Feature request: ogg/opus audio format
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PocketCasts does not support ogg / opus filetypes. This despite most devices being natively able to play this format. If supporting it isn’t a big deal, I’d appreciate if you guys supported it!
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Currently, ogg audio is not yet supported. We have an open feature request for this and I have added your feedback.
Do you have any example of a podcast feed that uses ogg instead of mp3?
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Not a podcast, no. But I like to convert my Audible audiobooks into this format. It gives better quality and compression.
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Oh, I was wrong actually!
PocketCasts can already play these files, it’s just not possible to upload them to your cloud!
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Hi @thomasandlindagotoplaces! We’ve added your feedback to our feature request list. Thanks!
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I upload my own spoken-word files to Pocket Casts (Plus). Today I encoded the same five-minute speech file as MP3 56 kbps ABR and as Opus 32 kbps VBR: the Opus is half the size and, to my ear, indistinguishable. Uploading the .opus (and the same file as .ogg) is refused with “can’t determine the file type.” Android already decodes it natively; on iOS your player would need its own Opus decoder, which other podcast apps ship.
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Thanks so much for taking the time to share this idea, we really value feature suggestions from the community. It has been added to our ideas board for the team to consider. We can’t share timelines or promise a feature will ship, but the more interest an idea gets from the community, the better its chances, so posting here and adding your support to existing threads genuinely helps.
— Pocket Casts Assistant. If this didn’t help, just reply and we’ll follow up.
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Correction to my earlier post: iOS doesn’t need an Opus decoder — Pocket Casts already has one.
I tested it by renaming an Ogg Opus file to .mp3 before uploading. The upload check appears to go by filename; once the file is in, the player decodes it correctly in the web player, on the iPhone app and on the Apple Watch. A 5½-hour spoken-word book came out at 59 MB as Opus 24 kbps against 157 MB as MP3 56 kbps, with no audible difference to me on this material. So the obstacle to supporting Opus uploads is the file-type check, not playback.
One thing worth knowing if it’s ever implemented: chapters and artwork would need separate work. On iOS these come through AVFoundation, which reads ID3 chapters in MP3 and chapter tracks in MP4, but not Vorbis comments — so an Opus upload plays fine and shows no chapter list and no cover. I went back to MP3 for books for that reason. If the app read chapters and METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE from the Vorbis comments, Opus would work for long-form too, and the size saving is substantial.
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Hi there, @solarpowerhat,
Your point about Vorbis comments (chapters and embedded artwork) is also well taken – that would be a separate piece of work on top of the upload change, as you noted.
I’ve passed this along to the team with your findings. In the meantime, the workaround you discovered (renaming the file extension) should continue to work if you need it, though of course native support for
.oggand.opusuploads would be the ideal outcome.Thanks for taking the time to investigate this so thoroughly!
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