To the question about playing video without the images

[G+_Adam Bindslev]

To the question about playing video without the images. The listener was using Doggcatcher - if you longpress you get the option to 'play as audio'

[G+_Steve Douglas]

I was yelling at my phone about this when I watched the show. :-) I use BeyondPod these days (which can also play with the screen off), but that functionality has been in DoggCatcher for quite some time.

[G+_Fred Elfeline]

Adam Bindslev Steve Douglas 

 

Absolutely.  Have you noticed how AAA is always promoting PocketCasts?

 

Could that be iOScentric ?  It is on both.

[G+_Mark Lastiwka]

Can it switch to audio and back to video while playing the podcast, or do you have to back out and long press it?

[G+_Steve Douglas]

You long press on a video in your episode list and select "play as audio". You single tap an episode and it automatically starts playing as video again.

 

The biggest drawback, and I haven't seen a podcatcher that doesn't have its own version of this drawback, is that it won't put videos into the audio playlist. BeyondPod allows you to, but not very conveniently: you have to manually add videos to the audio playlist in order to get it to play as audio, and you have to remove it to play as video again. There's an option to "allow videos in playlist", but you can't get it to play just audio if you do that (although you can turn the screen off and it will keep playing). :-P

[G+_Marlon Thompson]

Fred Elfeline they talk about pocket casts for many reasons, one they actually interviewed shifty jelly on an early episode, two shifty jelly has promoted the show constantly on their app (cross promotion is a good thing), three its a good app, they also are one of the few developers who develop for Android first http://blog.shiftyjelly.com/2013/02/20/why-android-first/ , its also cheaper than doggcatcher and beyondpod

[G+_Daniel Charles]

Steve Douglas, I use #pocketcasts by Shifty Jelly and it allows you to put both audio and video podcasts into the same playlist. When it goes from an audio only episode to one with video, it automatically plays the video as audio. You can still watch the video by turning on the screen (and maybe pushing another button, not sure off the top of my head).

[G+_Steve Douglas]

Daniel Charles - I couldn't figure out how to get that to work when I installed it a few months back (after their big UI update). Maybe I should try again?

[G+_Daniel Charles]

Steve Douglas, setting up a playlist can be a bit confusing, but once done it should work. Good luck.

[G+_Steve Douglas]

Yeah, the problem I had was with setting up playlists. With both DC and BP that part is pretty simple, and I rely on it.

[G+_Marlon Thompson]

Steve Douglas try using #pocketcasts  smart playlist feature, it is actually very customisable and pretty easy to use http://www.shiftyjelly.com/support/pocketcasts#57

[G+_Fred Elfeline]

Marlon Thompson Disagree.  If the crew at AAA is "endorsing" an APP because of cross-promotional benefits, they should say so.  Leo is very careful on his shows to mention when he's recommending anything sold by an advertiser, past or present.

 

My own experience with Pocket Casts was mixed.  The interface was nice.  But it broke from time to time and I read that was because all your podcasts pass through Shifty Jelly servers overseas.  Murphy's law!

 

-

Googled it up in this quote: "(our server monitors your feeds, so your phone doesn’t have to)"

 

http://appjade.com/app/2012/page/342/

 

--

[G+_Marlon Thompson]

Fred Elfeline when was the last time you used it? I use it everyday and I find it extremely reliable now. I haven't had an issue in months, many of the problems they had have been fixed. I didn't say they were doing it intentionally and shifty jelly was never an advertiser its just an app that they all enjoy. Every show Leo is on we hear how much he loves Simpson Tapped out but he aint getting none of that EA money :) By the way many of the podcast apps are cross platform and iOS has a huge amount of them which was one of the reasons Shifty Jelly decided to develop for Android first and which is why I personally choose to support their efforts

[G+_Steve Douglas]

Dang. Just downloaded PC again and it's not what I remembered (and I tried it after v. 4.0!). Looks like it's the winner, hands down. I'm switching.

 

Still, the emailer has (presumably) already purchased DoggCatcher, which wasn't cheap, and I wish he'd been told how to play video as audio without being told to either fork out another $4 USD for PC or use a non-podcasting app like Screen Standby or MX Player. The hosts can't know everything about every app (the name of the show notwithstanding!), so I'm not blaming them. But it does make me wish they'd been monitoring the chat room during the show -- I guarantee you someone pointed that out. I view the chat room as TWiT's form of QA. :-)

[G+_Fred Elfeline]

Marlon Thompson The last time I used Pocket Casts?

 

It was the last time it couldn't download my podcasts for days because it couldn't connect to Shifty Jelly's servers.

 

 Murphy's law.  If it can break, it will.  And for some reason when it did I had to reboot my phone.

 

The new 4.0 version is even doing MORE on their servers.

 

"Syncing and backup: back up your subscriptions, podcasts, playlists & progress with our server and your other android devices."

 

I'm happy with my other podcatchers that download directly from source and don't pass my downloads through the developer's servers Down Under then phone home to tell the servers to what I've listened and when. 

 

I've not tried Version 4.  If you're happy with it, go forth and be happy.   

[G+_Steve Douglas]

John MacDonnell - Well, in addition to using Screen Standby (which unfortunately leaves the screen active to touch but dims it), there's Stick it!, which will play most YouTube videos as audio, even in the background with the screen on.?

[G+_Steve Douglas]

Screen Standby is an app, actually!