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Be a Better Podcaster – Blog

Be a Better Podcaster Blog: Automating Your Podcast Workflow Part 2

by Daniel M. Clark+ on March 31, 2011 · 2 comments

Be a Better Podcaster - Blog

Yesterday, I posted Part 1 of the podcasting automation process I’m using. Today, it’s on to Part 2. Remember, this tutorial is for Mac users (or Linux, I suppose) – it won’t port to Windows. I may decide to rewrite the whole thing in PHP down the road, but for now, this was done using the Bash shell on a Unix-based system.

First, a short recap…

The workflow picks up after the final editing and exporting to MP3 of the podcast episode. The automation includes the following steps:

  1. Set the ID3 tags
  2. FTP the episode to the remote server
  3. Archive the MP3 to a local folder and an attached Drobo unit
  4. Create a WordPress post for the show notes

Yesterday’s post created set up all the variables needed. Today I’ll cover the first three things on the list, tomorrow I’ll finish up with a PHP script that handles the posting to WordPress.

Automatically Setting ID3 Tags on the Command Line

There is no way to use the command line to set ID3 tags without a third-party tool or library. There is currently only one tool that will allow you to set every conceivable tag via the command line, and that’s ID3 Editor. I’d been using this tool in its GUI form for a long time, but the command line interface is awesome as well. Unfortunately, documentation about this command line use is very, very rare. First, the code: [click to continue…]

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Be a Better Podcaster Blog: Automating Your Podcast Workflow

by Daniel M. Clark+ on March 30, 2011 · 1 comment

Be a Better Podcaster - Blog

A few days ago I set out on a quest to automate my podcasting workflow. Part of the reason why shows don’t get posted in a timely manner is the mundane process that has to take place for each one after I press the Stop button. Previous to the automation that I successfully completed (well, mostly completed, more on that in a little bit), my workflow was this:

  1. Record the show.
  2. Drag the WAV file from the recorder to my desktop.
  3. Edit the file in Adobe Audition (make any content edits, and add a Hard Limiter filter).
  4. Export as MP3.
  5. Launch ID3 Editor and set the ID3 tags.
  6. Launch Cyberduck, connect to the FTP server (GeekCast for the tech shows, Libsyn for the others) and upload the file.
  7. Go to Safari, log into QAQN, and create a new post. Type out the show notes. Set the category, title, Pretty Link, podcast episode and excerpt.
  8. Clean up. Remove the WAV from the desktop, archive the MP3 file to a local folder as well as my Drobo unit. Close down the running programs that I won’t need ’til next time.

That’s quite a list – and while the show notes take the most time, the rest of it really adds up. It can take 30 minutes or more to do the rest, upwards of 45 minutes or an hour to complete the entire process.

I have somewhat of a programming background. I used to write and edit Unix shell scripts when I was working at NASA (nothing noteworthy, but I enjoyed it), and I learned C++ when I went to school for video game design years ago. Every now and then, I get myself into a situation where I’ve got some tasks that get repetitive, and my first instinct is to automate them programatically. So, check that list again… what things do I absolutely have to do manually?

If you said numbers 1-3 and part of number 7 (the show notes), that’s what I came up with, too. Clearly, the show itself has to be manual, getting the file off the recorder has to be, and editing needs to be. Everything else?

Podcast Automation to the Rescue – How I Did It

Being on a Mac, I have access to Unix shell scripting, which is great. I know it fairly well, but it’s been 10 years since I used it on a regular basis. I also have access to Automator, which I know a bit, and AppleScript, which I don’t know at all. I know some PHP, so that could potentially be part of this, too.

I made a list of my workflow tasks (seen above) and identified specific items that would be addressed individually. Then I set about deciding how to attack each one. After some trial and error (there was a lot of that over the past five days), I decided to do everything in a Bash script. Later, I ended up incorporating PHP, which I’ll explain shortly. I used TextWrangler to write the script because executing the script is built into that program, which is nice.

Let’s start with the setup. [click to continue…]

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