iPod Reversing podcast order on iPod

Same question, but for TV shows. I don't think you can change it but I would like to be proved wrong.

I should mention i have the touch not the nano, but I have used the season and episode tags to number the episodes but they still appear on the touch with most recent added at the top. I suppose that makes sense when you are adding current shows, but not so good for older stuff that I'd like to watch in episode order.

Hi guys! I found this forum by searching for a cure for the exact same problem...!

I've got an 80GB iPod Classic, and I pretty much only use it for podcasts at the moment. Trouble is, I listen to so many that I tend to get a bit behind with them...

I've tried all sorts of stuff to get them to play in the proper order, and I eventually found 2 solutions:

1) Create a Smart Playlist in iTunes - I haven't tried this yet, but it should work! It looks like it could be a bit complicated tho...

2) Simply make an On-The-Go playlist! On the iPod, highlight the podcasts, in the order you want to listen to them, and for each one, hold down the center button until it flashes on the screen. Keep doing this for all the podcasts you want (even ones from different feeds, so you can mix the shows up) then when you've finished, go to Music>Playlists>On-The-Go and start playing them! (Note: Having read that back, I think I may have made that sound more difficult than it actually is... I'm not very good at explaining things!)

Hope this helps!

-=Doug=-

It is annoying, I aggree...

I don't know how long it would take to set up Smart Playlists to sort individual podcasts (you'd have to set up one for each podcast feed, with individual rules), but you could just set one up for all podcasts. This wouldn't work if you wanted all your shows to be kept separate, but if that didn't matter, you'd only have to set up a playlist once, just using "podcast" for the rule.

As for the "on-the-go" playlist, yes you'd have to go thru and put each podcast into the playlist every time you put more on your ipod, but it took me around a minute to put 16 shows from multiple feeds into a playlist. Not ideal, I know, but not too unbearable!

Anyway, you've got to look at this from Apple's point of view - obviously they don't expect anyone to do anything other than listen to their iPods, so you shouldn't have more than one episode of each on there at any time!

I do find that a minor irritation, but it's not that difficult to download earlier episodes. You can either click on "Get all", or expand the thread and just "get" the individual episodes you want.

As I was listening to podcasts on my old (non-iTunes) MP3 player, it was quite handy that iTunes didn't automatically download all the episodes I already have. Plus, if I enter a new feed, I might not want it to download all the earlier shows - I might want to just listen to the latest episode, to see if I like it or not...

Considering that I have been "anti-iPod" for several years (my current iPod was a christmas gift), I'm actually really impressed with it! I'm not a huge fan of iTunes, but it's better than the program I was using before : Sony's SonicStage... Not good at all...! The only problem I have found so far is the one about the podcasts being in reverse order.

Oops - didn't read you post properly... Sorry! My excuse is I had (and still have) a 3-year old son running around like mad!

Anyway, now I know what you're talking about, I agree! The only way I can think of doing that is to mark the new ones as "not new" and the older ones as "new" - providing you don't have iTunes set to delete "not new" podcasts from your computer, of course! Even so, when you sync your ipod, the shows that are copied over will still be in reverse order, so you'd still have to manually put them in an on-the-go playlist...

It would be good if you could set it so that when you sort the shows in iTunes by date/name/size/whatever they would appear on your ipod in the same order. Or maybe you could manually arrange them on your ipod while it's synced to your computer. That was one good thing about Sonys SonicStage - while the mp3 player was connected, you could rearrange any of the tracks to your hearts content, by simply dragging them around! Maybe Apple could consider this for a future software/firmware update?

Bump for this thread, trying to figure out how to do this.

I see your bump, and raise you another!

Creating a Smart Playlist worked for me, that'll have to do.

(I was doing it for tracks imported from a CD)

milo said:

Really, no option to load the earliest of each podcast?

Click to expand...

I agree, they should add this. I manually get around it by just using the checkbox to deselect the "too new" files, and make sure the iPod/iPhone is set to only load selected files. Then later I just re-enable them when I'm ready to load them.

Solution?

This was driving me crazy with podcasts on my shuffle. Here's the solution that worked for me. Within Podcasts in iTunes, sort your podcasts, not by Release Date, but by Track # in descending order. Then, copy them over to your iPod.

Agree that this is a bit daft, if you sort in iTunes by 'release date', then why does this preference not just sync across to your iPod.

Anyway, there is a way to play podcasts in order on the iPod, have a look at this link http://www.macworld.com/article/61460/2007/12/oldpodcasttonew.html.

Adam Carolla's podcast is one of those that is backwards. All the other one's I have download correctly.

Make a playlist to fix it.

When you go into the 'Podcast' menu on your ipod, press "play" instead of the center button.

stereosour said:

When you go into the 'Podcast' menu on your ipod, press "play" instead of the center button.

Click to expand...

And they play backwards.

Summary For Newcomers

Having got here from the Isle of Frustration, somewhere between Exasperation and Hope, I was pleased to get the info, but a bit fragmented, so I summarize...

There are two possibillities here:
For the old iPods, you have to use a playlist. If the playlist has the order or date in the track names (not talking release date or other metadata) then that playllist will play the podcasts in order If not, then you must order them in the playlist manually. A smart playlist will not always work.

For new iPods, simply follow the method given here

I have two 5th Gen iPods, one 30GB and one 80GB, the old 30 has to have playllists, the 80 can play in order.

The routine of adding podcasts to the playlists is pretty routine, though I have about 15 different streams in two languages.

Works for Shuffle 3G

Found a way to do this for my new Ipod Shuffle 3G.

The problem is that the play order is directed by the release date being the latest date first. I reversed the sorting order to earlies first this way:

This worked for me but it might damage the information you have in your IPOD, before proceeding I recommend saving all your files and data.

1. In the Summary tab, check "manually Manage Music"
2. Go to the list of podcast episodes. This is done NOT through the podcast tab. There is a triangle beside the name of your IPOD on the sidebar under devices. Click on this triangle and the click on "Podcasts". Then you'll have a list of the poscasts.
3. Click on the column header for "Release Date", the triangle beside this column header should change to pointing up.
4. In the Summary tab, UN-check "manually Manage Music".

Done.

I'm testing it at this moment, I hope it stays this way.

Enjoy!