Devon Gibbons Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 Is it possible to link a podcast to start at a certain time? Like on YouTube: "Get video URL at current time" ...."Get podcast URL at current time"? What do you call this type of linking? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eh Steve Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 TLDR: No, time stamps are a function of the player and not of the file itself. Some FDR podcasts are time stamped, most are not. Typically what I do in this situation is I'll tell a friend "listen at minute XYZ for the part I wanted to share with you". Here is a longer explanation of how I figured this all out: Some of the podcasts come with that automatically done in the feed for you to click on. For example: http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/2930/wage-fixing-and-collusion-listener-mailbag-questions-answered This one has the questions timestamped. Unfortunately it looks like (I just dug into the data to learn this ) that the podcasts which are timestamps are explicitly tagged within the code with "timestamplinks". So in the code it has a function called skipto.(stamp.timestamp) Unfortunately....when you link a youtube video it has a function where it will link with minute and second in the link. With podcasts we do not currently have this option as the timestamps are hardcoded into the player . This is a function of the player itself and not of the audio or video file itself. If the video is on youtube you can share it using the youtube player option to do this. But currently with audio files you'll have to rely on the good graces of the tech team to timestamp audio. I suspect it would be easiest to just have people go to a specific minute. If you want to create and use your own timestamps on a regular basis I'd be happy to help you figure out how best to do that. Edit: Theoretically you might be able to add some function into the audio player of your browser to do this. I currently can't figure one out or even figure out the name of the audio player my browser uses. So possibly someone will have a "yes! here is how!" answer. But right now I don't see how within a standard browser setup. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Beal Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 This is actually surprisingly difficult, from what I've read. It would require completely rewriting how the page works, possibly changing how audio files are served, and a bunch of other details I'm not smart enough to understand. People who do this sort of thing are incredibly skilled developers and are using systems that are beyond the little PHP and nginx platform FDRPodcasts is served from. That's not to say that it's impossible, but as for building it as a feature into FDRPodcasts, that's not going to happen. At least, not by me. Even if I could build that, it's going to take more time than I have to spare. It's a matter of building a backend that can handle streaming concurrently (as a compiled executable) and a CDN which supports byte range requests. Then you have to build front end that supports all your target browsers which can handle all that's involved in that. All those elements are missing. As far as I know MaxCDN (the CDN the podcasts are hosted on) is not setup to stream, accept byte range requests. Anywhere you get the feed from (e.x. iTunes) requires you to start the download from the beginning,... unless they've downloaded it to their own servers and are doing something fancy. The front end library for handling audio can't start anywhere but the beginning. PHP is not a language that can handle these kinds of requests in a way which is performant. We've got everything working against us in terms of building this as a feature. Maybe someone knows how to get MaxCDN to do this, works in compiled languages and the front end is easier than I think it will be. Then they can compete with FDRPodcasts and maybe win. The ajax ready feeds are there for anyone to use. Anybody who wants to build an interface like the one at FDRPodcasts has everything they need already, short of documentation. Competition makes things better for everyone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Beal Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 So, turns out I was totally wrong, haha. The CDN is all that's needed for these types of requests, and the CDN already used supports this. I would just have replace the javascript library that handles playing audio and write my own. But this might not be supported in all the target browsers, and it would take a good amount of work. I'll you know if I get it worked out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatrickC Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 This is actually surprisingly difficult, from what I've read. It would require completely rewriting how the page works, possibly changing how audio files are served, and a bunch of other details I'm not smart enough to understand. People who do this sort of thing are incredibly skilled developers and are using systems that are beyond the little PHP and nginx platform FDRPodcasts is served from. That's not to say that it's impossible, but as for building it as a feature into FDRPodcasts, that's not going to happen. At least, not by me. Even if I could build that, it's going to take more time than I have to spare. It's a matter of building a backend that can handle streaming concurrently (as a compiled executable) and a CDN which supports byte range requests. Then you have to build front end that supports all your target browsers which can handle all that's involved in that. All those elements are missing. As far as I know MaxCDN (the CDN the podcasts are hosted on) is not setup to stream, accept byte range requests. Anywhere you get the feed from (e.x. iTunes) requires you to start the download from the beginning,... unless they've downloaded it to their own servers and are doing something fancy. The front end library for handling audio can't start anywhere but the beginning. PHP is not a language that can handle these kinds of requests in a way which is performant. We've got everything working against us in terms of building this as a feature. Maybe someone knows how to get MaxCDN to do this, works in compiled languages and the front end is easier than I think it will be. Then they can compete with FDRPodcasts and maybe win. The ajax ready feeds are there for anyone to use. Anybody who wants to build an interface like the one at FDRPodcasts has everything they need already, short of documentation. Competition makes things better for everyone I'm gonna take your word for it. I'm already blown away by yours and James current creation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon Gibbons Posted May 27, 2015 Author Share Posted May 27, 2015 So, turns out I was totally wrong, haha. The CDN is all that's needed for these types of requests, and the CDN already used supports this. I would just have replace the javascript library that handles playing audio and write my own. But this might not be supported in all the target browsers, and it would take a good amount of work. I'll you know if I get it worked out. I think it would be really useful to everyone. Thanks for looking into the issue more and making the correction. It's cool to know it's possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesP Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 So, turns out I was totally wrong, haha. The CDN is all that's needed for these types of requests, and the CDN already used supports this. I would just have replace the javascript library that handles playing audio and write my own. But this might not be supported in all the target browsers, and it would take a good amount of work. I'll you know if I get it worked out. EOL IE!!! Let me know if/when you are ready to test/deploy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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