Speed up playback of podcasts?

[CAlvarez]

I noticed that you can speed up the playback of audio books, but didn't see any such option for podcasts. Since I have a short attention span and the podcasters seem to talk slowly, I'd love to be able to do the same with those. Any add-ons or hacks to apply a speed to podcasts? I know I could modify the files individually, but something more automated would be nice.

[xlax999999]

If you change the Genre to Audiobook and make the tracks bookmarkable .m4b AACs. This whould move them to the Audiobooks section and thus the speed would apply.

Automator can do this quickly and painlessly. First you must download Doug's iTunes Automator Actions (http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts12.php) with those armed create this workflow:


Get Selected iTunes Items
Choose Encoder (AAC encoder)
Convert Tracks
Set Info of iTunes Songs (Check Genre and type Audiobook)
Restore Encoder (Optional)
Make AAC Tracks Bookmarkable


To use just select these Podcasts in iTunes and run the workflow. There is an option in convert tracks to delete the originals as well but I'll leave that up to you. Good Luck!

[CAlvarez]

Nice. Fairly painless and simple.

Have you ever listened to "sped up" casts? Do they sound good?

[xlax999999]

Never tried, but podcasts don't sound good in regular speed so I doubt they will sound good sped up or slowed down. :p

[xlax999999]

Also i didn't have time to test this workflow so please post the results. It made sense to me because that is the same Automator Workflow I made to convert mp3 audiobooks with poorly labeled genres.

P.S. I assume you got your broken iPod deal resolved. Any news about that from Apple as I too get frustrated with that?

[CAlvarez]

No, I haven't had time to talk to them about it. I just did a 32 hour day (and I'm billing it that way!). I was going to swing by the Apple store on the way home and realized I was a mess by that point. My priorities for the next week or so are centered around a large network move. Hasn't locked up again though, and I've been listening to podcasts while working for several hours.