Ziepod is a portable software, what does that mean?

It means that it is not depenent on any system-provided storage systems and handles all database related activities on its own. Hence it manages all information on its own and in its own installation folder. By doing this, it becomes independent of where its installation folder is and this means that you can move it into any place on your computer or even onto flash disks so that you can use it in another computer.

However please keep in mind that if you like to re-place its installation folder, make sure that you first close Ziepod. Another note is that if you are using Ziepod on flash disk make sure that your 'Base Download Folder' is also on that flash disk.

Can Ziepod handle both RSS and ATOM feeds?

Yes, Ziepod can process all versions of RSS and ATOM feeds.

Can I use Ziepod as a news aggregator?

Ziepod can be considered as a news aggregators since it can process RSS and ATOM feeds. However, in general, news aggregators provide more functionality to maintain retrieved content. This is mostly because you subscribe to more feeds(about 100 or higher) and news feeds generaly publish more posts a day. News aggregators are crafted for such high load.

In truth, Ziepod is not originally designed to be a news aggregator. Since the number of podcasts and their publication load is not as high as news feeds, Ziepod can handle podcasts very well.

Nevertheless, you can still use Ziepod for news feeds, unless you subscribe to over 200 feeds or so. Otherwise you may feel lost while maintaining that much post load. If you are looking for a new aggregator, check out feature-rich Newzie, which is another project of ours.

Can you give any advice on how to cope with high publication load?

Delete posts after you read them and keep Ziepod in minimized mode, if you are not using it so that Popup Notifier can become active and show those new posts as soon as they are retrieved. Use Post Sweeper to remove unnecessary posts.

If I copy/move Ziepod Installation Folder under another folder, does Ziepod still run?

Starting with version 0.99.9, Ziepod became portable. In other words, you can move its installation folder anywhere on your computer or even onto a flash disk and use it without any problem.

However if you have a Ziepod below version 0.99.9, then moving its installation folder which is by default at 'C:\Program Files\Ziepod' corrupts certain data and eventually disables Ziepod. We don't recommend any action.

I have a slow internet connection, can I stream?

Streaming means listening to audio files or watching video files without having to download them. Sorry to say but if you have a slow internet connection, you nay not be able to make use of this feature.

The idea behind streaming is that it downloads and plays the file at the same time. When download speed is not enough to keep the player playing, you may experience pauses while streaming, which becomes annoying.

In case of streaming video files, since playing video eats more bandwidth, even though you don't experience pauses while streaming audio content, you can experience those pauses while streaming video files.

All in all if your connection is slow, please first download them and then play.

Can I install Ziepod for each user in my Windows machine?

Yes you can, unless you are using Ziepod with version older than 0.99.9. As Ziepod became *portable* starting with the version 0.99.9, it becomes independent of system-provided storage systems. However previous version of Ziepod didn't have that luxury and cannot be installed for each user account on one Windows machine.

There are only 5 latest episodes are shown in the 'Latest' segment of the Home tab, why not all?

If you are using Ziepod, then sorry to say but this is something that you have to live with. However if you have Ziepod+, then you can use 'Highlights' feature and get all episodes in html-based reports like you see in the 'Latest' segment of the Home tab. This is one of the features that makes Ziepod+ a complete solution for your needs.

After each download or detecing a new episode strange sounding noise comes out, how to disable it?

In order to disable notification sounds, you need to open up your Preferences by using CTRL+P key combination and then switch to the tab named 'Notifiers'. Inside that tab, you will see a panel from where you can choose notification sounds for various notification cases. You can either choose different sounds to play or disable it by first choosing the notification case from combobox and then uncheck the box. Then click 'OK' to activate changes.

Can I use Ziepod with my Sansa Express?

Yes, in order to do that you should be able to change its mode to MSC mode so that you can use it as a regular flash drive. Here is one [ website ] that explains how to change default MTP mode to MSC mode. Thanks Cate for the link. And please feel free to share your experience on how to run Ziepod along with your non-iPod MP3 player.

What is codec? Do I need to use them to watch or listen to podcasts?

Codec (COder/DECoder) is some kind of technology that is used for compressing and decompressing data such as audio (MP3) or video (MPEG). In short, codecs work inside players(like Windows Media Player) as a plug-in, and help you listen to audio files and watch video files.

Since audio and video files can be in different formats (such as AVI, MPG, MOV), your player may not be able to play certain files. That is, it cannot find needed codec in your system.

In order to play certian file types with your player, you need to install necessary codecs. Check following help topics to learn more about codecs.

Codecs

Introduction to Media Formats

How to watch videos in different formats?

Some MP3 files dont run with Ziepod but with WMP. Why?

Unfortunately sometimes MP3 files are coded with different encoder. Ziepod uses DirectShow Library as Windows Media Player does. However, we believe that is a bug in DirectShow API (We'd like you to contact us if you know anything about this)

Can I play playlist(such as .M3U, .PLS files) via Ziepod?

Sorry to say but at this current versions of Ziepod and Ziepod+, you are unable to play playlist.

Can I use media player other than Ziepod to play podcasts?

Yes you can use it. To do so, just make a right click on any podcast episode and choose "play(ext)" menu option. Following that, Ziepod directs that episode to default player for that type of episodes.

Note that podcast episodes can be in any format other than MP3, such as in M4V. And if you don't set default player for specific type of media files like M4V, then choosing "play(ext)" does nothing. To remedy this, you need to go to the preferences settings of your media player and make sure that it automatically handles those type of media files so that you can direct them from inside Ziepod.

What is 'Base Download Folder'?

'Base Download Folder' is used to keep download folders for each subscribed podcast() and folder() that have downloaded episodes inside.By default, 'Base Downlaod Folder' is located under 'My Documents' folder of yours.

When an episode inside a podcast is downloaded, Ziepod automatically creates a download folder for that podcast under 'Base Download Folder' and put that downloaded file into that folder. By browsing those folders, you can easily reach downloaded files and transfer them into another place or play them with your defaul media player, if you like.

When I customize 'Base Download Folder', what happens?

Customization of 'Base Download Folder' means moving all folders located under base folder into given folder.

When you change 'Base Download Folder', Ziepod travers all podcasts and folders inside Ziepod and moves those files that have corresponding episodes(, ) inside Ziepod.

For example, if you delete episode inside Ziepod but not its downloaded file, than that file will not be moved in this customization process. Therefore, after this process there can be files and folders left inside old base folder.

Sometimes Ziepod failed to apply automated ID3 tag overwrite rules, why?

Ziepod uses id3lib library to provide ID3 tag editing support. However, this library doesn't support Unicode-based entries. This occurs when the name of the file or your download base folder includes non-latin characters. When this happens, id3lib library fails to open the downloaded file and cannot overwrite them. To remedy this, make sure that your download base folder does not include any non-latin characters. In case of name of the files, if you are using 'Replace filename with its associated post title' feature, make sure that titles do not include such non-latin characters. Otherwise do not use this feature for specific podcasts. If you encounter this problem even though there is no non-latin character, please report us the incident by providing us samples so that we can track down that.

Sometimes Ziepod shows blank page in the Home tab, why?

This can happen while loading components of the page and if you wait a couple of more seconds you should be able to see the page. This happens because of the fact that sometimes subscriptions publish content video or audio files with embedded players in posts and loading that player may take time based on your connection speed. Since there is no indication of any loading status line you may think that Ziepod freezes but give a couple of more seconds.

Sometimes when I watch video episodes, Ziepod waits too much even freezes, why?

Even your connection speed is high, you may experience this because Ziepod may try to load all media file first based on the type of that media file--especially video files--and then start to play. To test it, you may try to open that media file with another media player on your computer and see how that performs. For these cases, we strongly recommend you to download those files first and play it after that.

There are items in my download list and I cannot delete them

To remedy this, just go to your Ziepod installation path. Under 'ZiepodUser' folder, delete the file named "Activities.zdb", which holds list of downloads. Before deleting it, make sure that you only leave those non-deletable items in your download list and then close Ziepod.

Ziepod didn't save my playlist for the next run, even though "Auto-clear playlist" setting is off

This may happen very rarely because of the fact that file responsible for holding your playlist is got corrupted. To remedy this case, close your Ziepod and go to the folder where you installed it. Then under 'ZiepodUser' folder, delete the file named "Playlist.zdb". Now Ziepod should be able to remember your playlist for the next run.

When I try to download any file, download immediately switches to 'paused' state, why and how can I remedy this?

When Ziepod cannot reach to the 'Base Download Directory', it results in that kind of situtation because it cannot starts to save downloaded file onto your harddrive and pauses automatically. Lack of warning message makes you think that Ziepod is not able to download it.

To remedy this situation, you need to assign a proper download folder and make sure that it exists on your harddrive. You may need to create that folder on your own, if it does not exists. After making sure, you can start up Ziepod and download episodes. If still you can't, then we like you to contact us.

Ziepod terminates at the start up and it says that it can't find WMCreateReader in wmvcore.dll. How can I solve this problem?

All you have to do is to install the latest Windows Media Player, or at least version 9 (WMP9). This installation should update your system and provides necessary functions for Ziepod.