Skip to content
Castopod Docs

Episodes

From the left hand navigation, click Episodes and the menu will expand to All Episodes and New Episode.

All Episodes

To view a list of all episodes, click All Episodes. Each episode will be displayed in a list with its name and notes, Visibility such as published or scheduled, and how many downloads and comments each episode has.

Actions and the Episode Dashboard

Click the three dots under Actions to view a menu of options for an episode or click on an individual episode to view the available actions:

  • Go to page: This will redirect you to the public page of the episode and display the show notes.
  • Edit: This allows you to change the fields you filled when creating the episode (see below).

Embeddable player

Choose a theme color and press the copy button to the right of the text box to copy the code to your clipboard. Insert the code into a web page to display the episode.

Persons

If you have added people in the Admin interface, you can choose a person and assign them a role, such as guest, for a given episode.

Video clips and Soundbites

The process to create a video clip and soundbite is the same. It may take a minute for the file to load and you will see the waveform.

A video clip will create an MP4 video of the audio with text from the transcript matched to the audio. A soundbite will create an audio clip.

Enter the name of the clip you want to create. Then drag the slider to where you want to start and end your video clip or soundbite. You can press the Play button to preview your clip.

For video clips, choose a format, including Landscape, Portrait or Squared and a background theme color.

Then press the Create button, you will be redirected to a status page displaying the status of creating the clip. Refresh the page to see if it’s Running or completed. You may need to be patient depending on the length of the clip.

:::note To create video clips and soundbites, your server must have FFMPEG installed and a transcript. :::

Create episode

To add an episode, press the Add an episode button in the upper right hand corner of the Episode dashboard or click New episode in the left hand navigation under Episodes.

Episode Info

Audio file

Press the Choose File button to select the audio file to upload to Castopod. The audio file must be an mp3 or m4a file and cannot be larger than 512 megabytes.

Episode cover

You can optionally add a different podcast cover / artwork. Press Choose File and select an image from your computer that must be at least 1400px wide and tall and no larger than 3000px wide and tall. If you do not choose an episode cover, your default podcast artwork will be used.

Title

Enter the name for your new episode. Do not add the season or episode number in the Title field. Choose a clear and concise episode name to help your listeners.

The permalink is the link to the public episode page. This will be automatically filled out based on the title you entered above. If you wish to have a different permalink, press the edit button to the right of the displayed permalink.

Season and Episode

You can optionally add a season and / or episode number to your episode. If you are adding a new episode and a previous episode had a season and /or episode number, the field(s) will be auto filled for you. You can leave it or update with a different season and / or episode number.

Show Notes

Describe your episode in detail. You can use up to 4000 characters, and you can use Markdown to style your show notes. You can expand the text box by pressing and holding the bottom right corner of the text box.

When your show notes are complete, press Preview to view how your show notes will be displayed.

Additional Files

Transcripts

You can add a transcript to your episode by choosing a file in SRT or VTT format to upload. Transcripts will be shown in a tab on the episode page and some podcast apps such as Apple Podcasts can display the transcript.
Transcripts help users who may have a hearing disability and can also help with search engine optimization.

Chapters

You can optionally upload a chapters file in JSON format. To learn more about chapters and for an example of the correct format, visit the Podcast Namespace.

:::note Not all podcast players natively support chapters in JSON format. More modern players, such as Fountain and Apple Podcasts, do support chapters in JSON format. Chapters do not allow you to click to select the chapter in Castopod’s embeddable player at this time. :::

Publish your episode

When complete, press the Create episode button at the bottom of the page. You will be automatically directed to the next step to publish your episode. Your episode is in draft mode and is not yet published. You can preview how your episode will look when published or publish your episode. To publish your episode, press the Publish button in the upper right hand corner.

Create your announcement post

After pressing Publish you will be directed to the next page to draft your announcement post. Write your message in the text box provided. This will be the message broadcast to the Fediverse and published on your podcast’s home page.

Publication date

Choose Now or Schedule to publish your episode. If you choose Now, your episode will be live. Or you can schedule the day and time to publish your episode by choosing the Schedule radio button and choosing the day and time. Press Publish to finish.

Your RSS feed will be automatically updated with your episode information and listeners who subscribe will be notified of a new episode. Congratulations on publishing your first episode!