Time-Shifting For The iPod

depechemodem writes "This story at ExtremeiPod talks about a new piece of software from Adam Curry called iPodder (now at Sourceforge) which uses RSS feeds with MP3 enclosures to stream audio to iTunes. The best part is that those streams can be saved as clips automatically on to your iPod or other MP3 player for later listening making this the first portable time-shifted Internet audio application. The code is alse being ported to Windows."

Wow, Adam Curry

Good to see he's still in the music business. Does he still have that outrageous hair? And the acid-washed jeans?

Re:Wow, Adam Curry

The thing that makes this really funny is that unlike the Matt Dillon jokes that pop up every time the BSD Matt Dillon is mentioned, this really is "that" Adam Curry. The one from MTV. Same guy...

Re:Wow, Adam Curry

Not sure about the jeans, but his hair is still relatively long and still blonde. He has been living in the Netherlands although I think is moving (to England I think) soon.

I have his blog in my RSS feed - he occasionally posts up photos of him and various people.

He has been doing radio shows (even wen to Iraq and did some coverage there), has owned a series of tech start ups that apparently did fairly well (at least for him), and he also flies planes/helicopters.

huh?

Does anyone have a good explaination of what this is doing? I read the site and all, but it sounds like the site and story are talking about different things. Or am I just the only one that's confused??

(it's possible, i know)

Re:huh?

It downloads Internet Radio streams and lets you play them back as MP3s later. Just like Tivo does for TV (allowing you to skip commercials with a slider bar) you can now do that with your favorite MP3 player (including the ever so popularly advertised iPod).

Re:huh?

It's transferring a file. From an RSS feed to another folder (iPod). It downloads the RSS file (WOW!), extracts the content (Double WOW!), and moves it. Pure genius.

Anything with iPod in the description apparently bypasses the submission queue.

What a load of garbage

I constantly timeshift radio using Audiohijack Pro. Every morning, NPR's Morning Edition is recorded and waiting for iTunes to transfer it to my iPod for my morning commute.

Re:What a load of garbage

Er, if it is recording NPR's Morning Edition, and you are listening to it on your morning commute, can't you, I don't know, turn on your radio like Grandpa used to and listen to it live?

Re:What a load of garbage

Just a guess, but:

Morning Edition begins broadcasting at ~5AM Pacific time, and repeats its programming several times during its timeslot. (At least here in Seattle.)

Many people's morning commute does not involve a car. The radio reception I got on the bus was always really crappy, so I've given up listening to a lot of radio. This might be a solution.

Trademarks and copyrights

Won't Apple get upset about the use of the "iPod" trademark in the product's name?

And won't the NMPA and RIAA start to female-dog about it being a copyright infringement tool? No, sharing your own songs may not be a substantial non-infringing use under Betamax because what you call "your own songs" could likely be either covers or subconscious infringements.

I smell cease and desist.

Re:Trademarks and copyrights

You probably raise some good points in this post, but it's impossible for me to know because everytime I try to read it, an avalanche of vomit destroys my computer upon reading the phrase "female dog about it"

(posting without reading from my third computer)

Time shifting?

Is that like a DVR ipod?

Firefix extension

So how about having this as a builtin Firefox extension?

Re:Firefix extension

So how about having this as a browser independent plugin?

Whats the point?

How is this different than any other application for downloading music?

a whoosawhats it now?

time-shifted Internet audio application

So basically, using an RSS and MP3 wrapper, they've created the 21st century equivalent of a tape recorder hooked up to a radio...

Re:a whoosawhats it now?

So basically, using an RSS and MP3 wrapper, they've created the 21st century equivalent of a tape recorder hooked up to a radio...

More like a crippled DAT hooked up to a digital tuner with an Internet connection. You couldn't exactly tell your tape recorder to only record such and such a show on this, this, and that station without manual intervention. You also wouldn't exactly have digital audio.

"Timeshifted"

"Timeshifted" is the new "previously recorded".

So basically, if I understand this right, it's an app that records audio from the internet then automagically siphons it off to an iPod. Clever....even without the jargon and catchphrases.

Re:"Timeshifted"

"Timeshifted" is the new "previously recorded".

Uh, well, it's not really all that new. It came about with the inital advent of VCRs.

Well, not really. "Time-shifting", as a term, came about because there was something new about it, namely that you could watch what was being recorded while it was being recorded, but at a different point in time than what was recording at that moment. Obviously, that's a mouthful to say, hence the term "time-shifting". It was new to the digital world, and it's a big deal because it lets you, say, pause live TV and go make a sandwich, or start watching an 8 PM program at 8:03 without missing anything, or whatever. A VCR can't do that. (You'd have to record the entire show, then start watching at the beginning once it's over.)

"Time-shifting" is different than just recording and watching/listening later. So this iPodder thing may be a bit of a misnomer; it may not do true time-shifting. It has to be able to play the clips you're recording as you're recording them, at any point in the stream. Just "saving clips" to listen to later is not time-shifting.

wowser, so much more than an mp3 player!

and I thought the iPod was just an mp3 player! ;) Seriously, if you watch the development of the device, and consider all of the software being developed for it, it's no wonder Apple isn't running about making another Neuton...in effect, they almost have! I look for the iPod to do a ton more things come January 2005. I for one plan on playing with Linux on mine, then seeing what else I can do with that's cool and new.

DCVLB&*DFS

What can't the iPod do?

Amazing what a little opening of the hardware allows for people to do with this little thing that was originally meant to just play music and be a modern day Walkman. Now it's this swiss army knife of the 21st century. With success like this it still boggles the mind that Apple computers don't catch on the same way. Flame me if you will, but if Apple just sold a computer for 600$ I think it would catch fire like the iPod has.

CB*(#$@@!@

Re:What can't the iPod do?

Many current switchers, according to chatter heard in Apple's Support Forums, have switched because of their experience with the iPod. Whether it was from walking into an Apple Store to buy an iPod and getting a chance to actually *use* a Mac, or seeing how much thought was put into the iPod, from how the scroll wheel accelerates to how rugged the design is to the neat way the backlight fades on and off.

If iTMS is a loss-leader for the iPod, then the iPod is a leader for Macs. I'm all for Apple making a headless eMac. But until they do the eMac, which is itself an incredibly capable machine for its price, will probably be the first Mac many people own.

Re:What can't the iPod do?

What can't it do?

Pitch control and cue points. Add those two features, and apple will find a large market of DJs that will buy them. Hell, I'd put off upgrading my mixer if Apple added those two features. I'd have a good portable music player for the bus and whatnot, and a small device I can hook up to my mixer so I can use digital music files, stuff I rip off CD or my own productions that I can't afford to press to vinyl in my sets. And it would open up a large amount of music, especially futurepop, that is disgustingly difficult to find in any quantity on vinyl.

Re:What can't the iPod do?

if Apple just sold a computer for 600$ I think it would catch fire like the iPod has.


What makes you say that? The iPod follows Apple's other products in being (a) nicely designed (b) well built (c) very expensive. There are many competitors to the iPod, most of which offer additional features (of varying usefulness), and are cheaper (often very significantly). This is just like the PC market - Windows boxes are more numerous, usually not as well built/designed, but a lot cheaper. What surprises me is how the market seems to tolerate Apple's premium pricing for mp3 players but not for computers.

this is new?

looks like there have already been other programs designed to do this with itunes radio http://homepage.mac.com/swithers/iblog/C784421780/ E1012504207/ [mac.com] it seems like it should work with more than just the radio since it simply records audio being broadcast to the computer. Is this different is some way?

Adam Curry / Neal Stephenson connection

This may be a bit offtopic, but does anyone remember Adam Curry's metaverse.com web site? He got that one after MTV took away mtv.com from him. This was way back in like 1993 or 1994. I believe he had just read 'Snow Crash'. Anyway, it's neat to see a celebrity become a geek (kind of like the pr0n star Asia Carerra!), but of course she looks better naked.

Correct me if I'm wrong ...

... and I'm sure you all will, but I was under the impression that iPodder was a fancy automatic way of downloading MP3s, not converting streaming radio to MP3s and then storing on your iPod which is what this story seems to imply. It is not " the first portable time-shifted Internet audio application", it just "raises the prospect of truly portable time-shifted audio programming on the Internet". I believe Audio Hijack Pro will let you record streaming music, but iPodder looks like it just downloads MP3s.

Adam Curry is my hero

You could tell, even in his prissy glam-metal heyday, that he was a smart one. He went from VJ to dot-com genius. I mean shit, you don't see Jesse Camp coming up with great ideas like this.
I mean, Matt Pinfield knew a lot about music, but there's a difference between trivia and usefulness. Way to go Adam.

Don't I Already Do This With MPlayer?

How is this different from

mplayer -dumpaudio /stream/address

?

What about Replay Radio

Not taking anything away from iPodder, but I've been using a great little app called Replay Radio for a year or so to grab my favorite web radio programs and save them as MP3s, which I then dump into my iPod. Product details here [replay-radio.com]

Time-shifting?

When I first read that I got ideas of a Hitchhiker's Guide show. Who needs a towel anymore if you have an iPod!

(it's funny, try to laugh! ;))

CB%^&*()

Let me get this straight

So "time-shifting" with my iPod does not imply time travel?

Shit.

I thought I could just hit the button and turn the volume control to skip back a few minutes.

Yes.. TimeShifting!

Another fricking buzzword. Gotta love 'em.

My website is now rendering multi tiered aggregate content to strategize user-centric metrics while orchestrating scalable synergies utilizing virtual timeshifted content.

Somebody buy me..
Please?

The First?

What the hell is this? I've been using Audio Hijack Pro [rogueamoeba.com] to time-shift radio programs for what, 2 years now? How is this /.-worthy? Yet another audio recording app. Oh, but it's Adam Curry - well in that case, post it right away!

Newsflash - RMS takes world's first crap! Read it only on /.

I do this already with MythTV

I have MythTV installed, with a WinTV Nova-T card (digital TV card) which allows me to schedule it to record radio straight from UK's freeview service. I then have a php script which re-encodes it using Lame into an archive directory, which I rsync each morning to my iRiver mp3 player...

Give me pitch control....

and I'll buy one.

Damn you all!

Damn you, TiVO!

Damn you, iPod!

Damn you...HTPCs running MythTV!

Damn all of you timeshifting bitches!

I'm perfectly miserable...er...content doing something else entirely while I tape a satellite TV program on my shitty Sony VCR for 2 hours -- just to get a documentary that I'm too lazy to sit through for that particular 2 hours. I don't need to watch another TV program while that tapes. I can...um...work on my whittling skills. So fuck y'all.

I'll see that Discovery Channel special with the humping lions tomorrow. Wait...no...I have to tape 3 hours of primetime programming then. Shit. When can I...HEY! Are you timeshifting asshats laughing at me? FUCK YOU! You have no idea what you're doing to live programming with your evil technology! And I KNOW you totally missed the ASS CLOWN BUD LIGHT COMMERCIAL WHEN YOU TIVO'D THE SUPER BOWL! HAHAHA! THERE YA GO, YA TIMESHIFTING MOTHERFUC---

Shit. I only have a 120 minute tape, and I have 300 minutes of programming. I'll be back in a minute to cuss you f---ers out.

IronChefMorimoto

Adam Curry

back in 1994-95 I had Adam Curry's email address and sent him a long email talking about how cool he was and how MTV did him wrong, how he was awesome on head bangers ball... basically glorifying him.

then at the bottom I added, "ps, you're a big fag"

it was awesome.

honestly though Adam is pretty cool.

Non-revolutionary?

Yeah, I know, it's nothing new, the whole automating the pulling down of content. What's really important is that a framework is being established. RSS is getting more and more popular by the day, and if producers of audio content get it together, and produce RSS feeds with enclosures pointing to the audio files, it becomes *extremely easy* for developers to write apps to handle that content, and *extremely easy* for users to get that content - automatically!

Adam knows he's not a brilliant programmer. He's a frustrated developer, who is really trying to kickstart this whole thing by enticing others to write better code than his, which is happening. It made me release my crappy perl code, and prompted others to start similar projects.

Heck, this is the Apple section of /. right? Remember "easy of use" is somewhere near the top of the list for some people.

I do this with my x-box

With X-Box Media Center. I sometimes leave my box on all night and let it dump a bunch of streams to my HD, then I load 'em up on my iPod later to see if I like 'em.

How Come?

How come whenever anyone does anything trivial that has anything to do with an Ipod...that it is reported like world peace?

Recording streams have been around as long as streams themselves....I guess it was not a big deal until someone with an Ipod started recording streams.

Next we will read about "Ipod owner creates Hello World" and a "tetris clone".

Good news everyone!...

...we're off to the tempest nebula to gather chronotons! And there's me thinking this was some Farnsworthian device capable of stretching the very fabric of time itself! *clenches fists and glares heavenward*

I don't know...

I think it's going to take some serious time-shifting to make Adam Curry [google.com] popular again.

Whats new?

...apart from the "Apple!" and "iPod!" headlines?

Seriously, I'm surprised that Steve Jobs can still sh1t given all the slashdotters clambering up his pipe.

Streamers for OS X

If you're interested in having various streamed radio programs (like BBC, NPR, etc.) on your iPod, you may want to check out Streamers [versiontracker.com] for OS X. (Disclosure - I'm the author.) Using Ambrosia's WireTap, iCal, and iTunes, it allows you to keep a library of shows to be recorded and to schedule recordings. Just be sure to drag the app itself, and not the folder that contains it, into your Applications folder. The way I packaged the last build has caused a few users some confusion on this score.

It's freeware; source is included; and I've just put up a sourceforge site for it.

Shifted drifted and wake up iPodsheeple

http://hublog.hubmed.org/archives/000870.html

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use LWP::Simple;

$webjay = get('http://webjay.org');
while ( $webjay =~ m|href\=\"(.*?)\"|igs ){
if (( $1 =~ m|^(http://webjay.org/by/.*?/.*?)$|i )
&& ( $1 !~ /#comments/i ))
{ push @playlists, $1 }
}

$play = rand(scalar(@playlists));
exec "open $playlists[$play].smil";

Good idear

I had a similar idea a few months back, when I realized I was spending 10+ hours per week sitting in my car or on the Metro. I just wish I had more choices than NPR, RIAA, or AM radio. I like the idea of XM radio, but it doesn't work underground and doesn't have the variety that the web can provide. I'd rather listen to kooky bloggers commenting on micro-issues than another 10-minute summary of what Big Media thinks important. It'd also be a great way to get exposed to new independent artists.

If there was a system that had a 2-hour program assembled from various feeds personalized to my taste (maybe even a printout to read along, and view pictures) then I'd be on board. My weekly magazines only last a couple days on the subway.

Missing the point

A lot of people aren't reading the site and realizing what this technology is about:

1) The program uses encapusization in RSS feeds to grab media from timely updated web sites.
2) The program stores the media and transfers it to the iPod by way of iTunes.

It does not "record broadcasts from streams" any more than using Kazaa to download videos allows you to fast-forward through the boring bits in porn.

Essentially it expands on new RSS tools that give media sites the ability to post recently updated media resources.

Why is this news?

Seriously. I've been ripping streams with StreamRipper for 2-3 years now. How is this any different?

Content?

A neat tool, I got it working after some initial confusion (talk about lack of documentation, that is part of software development, you know), I found the content to be...err...lacking.

I mean, as much as I like listening to IT babble all day, I get enough of that at work, and after work, and with my friends, etc. Sure would be nice if NPR, or CNN, or any new site not related to hard-core IT or crazy eclectic blogging supported RSS 2.0 with enclosures....

What iPodder is!

iPodder and like scripts is just a method of getting new content onto your iPod or MP3 playing device. Nothing more. Its not rocket science, just just a needed tool.

RSS is just an XML file, one of the tags is an enclosure tag, that tag specifies a link to an MP3 file of a new audio program that the author has posted online.

When the iPodder aggregator is run it checks for new MP3 files and downloads them into a playlist (Windows Media, iTunes, ect) that you can later sync up to a portable player.

Why is this needed? hell that should be simple for anyone using an aggregator at all. Its just easier to have this stuff come to you then for you to go out and be on the look out for new 'IT Conversations' or 'The Daily Source Code' episodes.

Yes the concept is simple, and very basic but it didn't exist before, so this fills a hole that a lot of listeners to these types of shows really needed.

After reading some of the comments about iPodder, I was more than a little confused on how so many people could wrap their heads around what iPodder does, I hope this helps (sorry that is late in coming)

Re:A little bit offtopic : Some help needed.

Check out iPodlounge.

http://www.ipodlounge.com/ [ipodlounge.com]

Lots of good links, reviews and discussion there about all things iPod (software and hardware related).

Cheers.

Re:A little bit offtopic : Some help needed.

Mac or PC sites?

I don't have a PC, but I use Pod2Go [kainjow.com] to do a whole bunch of neat stuff, including keeping an auto-synced backup of my important files, like my iPhoto library.

Re:A little bit offtopic : Some help needed.

If you go to Versiontracker [versiontracker.com] you will find lots of cool software for the iPod and for iTunes if you enter iPod in their search box.

Re:Don't poke the Gorilla!

Mmmmm....money....

Re:If ever there was a time

Click away people, I need an iPod!

Dude, if you want a free iPod, just send me your bank account number and SSN. When I forward it my buddy the Prime Minister of Nigeria, he'll send you more than enough money to cover the cost of an iPod.

Re:A little bit offtopic : Some help needed.

Don't forget hymn [hymn-project.org]. It allows you to convert protected AAC files that you purchase through the iTunes Music Store to unprotected AAC files that can be played back on any device, or with any piece of software, that supports AAC.

Just be sure to backup the original protected AAC file somewhere just in case. Oh and I wouldn't be sharing these unprotected files on any P2P service. It does remove the DRM, but it doesn't remove certain tags within the file (called atoms) that can uniquely identify the user who purchased it. There are other pieces of software available that can remove those, but I'm not going to post any links.