Castgrabber is Podcasting Heaven

Welcome to the age of the podcast. For those of you not familiar with podcasting, it is when a person, company, or organization presents its video or audio broadcasts as a digital media file to be distributed over the Internet. It is called podcasting because these files are meant to be downloaded on iPods or other Portable Media Players.

I am not really into podcasting all that much, but I know some people who live by it. In fact, I’m certain some people have read my first paragraph of explanation and said “Duh”. So for those of you who want all the podcasting subscribing they could ever want, you might want to invest a little money in the Castgrabber.

The Castgrabber advertises that it allows a user to “download podcasts directly to almost any iPod/MP3 player without a PC after initial setup”. There is a lot of truth in advertising on this.

The setup for the device is not that difficult. It came with a few cables. One of them connected directly to the network, and the other went to a wall outlet. I then had to connect my iPod via USB, and Castgrabber gave me a passcode for the site on the iPod itself.

Obtaining the passcode was somewhat difficult. Although the instructions said to search the Albums and Artist section of the menu, but what I really needed to check was something more obvious, the Podcasts section.

Once I entered in my code, I was able to create an account with the obligatory username and password. Once those were entered in, I was led to a menu that had over 35,000 potential podcasting subscriptions.

When the subscriptions were set up, all I had to do was plug the iPod into the Castgrabber, and it did all the work. Any and all new podcasts that I had subscribed to were all downloaded in there automatically overnight. So while I was sleeping, I woke up to have podcasts waiting for me. So on my way to work, I can get updated on whatever I want to see or hear on the bus or walking to work.

Considering that over 1.2 billion podcasts were downloaded last year, this media is apparently on the rise. Devices like the Castgrabber easily rise in sales. I’m not certain whether the Castgrabber is the only device of its type, but if it is, it won’t hold that monopoly for long.

You can get the Castgrabber at sites like Home Depot for about $119.95.