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up vote 15 down vote favorite
7

I know about Astro Player. Any other apps that feature podcast managment and variable speed playback?

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would be very interested in this, they are often too slow going. – Jon Sep 13 '10 at 19:54
Speeding them up on the computer might be a very easy way to get this, but probably not what you're looking for. – Barfieldmv Sep 20 '10 at 12:14

8 Answers

up vote 6 down vote
+50

If you'll pardon the "non-answer"...

I wrote Taffy to act as a proxy between your Android device and the podcast provider. It speeds up the podcast before your podcatcher downloads it. There are several undesirable aspects to this approach (hosting not the least among them, nor inability to change playback speed during playback), but I use it every day to listen to several podcasts on my Droid at faster speeds.

Here's to it becoming obselete soon.

My Droid uses BeyondPod, pointed to Taffy podcast feeds, to automatically download all of my podcasts straight to my handset during pre-dawn hours. I wake every morning (and have for months -- Taffy's a pain to setup, but it's pretty smooth sailing from there) to no-hassle, "sped-up" podcasts ready for my commute.

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That sounds awesome. Do you have Taffy hosted anywhere where anyone else could make use of it? I'd think that a site hosting sped up podcast feeds could pay for itself. – Matt Casto Sep 21 '10 at 18:20
I don't have it hosted anywhere. You think a hosting company would welcome it? It's pretty CPU intensive (that could be tuned by the hosting company, I suppose). Then there's the business of the LAME encoder runtime dependency. Would that prevent my hosting it somewhere? These are questions I've never taken the time to answer. The biggest (darn near the only, IMHO) hassle with Taffy is getting it setup. It would be really nice if folks could skip that step. – lance Sep 21 '10 at 20:49
That is pretty great! – Matt Sep 22 '10 at 22:05
Looks like taffy has been obsoleted by Presto taffy.codeplex.com/discussions/272356 – Eugene Katz Dec 2 '12 at 13:59
Correct. I no longer develop Taffy. I've been using Presto quite happily for over a year! – lance Dec 3 '12 at 17:04
up vote 4 down vote

There is OSplay which claims to have variable speed playback with pitch control but it's $5 and it's still a pretty new app so I've been hesitant to try it.

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Osplay states in its description that it does not download podcasts. – Matt Casto Sep 20 '10 at 18:34
FWIW, I tried Osplay's limited trial, and it force closed during playing a podcast. – Matt Casto Sep 20 '10 at 19:18
@Matt Casto: I didn't realize downloading was a required function. In that case you'd be looking for a Podcatcher. I read "Podcast Manager" to mean the greater category that includes Podcatchers and player/playlist programs that you'd most likely use if got your podcasts by syncing with iTunes, DoubleTwist or manually transferring them. I am not suprised that OSplay turned out to be a flop, sorry for the bad recommendation. – Matt Sep 20 '10 at 21:14
No problem ... I'm just surprised at this point that there aren't any better podcast apps (catchers/players) at this point for Android. I've been using BeyondPod so far, and love the SmartPlay feature, but it doesn't offer variable speed. – Matt Casto Sep 21 '10 at 12:26
Yeah, I use BeyondPod too. It's good but it could be better. I'm starting to look more seriously into DoggCatcher but haven't made the jump yet (although it doesn't do variable speed either). Have you used DogCatcher? – Matt Sep 21 '10 at 18:09
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up vote 3 down vote

Today, Presto entered open beta. Presto provides a background Service which allows other applications to play MP3 and Ogg Vorbis files on your Android device at faster or slower speeds and/or faster or slower pitches, so that any application can have variable speed playback, as long as the end user has Presto installed. Developers must modify their app for Presto to be used while playing audio, and I've released open source code to make that almost a drop-in replacement for the Android MediaPlayer.

BeyondPod, DoggCatcher, and PodTrapper have all been working with me in the course of development, so should have a version that can use Presto

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up vote 1 down vote

Astro Player Beta will go up to 2x I think. Works pretty well.

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2  
Yes, but as the question mentioned, looking for a player other than Astro. Personally, I find Astro Player to be very lacking. – Matt Casto Sep 20 '10 at 12:23
6  
Yes, Astro Player is a great alternative to Astro Player, but have you considered trying Astro Player instead? – Matt Sep 20 '10 at 21:16
wait...you edited your question to add that in, right? no way i didn't see that the first time through...if so, sorry, i'm lame. – brian Sep 22 '10 at 23:48
up vote 0 down vote

BeyondPod Podcast Manager (free trial, $6.99 unlock) will play at 1.5 and 2 times speed, however you also need to purchase the Presto Sound Library Open Beta ($3.99) to enable that particular functionality.

Works well once you've done that, though.

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up vote -1 down vote

Have you tried doubleTwist? I have been enjoying this music app very much.

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4  
I downloaded doubleTwist and can't find any options for changing the playback speed. – Matt Casto Sep 17 '10 at 18:45
Oh, I see, you want to make it go by faster. – Dmitriy Likhten Sep 18 '10 at 2:21
up vote -1 down vote

Try Audio Speed Changer. Works on existing audio files.

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Does this integrate with Podcast apps in any way? – GAThrawn Nov 12 '12 at 18:28
up vote -2 down vote

as of today, there is no android application that supports podcast management and variable speed playback.

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Not so. The question links to Astro Player, which includes variable speed playback and podcast management. – Jon Galloway Sep 21 '10 at 0:23

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