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So is this why I have weird problems fast-forwarding through some NPR podcasts? I'll find myself at the end of the podcast (as indicated by the time bar), but t

• colejohnson66 10y ago
  It's not Apple's fault; It's MP3 in general. Seeking in VBR MP3s is hard unless you decode the whole file and make note of the offsets for timing.
  • derefr 10y ago
    And decoding the whole file, in turn, would be easy in any other use-case (iTunes does this for "gapless playback" calculation) but podcasts are quite often streamed, and only once. Probably the simplest "clever hack", if Apple wanted to fix this on their own, would be for all the podcast feeds registered through iTMS to get their files retrieved by the iTMS servers once, chewed through to calculate this information, and then all the calculated "keyframe" offsets injected as an opaque extra data field for each feed item of the iTMS-served podcast feed, where the Podcasts app can pick it up.
• mwfunk 10y ago
  That article is a little misleading- it's actually about podcasters who want them to embrace/extend podcasting itself so that they (the podcasters, not the company) could better monetize podcasts. I can't imagine that the ways in which this might be done (DRM/subscriptions/user tracking/etc.) would appeal to HN readers, even if it would help the most popular podcasters make more money. IMO, benign neglect is the best possible situation for podcasting as a medium right now.
  • MBCook 10y ago
    What are you talking about? Marco's been trying to avoid that, as opposed to what the Stitchers of the world are doing.
    • jccalhoun 10y ago
      "That article" refers to the NYTimes article linked in the previous post not Marco's article. I was confused at first too.