Added to Podcast Client Software list: Carl Franklin has announced an "alpha" version of PwopCatcher, a free podcast downloader, player and manager application for Windows.
PwopCatcher supports enclosures of any kind, and can download podcasts distributed via BitTorrent.
The alpha version only has download and subscription features. Plans for future versions include a Player/Dashboard, and a podcast manager.
Features:
Subscribe to RSS feeds that contain enclosures (of any kind).
Each feed’s enclosures can be downloaded to a unique folder, or a common folder.
Each feed can have a different interval (minutes between reloading the feed).
You can specify (for each feed) a maximum life in days of enclosures. Only podcasts X days old or newer will be downloaded.
Files are pruned locally: they are deleted after X days (for each feed) to avoid your hard disk getting full of old shows that you are no longer interested in.
For the destination folder, you can specify either a drive letter or a volume label. In some cases you might want to download directly to a removable hard drive or audio device. Since the drive letter might be different each time you connect it, using the volume label to identify the drive solves this problem.
Downloads will auto-resume. You can kill PwopCatcher in mid-download. Next time you run it, downloads will pick up where they left off
BitTorrent support is provided by uTorrent, which is a 155K native Windows BitTorrent client app (see this post for more info). The uTorrent people have allowed me to automatically install it. If you subscribe to a feed that has a .torrent file in the enclosure, uTorrent will take over after downloading it. This requires a little bit of setup, which I have outlined below.
Since ClickOnce is used, when a new version is available, the user is prompted to download it.
PwopCatcher requires .NET Framework 2.0 and Windows 2000 or greater.
The alpha is available for download at the PwopCatcher site.
