I've had the Fuze for a few months, and it is a nice little player. The main thing I listen to is Podcasts, with a few audiobooks thrown in every now and then.
But that where my issue lies, and this is not TOTALLY the Fuze's fault, but it's by no means exempt from blame.
Problem #1 (not the Fuze's fault): Is there any other podcatcher out there besides iTunes that will automatically create a playlist of podcasts based on their release date? I sometimes listen to several audiobooks in a row (currently in the middle of relistening to The Dark Tower series), and when I come back to listening to my podcasts, I want them to be in order. I am a huge fan of Leo Laporte's TWiT network and listen to several of his podcasts, but I want to listen to all of them in the order they were released. This wouldnt be a problem if the podcasts were all numbered the same, but some weeks one show will take off and throw the sequence out of whack. The only solution I have found to this is using iTunes (ick!) to download the podcasts and have it create a smart playlist of the genre sorted by release date, which works well, except iTunes wont sync with the Fuze. I found a program called iTunes Export that will export an iTunes playlist to another format, so I use it to export the playlist to WMP and sync there. Problem solved, kinda, but I would like something more automatic.
Problem #2 (Definatly the Fuze's fault): The next issue comes into play when I want to play back the playlist on the Fuze. I'm all synced up, ready to go, so I go into Music, choose Playlists, choose my podcast playlists, and....nothing. It is blank. Seems the Fuze thinks it's better to remove the "Podcast" genre from the playlists and stick it in it own entry under Music. OK, fine, but I go in to Podcasts...and everything is in alphabetical order again. Again, the fix for this is stupid, I go in to WMP and change my podcasts from the "Podcast" genre to "PC", then resync and my playlist is good to go. So now I am listening to my podcasts, in the right order, and all is well, until I decide to switch over to music for a while or something, then I go back to the podcast I was listening to earlier and it has lost my place. Seems the bookmarking feature only works with files in the Audiobook or Podcast genre. Crap.
So, I guess the questions are:
1. Is there a podcatcher that will sync with the Fuze and create a playlist of podcasts in the order of release date
2. Is there a way to get the fuze to either allow podcasts to be in a playlist with the correct genre OR support bookmarking in non-audiobook or podcast files, and can above podcatcher automatically change the genre of podcasts when downloaded
I researched this quite a bit a couple of months ago, but the best solution I have found is the one I use above, which is satisfactory but just barely.
Any thoughts/ideas are appreciated!!
Discussion about
The problem with podcasts....
I have found the same issues and use my Fuze for mostly podcasts, so I understand. It's a question of the Fuze firmware and that is how they chose to write it. I don't think any changes to playlists will change the way it works.
I have heard people mention of RockBox.org for a new firmware that has more features. Worth checking out, but have not yet.
www.rockbox.org/
Richard
I have heard people mention of RockBox.org for a new firmware that has more features. Worth checking out, but have not yet.
www.rockbox.org/
Richard
I mainly use my Fuse to listen to podcasts. After being disappointed by WMP and its syncing, I found something called "iTunes Agent." It's a plugin that allows the device to sync with one playlist from iTunes. I have it sync with a custom smart playlist in iTunes and have it place the files in the Podcast directory of the Fuze. To get it to work, I had to change the USB mode setting on the Fuze to "MSC", which is mass storage mode.
To add audiobooks, I use the Audible download manager.
I don't have any music on it, but I suppose I might be able to sync the music folder with WMP while still syncing with iTunes Agent in the podcasts folder.
To add audiobooks, I use the Audible download manager.
I don't have any music on it, but I suppose I might be able to sync the music folder with WMP while still syncing with iTunes Agent in the podcasts folder.
