Question

Photo of Bronson Witting

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Podcast files and iTunes

10

Is anyone using Content Channels to populate a Podcast in iTunes?  We started uploading .mp3 files via a content channel, but I don't think iTunes likes it because of there is no .mp3 extension.

Here is one that works (uploaded the file manually and pointed to it via the content channel):

<item>  
<title>He Speaks to You</title>  
<guid>http://rock.newpointe.org/Content/Assets/2015/Misunderstood/Part2/Misunderstood_part2.mp3</guid>  
<link>http://newpointe.org/message-archive/series/53</link>
<itunes:author>Brandon Conner</itunes:author>
<itunes:subtitle>Misunderstood</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>Misunderstood</itunes:summary>
<itunes:image href="http://rock.newpointe.org:80/GetImage.ashx?guid=ef4624ba-937f-4258-a6e9-7a9fe12e1e1b"/>
<pubDate>Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:00:00 -0500</pubDate>  
<enclosure url="http://rock.newpointe.org/Content/Assets/2015/Misunderstood/Part2/Misunderstood_part2.mp3" length="34721426" type="audio/mpeg"/>  
</item>

 

And here is one that we've uploaded the file via the content channel and it doesn't appear in iTunes:

<item>  
<title>He Is Trustworthy</title>  
<guid>http://rock.newpointe.org:80/GetFile.ashx?guid=3f72a5c1-5953-4e98-b1f7-dc0822959954</guid>  
<link>http://newpointe.org/message-archive/series/53</link>
<itunes:author>Dwight Mason</itunes:author>
<itunes:subtitle>Misunderstood</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>Misunderstood</itunes:summary>
<itunes:image href="http://rock.newpointe.org:80/GetImage.ashx?guid=72a8f95b-a005-4492-92ff-48ec6df166a9"/>
<pubDate>Sun, 18 Oct 2015 11:00:00 -0500</pubDate>  
<enclosure url="http://rock.newpointe.org:80/GetFile.ashx?guid=3f72a5c1-5953-4e98-b1f7-dc0822959954" length="43242360" type="audio/mpeg"/>  
</item>

 

If you've worked around this somehow, let me know!  Thanks 

  • Photo of Bronson Witting

    0

    Ok, so after some more research it looks like iTunes definately needs the .mp3 (or m4a, etc) extension on the file name for it to work. In order to do that, we can't use the GetFile.ashx handler and must repersent the full path to the file including the .mp3 extension.  The full filepath is accessible via Lava in 4.0 for the Azure provider and the File System provider.

    Per David Turner on Slack:

    Just an FYI, if you are interested in using the Azure storage provider, it's "path" property returns the actual file url, so you could do something like this...

    ```{% assign binaryFile = CurrentPerson | Attribute:'FileTest','object' %}
{{ binaryFile.Path }}
```

    That returns a value like...

    ```https://sparkrockstorage.blob.core.windows.net/defaultshare/d3c0f06796c842ea93954c3887c643d7_06%20A%20Thousand%20Years.m4a

     

    And the commit for the file system provider: https://github.com/SparkDevNetwork/Rock/commit/3e0266fcd2a42a9914b886ebb92972af5601bdac

     

    Hope this helps someone else!

     

  • Photo of Jay Greentree

    0

    Check out the Shoulder The Blouder Blog There is a post on setting up a podcast

    • Bronson Witting

      Bronson Witting

      Hey Jay - yeah, Tray's post on StB is awesome! In his post, he is just putting a link to the .mp3 file (that has already been uploaded somewhere) in the content channel. I am using the file upload in the content channel instead to upload it right there - and that's why I was having trouble. You need to get the file extension to give to iTunes, which you can now accomplish in v4 (see my answer) Thanks!

    • Photo of Marcie Rempel

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      I'm wondering if this is current information. I see an audio link option in the podcast message content channel. I can't just post the audio file in there? I have to upload the audio file to another service and then post the link? 

    • Photo of Jay Greentree

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      Hi Marcie,

       If you edit the content channel settings you can change the audio link text box to allow uploads but that would also mean you would need to edit the lava for that to work. If you need help I can reply shortly with detailed instructions.

    • Photo of Marcie Rempel

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      Any help would be appreciated. What is the best practice here? We currently do not have an audio podcast, just the ability for people to download the audio if they want.

    • Photo of Jay Greentree

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      In The rock dashboard go to Admin Tools > CMS Configuration > Content Channel > Podcast Message Click the orange Edit button.

      Under Item Attributes click the edit (pencil) icon next to Audio Link> then you should see a popup with several options. Change Field Type to Audio File.    Below that set the File Type to Media File

      Audio-Video Lava (via Upload)

    • Photo of Marcie Rempel

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      Thank you! So I've done this and clicked on your audio-video lava (via upload) and there was nothing there. Once I've changed the item attribute, do I need to do anything else?

    • Photo of Marcie Rempel

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      Jay - that link takes me to the Rock RMS home page. I copied the link and pasted it into another window and it did the same thing. I see that it's trying to take me somewhere else, but it just reverts back to https://www.rockrms.com/Home 

    • Photo of Jay Greentree

      0

      Sorry seems to be an issue with uploading lava files hopefully this one is working: Podcast-audio.lava.txt

    • Photo of Marcie Rempel

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      Thanks Jay. That worked. But now... where do I put that? I'm not a developer but if you tell me where to go and insert that lava, I can probably find it.


      Also, when I tried to upload our mp3 file, it said the file was too big. I see that Rock ships with a limited file size upload of 10 mb, but can that be changed and if so, where? Our audio files are all much larger than that. What are the best practices around audio file sizes?

      • Jay Greentree

        Jay Greentree

        Whoever maintains the server would need to upload the file to Themes/yourtheme/Assets/Lava/PodcastMessageDetail.lava They should save a backup of the current file for future use.