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Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Fri May 08, 2009 6:00 pm
by krkeegan
So I downloaded podtrapper near the end of march. I like it a lot, but I really only listen to one podcast a day, so I wasn't sure if i really needed to spend $10 to accomplish this.

Towards the end of my trial period Viigo announced that they would be finally releasing their podcast feature in early May. I let my trial expire on podtrapper and patiently waited for Viigo.

Well I finally tried it yesterday. Long story short, I just purchased podtrapper.

For those who are interested here is my comparison of features.

Viigo-
Free. That is really the only feature in Viigo which is not in podtrapper.

Podtrapper-
Schedule downloads of podcasts
Resume podcasts
Make a playlist of podcasts
Handle phone calls during playback properly
(There are many more, but these are the deal breakers for me)

Viigo has a few major problems. First navigating to the podcast takes a minute. Second and the most crucial, viigo cannot download a podcast. It sounds really cool to be able to stream a podcast, but in reality it just doesnt work well. I have 3g on my bold and the stream starts promptly and sounds fine, but if there is any glitch in the connection, which is not unheard of driving down a freeway, the podcast often times out. And then the killer is that because the podcast is streamed, Viigo has no way to resume where you left off. Finally, Viigo appears to end a podcast if you answer a phone call.

The Viigo podcast function is really nothing more than viewing a podcast in your browser. From the bold browser I can view the contents of a podcast and then select "get audio" this gives me the option to open or save the audio. If I open it I get the same exact features as viigo. Why not save the memory and just add a bookmark to my browser. Plus the browser allows me to save the podcast to the SD card, Viigo does not.

Thanks for the hard work. Podtrapper is definitely the winner, I don't know why I ever doubted you.

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Sat May 09, 2009 11:03 am
by marwatk
:)

I was a little worried about what Viigo would end up implementing, but in the end they ended up pursuing the route I assumed they would, basically treating a podcast as a link in a traditional RSS feed. Some people in the crackberry forums have said that it seems to work for any size podcast, so they may be doing some trickery there, but I haven't looked into whether that's the case or not.

But other than the size issue, yeah, it's basically the same as bookmarking the feed in your BB browser, other than it gives you an indication of how many new episodes there are.

I think that Viigo may facilitate very casual (and stationary) podcast listeners, but as you noted, streaming really isn't viable for long-format content (at least on a mobile device). But, free is definitely a good price :)

I have some feelers out to ad networks in the hopes of making an ad-supported version of PodTrapper (there will always be the paid no-ad version), but so far I haven't had any luck there. (It seems you need to be a startup with venture funding but no real income in order to work with any of these people. It seems like if you're actually making money they won't talk to you, heh). I have no clue how Viigo, for example, makes money (if they even do make any money).

Any way, I'm sure Viigo's functionality will impact me in the low end, but for anyone that wants podcasts as more than a after thought I still think PodTrapper is the way to go.

-Marcus

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 5:26 am
by Cigarjockey
The big let down I feel in Viigo, you cannot add any of your own podcast that they don't list.
In other words there isn't a single podcast which I use on Podtrapper which is avaiable on Viigo.

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 8:04 am
by diffused
I'll admit it. I downloaded Viigo over the weekend. By Sunday it was deleted for all your same reasons. The only thing I like is the 'all-in-one' app idea.

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 8:02 pm
by kaediil
I have both PodTrapper that I bought, Viigo and I just grabbed something called MediaFly. Media Fly and Viigo both only stream so have all the issues listed here - mainly the pause and restart does not work. On the other hand for RSS feed reading I use Viigo probably 10-15 times a day. That is probably my most used app, but not for podcasts.

MediaFly and Viigo do have one small feature that is nice- the ability to add podcasts through their web sites and have them available on the device since you are streaming through their sites. A feature I might like for PodTrapper is the ability to add and edit my podcasts directly through my computer when my BB was connected to the computer - now maybe I can with the desktop downloader?

The other thing that I have been struggling with is that I have some feeds on Viigo that I listen to infrequently. So, rather then downloading them over my wireless connection and then never listening to them I use Viigo - in the end my "unlimited" data plan is really only 5 gigs a month. Usually, this is for times when I am bored and stuck sitting somewhere so I am stationary and don't see network issues.

-frank

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 5:23 pm
by marwatk
Hi Frank,

I use viigo a ton for my RSS reading as well. It's really good for that.

I'm toying with various mechanisms for managing your podcast subscriptions from your computer, but for me I haven't found anything easier than emailing the url to myself. What I want to do is make is so that if the subject of an email is 'Podtrapper' or similar, that PodTrapper automagically picks those up out of the inbox. Would that work?

I have a few podcasts I only listen to rarely as well, I set them to download zero episodes by default, so I can still manage them in PodTrapper. If I want to listen to one i start the download and then hit space to run it in stream mode (podtrapper keeps downloading it, but you can listen as it does so).

Hope this helps, let me know if I misinterpreted anything.

-Marcus

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:20 pm
by kaediil
The email would work just as well and actually better since I would not need my BB connected to my computer at the time. Especially if I could put one URL per line, that would be perfect and is kinda how Facebook seems to work too.

Oh and the listen while streaming feature I never tried so did not know about, very cool, thanks!

-frank

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:34 pm
by marwatk
Yep, you can paste as many as you want in there separated by whitespace (space, newline, tab, etc).

-Marcus

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 3:07 pm
by mtech
marwatk wrote:I'm toying with various mechanisms for managing your podcast subscriptions from your computer, but for me I haven't found anything easier than emailing the url to myself. What I want to do is make is so that if the subject of an email is 'Podtrapper' or similar, that PodTrapper automagically picks those up out of the inbox. Would that work?


This is brilliant. Email is great. I use the PT search feature on my BB, and it is more than sufficient. But email option would be slick. (As it stands now, I send myself an email with a bunch of lines and then paste it into PT. A designated email criteria for auto-adding would make it even easier. Then we can make a browser script (GreaseMonkey for FF) where you can highlight a podcast URL and then auto-email it from there.

That said, PT is great as it is. Really great.

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:11 am
by FreydNot
Is there any progress on this front?

Re: Podtrapper and Viigo Comparison

New postPosted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 6:53 pm
by marwatk
No, I actually haven't attempted it yet. (Trying to work on the features by order of votes in the feature voter). I'll see about getting this one in there, though.

-Marcus