I Want Video Podcasts on my iPod Nano

I quite like listening to podcasts and the robustness of iTunes as a podcast manager was one of the strong attractions of the iPod to me. One thing that I do find frustrating, though, is the inability of my iPod Nano to playback video podcasts. And I don’t mean as video. I’m not expecting something for nothing. But what I don’t understand is why the Nano can’t just playback the audio contained within the mp4 container; surely, it can’t be that difficult.

Most of the podcasts I want to listen to that are in video format aren’t things that wouldn’t work as audio files. At least not most of the time. Occasionally there’d be a joke or explanation that might not make as much sense without the visuals but for the most part they’re dialogue-heavy as it is. I realise I could probably jerry-rig some sort of transcoding solution myself but that then removes the ease of use that currently attracts me to podcasts. What I like being able to do is to plug in my iPod, unplug it, get on the train and if I’m bored listening to music or practising Japanese switching to a podcast.

This has all been motivated by the podcast feed on iTunes for a series of interviews by Clive James. I just love Clive James’ voice and the fact that the videos contain almost nothing visually stimulation at all compounds my frustration there’s no easy way to listen to these without doing something myself.

Since my request to Apple to allow power users to define the naming system that iTunes uses to store music didn’t seem to produce any results I’m not holding out hope that this suggestion gains much traction at Cupertino either. Still, a guy can dream.