How to manually add missing podcasts sorted under the right subscription

did you find a way? it's very similar to my problem. And I presume nobody will answer.

Man, I wish I was that far along.

Downloaded a podcast through a web browser and then transferred it to my network music server ("The DellPod"). Foolishly (?) thought that if I added the file while viewing the podcast library it would end up there. After all, iTunes knows it's a podcast, downloaded the artwork... and dumped it into my music library?? Took me a couple of tries to realize what was happening.

I've just wasted 15 minutes with the help file and poking around the menus... how do I reclassify the file as a member of my podcast library, or where did I go wrong in the first place. (Note: even considered downloading again via --achtung! zee iTunes application, mien heir-- but the podcast is just old enough to have disappeared from the active list. <sigh>

Thx in advance for any help, sorry for hijacking your thread.

I don't think you can "merge" episodes downloaded as Podcasts and episodes downloaded as straight-forward mp3 files into one Podcast series. Yes, they are all mp3 files, but...

A Podcast is a "process" which enables your iTunes library to know which Podcast series you have subscribed to and therefore which Podcasts to "keep an eye on" so that it (iTunes) knows what you've got and what you haven't and which new ones to download _for you (personally)._ However, it's not just iTunes involved, it's the "process" (yes, I know I've already said that) which needs to know and iTunes plays only a small part. If you manually add episodes to the series, then the Podcast feeders (the "process") will lose track of what's going on.

Often the previous episodes of a Podcast will still be available in iTunes and you simply click *Get All* to obtain the missing ones, but Tiesto's Club Life is a good example of one that doesn't do this. Tiesto removes previous episodes from the Podcast feed because the Dutch music business has enforced this, it's not his choice. The BBC in the UK is another example, they remove programmes after one week. (Yes, it's very annoying!) So that may be why the old episodes are missing.

Walter,
I have answered, as best as I can, although I'm sure you probably won't like the answer. Not much I can do about that I'm afraid.

...and TechnoCult,
am I correct in thinking that you've downloaded something that's available as a Podcast, but through something other than iTunes and then tried putting it into iTunes as a Podcast? That doesn't work. If so (and here's a useful tip anyway for those who don't know), if you can't find the Podcast in the iTunes Store but you have the Podcast feed URL (say from the producer's web site or another Podcast feeder), copy it and paste it into iTunes using *Advanced/Subscribe to Podcast* and sure enough, it will be in your library and new episodes will be added in the same way as anything subscribed to through the iTunes Store.

Phil

@ the fiend

I understand your comments about this being a process. I can see it's not merely a case of holding the podcast under iTunes' nose and expecting it to be recognized as a podcast; iTunes has to snuggle up to a server and engage in handshaking and such lurid digital interactions.

And yes, you understood my situation correctly. If it weren't for the fact that I actually wanted to listen to this program on the pod (rare for me) I wouldn't have involved iTunes. Foolishly I thought that adding non-protected material should be as easy as it is to rip CD's. Well, technically, it was. Classifying it properly... obviously not so easy.

Would be nice to have the option of just throwing something into a folder, but then this wouldn't be an Apple product. In any event, it's very nice to know I didn't miss something obvious. Thanks very kindly for taking the time to respond.

TC

Telling iTunes that a particular audio or video file that you've downloaded is a podcasts is, with iTunes 9, simply a matter of selecting the file, using *Get Info* and changing the *Media Kind* to Podcast on the Options tab.

Linking it to other podcasts from the same subscription is altogether tricker, though it can be done. Download and install Mp3Tag. Use it to explore the Extended tags of your other podcasts from the same series. As far as I can tell the ITUNESPODCASTURL field is used to link different podcast from the same subscription (as opposed to fields like Album & Album Artist etc.) and ITUNESPODCASTID determines the order. Everything else seems to be optional. Backup your files, tweak a few a tags then highlight the changed files in turn in iTunes with the image pane set to *Selected item*. This is marginally quicker for small numbers of files than using select, Get Info, OK to get iTunes to refresh its knowledge of the tags.

tt2

You can't edit the *Release Date* field in iTunes, but in MP3Tag/Extended Tags it corresponds to Year in the format yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ, e.g. 2008-02-20T09:10:52Z

tt2

When I import a podcast with a valid release date into iTunes, the entry is correctly sorted. I can remove it and insert it again and it works fine. If I change anything (title, lyrics, picture or whatever), itunes update the ID3 tags and replace the release date by the title (I have discovered this by using mp3tag editor). And the result is that the file is not correctly sorted.