Enhanced podcasts!
5th September 2020 | Written by monotiller | Categorised as: Podcast Site | Tagged with: META
Hey all, season 2 of the Dreary Middle podcast starts on Monday! But before then, do I have an exciting announcement for you all: Dreary Middle COLON The Podcast is now ENHANCED!
But what exactly does that mean I hear you ask? Well, it means that you will now start seeing images and a chapter list alongside the audio of our podcasts:
Man, is this ever exciting! Not to be confused with the old Apple way of doing it by using their proprietary .m4a standard and Garage Band podcast editing features, this is using a bog standard .mp3 file and using and often overlooked feature of the ID3v2 metadata, as such, no special hardware or software is required. Any device can play the file, but only apps with the capability to read the data can show the pictures and chapters.
FAQ
Yes, each image increases the file size by the size of the image. For the best results across all devices we use the dimensions and quality of the image file meaning that a long podcast can see an increase of about 10 MB to accommodate the new images
No, since this is a, quote on quote, open standard (when compared to m4a), anybody is free to bake this in to their apps, please reach out to the developer of your favourite podcast app if your podcast app does not currently support MP3 chapters
We sure hope so, but as of right now we are relying on your web browser to do all the legwork for us with regards to audio playback capability, we chose this route initially as it required less work on our end for something to just “work”. Mobile, desktop, games console, you name it, we didn’t have to worry about it, your device would handle it for us. This means greater compatibility and lower battery drain. So for now it’s up to your browser to supports enhanced podcasts until we find a solution that works!
Yes, in fact, this trailer here has chapters, hidden chapters, images and links. Feel free to download the file and try it in any media player/podcast app to see if it works in your current setup Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:33 — 4.9MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More
Podcast Apps With Support
So far we have found the following apps that support enhanced podcasts:
| App Name | iOS | Android | Windows | macOS | Web |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Podcasts | ✅ Chapters ✅ Images | ???? | ❎ Chapters ✅ Images | ✅ Chapters ✅ Images | ❎ Chapters ❎ Images |
| Pocket Casts | ✅ Chapters ✅ Images | ✅ Chapters ✅ Images | ✅ Chapters ❎ Images | ✅ Chapters ❎ Images | ❎ Chapters ❎ Images |
| Agora | ✅ Chapters ❎ Images | ???? | ???? | ???? | ???? |
| Overcast | ✅ Chapters ✅ Images | ???? | ???? | ???? | ❎ Chapters ❎ Images |
| Castro | ✅ Chapters ✅ Images | ???? | ???? | ???? | ???? |
This is by no means a comprehensive list, we’re still testing and this table will be updated accordingly! If you are aware of any apps that support the standard, please drop a comment below! Thank you!
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