Audio / Video Podcast

Sandwich · 2006-03-16 12:57:05

I’ve searched around for a bit on how to use Textpattern to generate an audio/video podcast feed, but the information is scattered and incomplete. So I’d appreciate it if someone could answer a few questions I have – and forgive me if I’m not even asking the right questions. :p

What is the simplest method to get Textpattern-generated information into a format that iTunes can subscribe (?) to? For example, every week, for the website of my church, I post an article linking to an MP3 of the sermon (which I upload via FTP manually) that has the filename of YYYY-MM-DD.mp3, where the date is generated from the date of the article. Textpattern can handle generating this link no problem, using the following code:

Now, I’ve tried to get this into a feed, using the following code on a page template:

<rss version=“2.0”> <channel> <title>King of Kings Community Jerusalem Sermon Podcast</title> <description>Weekly sermons from Jerusalem</description> <language>en-us</language> <copyright>King of Kings Community Jerusalem</copyright> <lastBuildDate>Today’s Date</lastBuildDate> <webMaster>_____@kkcj.org</webMaster> <txp:article_custom section=“teaching” sortby=“Posted” sortdir=“desc” listform=“podcast_audio” /> </channel> </rss></code></pre>

And the code below as the “podcast_audio” form:

<pre><code><txp:if_article_list> <item> <title><txp:title /></title> <description><txp:body /></description> <pubDate><txp:posted format=”%A, %B %e, %Y”/></pubDate> <enclosure url=“http://www.kkcj.org/media/audio/<txp:posted format=”%Y” />/<txp:posted format=”%Y-%m-%d” />.mp3” length=“1234567” type=“audio/mpeg” /> </item>
</txp:if_article_list></code></pre>

You can see the page it generates here. The only problem is that I can’t get either Thunderbird or Firefox to recognize that page as a valid RSS feed – I think they’re being sent the wrong headers by Textpattern at a higher level than can be modified through the page templates.

Can anyone give me any pointers? I’m totally clueless about this whole thing.

Last edited by Sandwich (2006-03-16 12:59:15)

alexandra · 2006-03-16 14:40:06

hi, there have been discussions on podcasting and feeds. maybe this thread helps a bit: http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?id=14742

Sandwich · 2006-03-16 15:12:38

Ok, so if I’m to understand correctly, I could post an article where the first link is a link to the audio or video file, point Feedburner at the Atom feed (of the correct section or category), and it would give me an RSS 2.0 feed in return (required for podcasting/iTunes?), and deal with registering the feed in all the correct iTunes databases and whatnot?

variaas · 2006-03-17 00:48:14

Sandwich,

Yup that’s how it would work. I’m using it for another site (not TXP but spits out RSS 0.92).

Sandwich · 2006-03-26 11:09:49

Thanks, this helps a lot. :)

I’m running into one problem though. I’m trying to send FeedBurner the following URL: http://www.kkcj.org/index.php?atom=1&s=podcast, but TXP seems to be ignoring the section specification and just sending out whatever the front page shows. In the podcasting guide, he gives the example of “http://mySite.com/?atom=1&category=podcast”. Can a feed be limited to returning articles from a specific category, but not a specific section?

EDIT: Ok, so TXP needs “?section=sectionname” and not “?s=sectionname” – fine. However, FeedBurner still won’t recognize the feed for some reason.

EDIT 2: Ok, I’ve got things up and running as far as they can go. I just really wish I could customize the feed output… that still can’t be done, correct?

Last edited by Sandwich (2006-03-26 13:04:43)

NeilA · 2006-03-26 21:08:33

Sandwich,

I’ve just finished debugging a podcast feed of mine using Feedburner, and I was caught out by the most simple of things:

In the TxP Admin > Preferences > Advanced settings, right down the bottom of the page is an option “Syndicate excerpt? (default is body)” Yes/No
Even though the default is ‘body’ (No), mine had got set to “excerpt” (Yes), which meant that while I had a valid link to the podcast file in the body of the article, it wasn’t in the excerpt, and so Feedburner wasn’t seeing it.

And just to check – you are referencing the podcast file directly, and not using TxP File Download system, right?

Sandwich · 2006-03-27 13:55:04

Thanks for the tips, Neil. :) My problem now is something different. I’ve been providing the audio as MP3, played through a flash player. Since there’s a new one every Sunday, it made sense to name the files yyyy-mm-dd.mp3, and to have TXP generate the links to play the file automatically, based on the date of the article. This means that I never actually make any links to the files manually in the excerpt or body. Therefore, FB doesn’t see any media files unless I sneak one in the body like this: <code><a href=”/media/audio/2006-01-01.mp3”> </a></code> :p

If I could customize the feed output, it’d be a lot easier. :) That’s coming in 4.1, right?

Last edited by Sandwich (2006-03-27 13:56:26)

NeilA · 2006-03-27 19:32:49

Apologies Sandwich – I should have read the earlier posts more carefully…

But I’m doing something very similar with podcasts of my Bible talks from church. The only difference is I’m not generating the filenames automatically – but I don’t think that’s your problem.

Is there a reason you are using messy URLSs? I can’t imagine that causing a problem, but I’m curious.

Here’s how I do my feed:

1. I have all the Bible Talks in one section of my TxP site (http://westserve.org/bibletalks )
2. In Feedburner I tell it to burn this feed: http://westserve.org/atom/?section=bibletalks
3. So long as the link to the MP3 is the first media link in the article (or in my case, the excerpt) it picks it up fine.

Looking at your example, if that generated link is the first one in the article, it should work fine.

I’m certain it’s possible to do what you want, it’s just a case of debugging… ;-)

Last edited by NeilA (2006-03-28 01:41:25)

Sandwich · 2006-03-29 12:03:46

No apologies necessary – after I figured out the problem I had been having, I ran straight into the problem you pointed out. ;)

Anyway, the reason the feed isn’t including the automatically-generated links is because they are included in the page layout via a TXP form, not some code I put into the body of each article. Every article I add to a certain section automatically gets that code appended to it. But the feed doesn’t grab anything but the article content (which is only logical, since that’s what RSS feeds are all about – content, not presentation). It’s just that I’m naughty and add some content to the article via the presentational interface. :p

Sandwich · 2006-03-29 15:41:23

Ok, I’ve got it working well enough to go live (since The People In Charge aren’t worried about perfection):

Website: http://www.kkcj.org/
Podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/kkcj_audio

Now my question is, why are the article publication dates being shown in iTunes the last-modified date of the article, and not the creation date? Is there any way to toggle that?

NeilA · 2006-03-29 19:34:21

I would just put the form_output tag in the article and be done with it….

But seems to be working OK. I have no idea how you adjust any of the iTunes tags… But you can view that code in Feedburner, if that helps.

Last edited by NeilA (2006-03-29 21:43:15)

Sandwich · 2006-11-12 13:25:34

I’d like to bump this now that 4.0.4 is out and Txp supports RSS 2.0 feeds – how do I take advantage of Txp’s RSS 2.0 feeds to generate a podcast without going through FeedBurner?

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Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2006-03-16 12:57:05

Audio / Video Podcast

#2 2006-03-16 14:40:06

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#3 2006-03-16 15:12:38

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#4 2006-03-17 00:48:14

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#5 2006-03-26 11:09:49

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#6 2006-03-26 21:08:33

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#7 2006-03-27 13:55:04

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#8 2006-03-27 19:32:49

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#9 2006-03-29 12:03:46

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#10 2006-03-29 15:41:23

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#11 2006-03-29 19:34:21

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

#12 2006-11-12 13:25:34

Re: Audio / Video Podcast

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