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Blubrry PowerPress Podcasting

October 15th, 2009

Table of contents

Description


The Blubrry PowerPress Podcast Plugin has all of the essential features needed to provide podcasting support in a Wordpress blog.

The Blubrry PowerPress interface allows you to easily add/modify/remove podcast episodes from blog posts and includes a simple on-line media player, iTunes compatibile RSS feed tags, ability to upload cover art images, ping iTunes, detect media size, detect time duration (mp3′s only) and add 3rd party media statistics.

Features:

  • Easily add/modify/remove podcast episodes from blog posts and pages
  • Integrated audio/video media player
  • Podcast Only Feed
  • Custom Podcast Feeds (no limit)
  • Category Podcast Feeds
  • Integrated Media Hosting via Blubrry Services
  • Integrated Media Statistics via Blubrry Services
  • Mp3 ID3 Tagging via Blubrry Services
  • iTunes RSS tags
  • Enhanced iTunes summaries from blog posts option
  • iTunes album/cover art
  • Upload new iTunes/RSS cover art
  • Ping iTunes
  • Media size detection
  • Duration detection (mp3 only)
  • 3rd party statistics integration
  • Import PodPress settings and media episodes
  • Import Blogger/Movable Type media episodes
  • Category Podcast Feeds (Category Casting)
  • Tag/Keyword Podcast Feeds (Tag Casting)
  • Hosted Feed Support (FeedBurner.com)
  • User Role Management (Control which users on blog can Podcast)

Settings


Configure your Blubrry PowerPress by going to the Settings > Blubrry PowerPress page.

Faq

Why doesn’t Blubrry PowerPress support multiple enclosures in one feed item/post?
Blubrry PowerPress does not allow you to include multiple media files for one feed item (blog post). This is because each podcatcher handles multiple enclosures in feeds differently. iTunes will download the first enclosure that it sees in the feed ignoring the rest. Other podcatchers and podcasting directories either pick up the first enclosure or the last in each post item. This inconsistency combined with the fact that Dave Winer does not recommend multiple enclosures and the FeedValidator.org recommendation against it is why the Blubrry PowerPress does not support them.

As a alternative, PowerPress allows you to create additional Custom Podcast Feeds to associate any magnitude of media format and/or length in a blog post to specific custom feeds. For example, you can create one blog post associated to separate video and audio podcast feeds saving you time from entering your show notes twice.

Why doesn’t Blubrry PowerPress include media statistics built-in?
Blubrry PowerPress does not include media statistics built-in. This is not because Blubrry has its own statistics service, although that’s a good reason by itself. Maintaining and calculating statistics is a resource and server intensive task that would add bloat to an otherwise efficient WordPress podcasting plugin. We recommend using your media hosting’s web statistics to give you basic download numbers and, if you are seeking more grandular measurements such as client and geographical information for each episode, you’re more than welcome to use the Blubrry Statistics service as well.

As of Blubrry PowerPress version 0.8, you may now access your Blubrry Statistics from within your WordPress dashboard.

How do you insert the player within a blog post?
You can insert the media player within yoru blog posts by using the WordPress shortcode feature. The shortcode for PowerPress is [powerpress] (all lowercase)

You may use the shortcode to add a player to other media files (non episode files) by specifying the media url in the shortcode: [powerpress url=”http://example.com/path/to/media.mp3″]

For advanced users with multiple podcast feeds, you may insert the player for a specific feed by specifying the feed slug in the shortcode: [powerpress feed=”podcast”]

If you want to specify a cover image, add an image attribute which points to the specific image url: [powerpress image=”http://example.com/path/to/cover_image.jpg”] Experimental

Why can’t you upload large media files?
File uploads are tricky to handle because there are so many web hosting variations with different upload size limits. We recommend using an FTP application to upload large media files. FTP is much more efficient than web based uploads and is typically provided by nearly all web hosting providers.

Screenshots


Add podcast episode, found within the edit post screen


Select from 5 audio mp3 players for your web site


Example of the Flow Player Classic in a blog post


Example of the 1 Pixel Out Audio Player in a blog post


Cross section of Blubrry PowerPress iTunes settings page

Contact

Author: Angelo Mandato, Blubrry.com

Author Hompepage

Plugin Homepage

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