invisible=1 (http://www.statcounter.com/free_hit_counter.html)
</noscript>




anyone any ideas ?

[Craig]

Web stats on an RSS file are pretty much useless since clients will check the RSS multiple times to determine if there have been any updates. What you want is stats on the MP3 files, which should be provided in some form by your web host.

Craig

[Dailysonic_Adam]

Has anyone gotten radioclash's dircaster hack to display longer comments. For some reason, its limiting my comments to 52 characters. Any ideas?

edit: never mind, its working great. i was uploading a corrupt mp3 file, thats why i was having problems. thanks again for the hack :D