Categories for Music and Podcasts
As many of you noticed the updated Music Player in S60 Feature Pack 1 lists Music and Podcasts separately. Some of the S60 devices with the new Music Player include N82, N95, N95 8GB, and N81. Now you may be wondering what’s the difference between Music and Podcasts, and how does the Music Player know what is a Song and what is a Podcast episode?
The main difference between Music and Podcasts is that audio in the Podcasts section will automatically save the place of where you last listened. It works like this, let’s say you have a 30 minute train commute to work and you have an hour long episode of TWiT that you want to listen to. You start listening to TWiT when you leave your home and head for work, when you reach your work after listening for 30 minutes you Stop playing the Podcast episode. When the playback is Stopped the position where it was playing is saved. Then when you start playing the same episode of TWiT again on your commute back home it will start playing from where you left off. The position will also be saved if you are playing a Podcast and then skip forward to another episode. The benefit of this feature of course is that when you continue listening to a Podcast you already partially listened to, there is no need to fast forward through the stuff you already heard. If you want to start from the beginning of the episode again simply start playing it then press Left on the keypad, this will start playing the episode from the beginning and remove the previously Saved position. Music Tracks listed in the Music category will not save the last played position when music playback is stopped.
So now that you know the difference between the Music and Podcasts section how does the Music Player know what’s a Podcast episode and what’s a Music Track?
There are 2 ways that audio is categorized automatically as being a Podcast:
1. The audio file has Podcast as the Genre in it’s meta data.
2. The audio file is saved in the Podcasts directory on the Phone Memory or Memory Card.
If you use the S60 Podcasting application to download an audio episode, most audio files will be saved in the Podcast/Sounds/ directory and thus will automatically be categorized as a Podcast.
Tip: If you find a Podcast has been listed in the Music category you can move it under the Podcast category in order to use the Last Played Position feature. Highlight the Title of the track and press Options -> Song details. Scroll down to the bottom where the last detail says Library: Music. Change that from Music to Podcast and then confirm the move. The audio file will then be moved into the Podcast section. To move a Music track from Podcasts to Music view the Episode details then select Music as the Library instead of Podcasts.
that’s nice, but what about the even more important separation of MP3 ringtones?
i had to “hide” my whole ringtones folder on the memory card to prevent the player to use them by accident during a shuffle-playback for example!
I have an N95-3 and have never seen the music player separate my podcasts from the rest of my music. In fact, that’s my #1 gripe with the music player app.
I’ll leave my iPod at home a lot more often when my N95-3’s music player gets the update (if it ever does…and I will be VERY disappointed if it doesn’t)
I have an E90, and see no evidence of Podcasts remembering where they are on my copy of FP1. Is there a way of getting the updated Music player?
What about the “ghost” entries in the podcast category that are plaguing myself and others? How do we get rid of them?
Great to hear that the podcasts save the last playing position. I already wondered why the player sometimes saves it and sometimes forgets it - now I know the reason. Quite confusing, actually.
However, what is the reason why the music player doesn’t simply save the last playing position for mp3s as well?
Many dedicated mp3 players do, and it would make listening to audio books so much easier! In fact, when I have been searching for other music player applications for S60, this has mostly only been because every other player I know saves the position, which is sooo much more useful and comfortable. I always have to return to the Nokia music player sooner or later because of the remote control and its lower battery usage, though.
By the way - an option to navigate by the directories would be very useful as well, as id3 tags are quite often messed up.
N95-1, One possible solution is in order to avoid playing Ringtones accidentally you can create a Playlist of all of your Music that you want to listen to, leaving the Ringtones out, then play that Playlist and put it on Shuffle.
MBeat, I don’t have any N95-3’s that I can check if the feature is available. The screenshot in my blog post is what the Music Player will look like if you have the feature. What firmware does your N95-3 have on it? (You can press *#0000# at the Call screen.) I’ll try to ask around if the Music Player will be updated in a coming N95-3 firmware.
Julie, Unfortunately I don’t have an E90 to check with .. but Carol does! It might be that the updated Music Player was glanced over from the E90 in favor of more Enterprise focussed applications and features. I’ll try mailing Carol to ask if she knows if the E90 has the save playback position feature.
Neil, Sorry I don’t know of any ghost entries in the Podcast category. What device and what firmware are you running? Have you tried deleting the entry to get rid of it?
Andreas Jakl, The save last played position feature was designed to solve the problem of, when you play a long audio file then Stop it or exit Music Player (for whatever reason) you no longer have to fast forward to get back to where you left off. Podcasts especially tend to be long audio files, I’ve listened to a few that were almost 2 hours long. In this situation the feature becomes very useful. So now when you continue listening to a Podcast you already partially listened to, there is no need to fast forward through the stuff you already heard. While Music files tend to be much shorter than Podcasts, as short as 16 seconds long for an intro and up to 7 or 8 minutes for a long rock ballad. But when a person listens to a Song usually they want to hear it from the start of it, not from where they left of.
Sorry if that was a bit of a long explanation but I wanted to try and make it clear why this feature especially applies itself to Podcasts that usually are longer audio files.
As for the problem you’re having with audio books, I also enjoy listening to audio books on my N82. I love listening to works from the author, Scott Sigler, he reads his books and distributes them for free before they are available in paperback form. But it sounds like the audio books you’re listening to are showing up in your Music Library instead of your Podcast library.
A quick way to move them under the Podcasts library is to save them in the Podcasts Directory on your Memory Card. Then the audio book will be listed in the Podcasts section and the save last played location feature can be used. Another alternative is to move each of the Audio Book MP3s to the Podcasts Library by following the steps in the Tip at the bottom of my blog post.
I hope that helps you out, if there’s something confusing that you’re not sure about then please ask.
Kevin, thanks for your detailed response! If the automated separation works fine in most cases, it does make sense not to save the last playing position for music. I’ll certainly try to put my audio books into the podcast directory!
Of course, it’d still be nice to have a setting to define whether the player saves the last position in its music mode, as I think most won’t be aware of the internal differentiation between music / podcasts or how to upload something to the podcasts directory. But that’d be one more setting, something that you’d most likely want to prevent as well… Hmm. Difficult. Anyway, thanks a lot!
Thanks Kevin. I’ve found a tool to post music to your blog from N95 (in addition to text, photos and videos) The application is Wavelog, available from http://www.telewaving.mobi
Would there be any way to add this music player to the N91 8GB? You can use the podcasting application on this phone but it doesn’t remember the last position.
Nick, Sorry but the Save Last Position Played feature can’t be added by a downloadable application. A newer version of Music Player would need to be put into the firmware in order for it to be available. I’m not sure if the most recent N91 8GB firmware has the feature or not, you could try checking for a firmware update with Nokia Software Updater.
I also use an E90 - a lot - and miss the feature of saved Podcast sessions. Can you please push hard for the E90 team to get this included in the next update - along with Flash 3 support in the browser like the N-95 8GB.
It is a bit fustrating to feel the E-series are being deliberately crippled on the multimedia side compared to the top N-series. It is the same OS, and the price of the E90 is certainly high enough to justify these features.
Regards
Michael
The “last played position” does not work on my N95 8GB. I tried episodes in two different podcasts. I have firmware version 15.0.15 and the podcasting app is version 1.10.1
The “last played position” does not work on my N95 8GB. I tried episodes in two different podcasts. I have firmware version 15.0.15 and the podcasting app is version 1.10.1
Great to hear that the podcasts save the last playing position.
Nice information! I like your post very much.. very interesting. I like your tips..Nice job!
Hi,
Is there any way to somehow hide some of the mp3’s? The reason I’m asking is actually different than the one already discussed in the forum: I store a fair amount of mp3’s and is quite annoying going through the very long list whenever selecting the ring tones (phone, alarms, etc). I tried selecting and moving them to a different folder and changing the folder attributes to “hidden” but it does not help. Any feed back would be appreciated. Thanks
I’ve tried the following and none have given me a Podcasts Music Library on my Nokia 6120 Classic (which runs Symbian S60 FP1 - latest firmware).
* Create a Podcasts folder on the memory card and fill with audio
* Create a Sounds\Podcasts folder and fill with audio
* Use PC Suite to transfer music, set Genre to “Books -> Spoken Word”
Pause/Resume is a critical function for me as I listen to audiobooks daily and they have sections up to 10 hours. Fast forwarding to the correct location is a major pain in the backside.
Maelstrm, I agree it is a pain to have to fast forward to resume the place you left off when listening to a podcast. The Podcasts/Music Categories are built into the Music Player application by default. I’m not familiar with the 6120 mobile but it sounds like it does not have support for the resume function that was designed to improve Podcast listening.
Kevin, do not take it personally, but it is also a pain to read about the software features which one would need very much, but which will never be introduced in his/her handset. This is a strange policy of Nokia. Why not allow users to install a new version of native applications to their phones ? I personally have Nokia E51, which basically meets my needs. At least it did, before I started to listen to podcasts quite intensively. Now I am looking for better software for playing podcasts (mp3, aac etc.) BUT, probably I will bump into another problem : How to make Nokia Podcasting application to run this new, better player, instead of the old one ? Aghhhhrrr….
Pawel, I understand your frustration. The E51 was designed as a compact enterprise focussed mobile in both hardware and software. This basically means it is focussed on providing enterprise solutions for E-mail and Office document compatibilities, along with VoIP compatibility.
I haven’t used the E51 myself, but I have used the E71 and it does include support for saving the position where a Podcast was stopped. The Music Player application is actually what takes care of saving the position where an audio file categorized as Podcast was stopped. Unfortunately there isn’t a way to install different versions of the Music Player on different devices.