How to Subscribe to a Premium Podcast

Hey all, we've finally improved the way you subscribe to premium podcasts, here are the details!

Subscribing to Premium Podcasts

Those of you who subscribed to our premium podcasts know it was kind of a pain to get them working in some of your Podcast players, well we have a much better solution now. Premium podcast URLs now contain a key at the end of the URL so you no longer have to use your username/password!

Simply copy the url from either the feeds page or the podcast RSS button on the individual podcast page (Make sure you're logged in first!):

http://www.giantbomb.com/feeds/

http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/premiumbombcast/

The URL you copy should look like this:

http://www.giantbomb.com/podcast-xml/premiumbombcast?api_key=<KEY>

You can then paste that URL into your podcast app and, like magic, you're subscribed to the podcast (or video feed)!

We've tested this in many different podcast apps, but if you have any issues let us know in the bug reporting forum!

Great Job.

Will this kill/reset current feed subscriptions?

@beforet: nope, the old method of authentication still works so you should be fine. You should probably switch it out though, im sure at some point we'll disable the old method

Pocket Casts' web app seemed to just get very confused by the RSS feeds, but adding them through the Android app worked perfectly <3

Also, any chance of maybe one day adding the pre-Premium Bombcast's to the Premium Bombcast feed? I sorta have to subscribe to both feeds if I want to go back and listen to pre-2013 ones, I know that's probably not a huge priority, but would be cool sometime <3

Nice! Is this the same key as our general API key? Will it reset when we change passwords?

Any chance the filesize for the mp3 files in the rss feeds can be fixed? I think the length="10853" value should be bytes in the file but it displays the seconds of the mp3 or something. This makes it look like every podcast is about 10kbytes.. Not a huge issue but a persistent one.

@forcen: Nope the API key will not regenerate if you update your password

Also I never realized the length was set wrong! I just fixed that, it'll be up early next week

Will the username/password feed we're already subscribed to continue to function?

Yes, that will work for the foreseeable future, but we will decommission it eventually so best to switch over if you can

@wcarle: Thanks!

@gigaram: Hey, I'm also an android pocketCasts user. Could you explain a bit more how you managed to sub to the premium casts using it? I have tried a couple things but it doesn't seem to connect. Thanks in advance!

Thanks guys! Works great in Overcast.

Worked very easily, thanks!

You guys should stick a FAQ heading at the top of the page and add this stuff.

Will this work with google play? I assume no since you have to follow specific podcasts there rather than entering a URL, but just checking, thanks!

For pocket casts just copy the url from the podcast page on the site (while logged in)

Then in the pocket casts app paste the URL into the search bar in the pocket casts app (from the 'Discover' page of the app)

Unfortunately Google Play does not allow you to enter podcast URLs manually :(

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/play/gxWtWoSYzKQ

THANK YOU!

Thanks guys. I know this seems dumb for some and probably is but I had never had this working.

I'm having trouble with adding the HD feed for Best of Giant Bomb. It only shows up to episode 108 back from October. The High feed works and is up-to-date. I'm using Pocket Casts on Android. All audio feeds work great.

I'm not sure if this is a Pocket Casts issue, I know this app has had problems with protected feeds in the past.

This is awesome! Thanks for doing this

@mendelson9: Yeah looks like this is a problem with that feed, I'll put in a ticket to get it fixed!

@wcarle: Sweet, thank you for all your hard work.

Hey thanks gang!

For whatever reason this way finally pulls down the updated Beastcast icon for me. Finally free of the confusion of 2 identical logos for 2 different podcasts!

Awesome! It looks like it happens for the video feeds also, don't forget those. Thanks for fixing that!

Should we use https in the rss links now, that will be the default soon anyway right? It's nice when the api key is in the URL.

THANK YOU! While this was definitely the most first world problem ever I appreciate the work you did.

Seems to work perfectly from the Pocket Casts web player

Can I add this to iTunes?

@forcen: Yeah go ahead and use HTTPS, once we force HTTPS it'll just get redirected and should still work.

For iTunes you should be able to do this: https://blog.libsyn.com/2012/11/29/how-to-manually-subscribe-to-a-podcast-rss-feed-in-itunes-11/

Brillant

Nice, thanks. Is this likely to have had anything to do with the premium podcasts recently not working? I download them via Podcast Addict on Android, and after just a few minutes of playing the app would say that the format cannot be played, try another app. But no other app would play them either, like I was getting a corrupted file or something.

So I've resorted to just streaming directly from the website, via Chrome on my phone to get around this.

@elfinke: I'm not hearing any other reports of this, was it working for you before with the old method of authentication? Nothing really changed other than the initial feed call, which shouldn't affect the file download. Can you try using https? https://feedurl?

Awesome! Thanks for this!

@wcarle: yeah from the lack of reports on forums and here I figured something goofy was happening at my end. In any event, the error is still popping up.

I'll dig in properly tonight, reinstall the apps and try your suggestion, see what happens. Thanks!

Thanks!

This is so much easier, thank you for this.

Is the old system no longer working? I never had a problem with Pocket Casts before but it didn't find today's Beastcast.

It's not a problem for me. I switched over to this new api format and have the new episode, but I'm wondering if that's why. All of my other Friday podcasts downloaded fine so I don't think it's on my end.

@louiedog: The old method should still work fine nothing was removed, we only added a new auth method

Thumbs up to this.

Edit: I'm a dummy. I figured this out. When you get the link you need to go to the My Podcasts tab and hit the + button. This is where you enter the URL. I was trying to enter it in the search area. I thought about deleting the rest of this post but I'm leaving it up in case anyone else has the same trouble I did.

How do I do this in iOS? When I login to Giant Bomb in iOS Safari and get my link for the premium Bombcast and Beastcast from giantbomb.com/feeds I can't seem to do anything with it.

When I put that link in the search bar from the Podcasts app it gives me no results. If I put the link or just click the RSS button in Safari it tries to open the link in the Apple News app but I get an error saying "story unavailable."

Unfortunately I already unsubscribed from my premium podcasts I was getting with the old method and I can't remember the convoluted process I used to get them on there in the first place.

I'm feeling pretty dumb here because I'm sure I'm not the only one trying to do this in the standard iOS podcast app and no one else seems to be having trouble.

Thanks for fixing the filesizes!

Thought I should let you know about another podcast bug that has been there for a while. The podcast descriptions get cut off if they are to long. This got posted in the bug reporting forum some time ago but maybe it got forgotten.

@larzhino: I had the same issue in Pocket Casts and this fixed it!

@thehanna: Yeah I had the same issue today trying to get Bombcast Pocketcasts. Using new API method fixed it though.

Does anyone else's feeds pull down two episodes every time? Bomb/Beast/Premium feeds are all duplicating for me, other feeds are fine.

Hey guys! , i'm new to the premium podcast service, i usually listen in the Podcasts app in IOs, can somebody recommend me a good IOs Podcast app to work with these feeds?

Thanks!

@mickastle: You can use the default iOS podcast app with the premium feeds if you want. I wrote about how I was having trouble with this in post 38 but I figured it out. It sounds like there are lots of reasons to switch to a different app like Pocket Casts but if you have basic podcast listening needs like I do the default iOS podcast app works fine with the GB premium podcasts.

You need to login to your premium account and then go to giantbomb.com/feeds. On that page the premium podcast feeds are at the very bottom. Copy the RSS link for the podcast you want (you only get the correct link if you are logged in).

Open up the iOS podcast app and go to the "My Podcasts" tab. Tap the + icon in the top left corner and then tap the "Add Podcast" button. Now all you have to do is paste the URL into this box and you will be subscribed. Just repeat this process for each premium podcast you want to subscribe to (Bombcast, Beastcast, etc).

@king3pj: Thanks a lot! it took me like two minutes to set it up :D

Works great on Podcast Addict for Android! Thanks guys!

Thanks for sharing :) ! i really appreciate it. since i'm on hgh its hard for me to search and learn. thanks for keeping us up to date.

I discovered this by accident when I (temporarily) switched from PocketCasts. Thanks for this change, it makes it so much easier!