The Document Editor

VocaTalk's main screen is a rich document editor that you can paste any content from text files, web, pdf, word document etc. This content is saved and loaded with the formatting information and images in it.

When you generate a podcast episode for this document, the original file is not lost. You can reopen and change it and regenerate the episode. The original text content is also embedded into the generated mp3 file and can be viewed in iPod, iPhone and Zune.

The Podcast Episode Creator

When you click on the episode creation link or the icon at the bottom of document editor, the podcast episode creator panel appears.

Here, you can specify the title of the episode, a description for it, the background music of your choice and some other generation options. VocaTalk will try to pick a title and description based on the document contents, but you can manually change them. You can also choose which podcast this episode should be created in.

When you click create button, the document will be saved into the podcast folder along with the generation options that you chose.

Background Music Selection

If you click on the musical note icon next to the background music, a new screen appears for you to chosoe albums that you previously ripped from your CDs. You can pick them one by one, or use them all. VocaTalk will shuffle the tracks use them in the background of generated speech.

Podcast Manager

When you click on the Manage Podcasts button on the Activities pane to the right, a new screen appears. This is where you can see all the podcasts that you created and is published on your machine locally. You can easily subscribe to these podcasts in iTunes or Zune, or just open the containing folder and use the files directly in any mp3 player.

Managing Podcast Episodes

When you expand any podcast, a list of created episodes are shown. The episodes that you created in the document editor screen is sent to one of these podcast folders. You can click on the 'Not Generated' link to start generation, or just right click to see a more detailed menu that lets you manage episodes. You can open, play, generate, cancel generation, reset, split an episode or select music for it. You can also choose an album art for an episode, or a default one for the podcast. The album art is embedded into generated mp3 files and also used by iTunes and Zune to represent the podcast in the UI.

Subscribing to Podcasts in iTunes

To subscribe and open the podcast in iTunes, click on the iTunes icon or the 'Open podcast in iTunes' link at the top of the expanded podcast folder. This will launch the iTunes, subscribe to it if you didn't already do so before.

Downloading Episodes in iTunes

When you open the podcast folder in iTunes, you see the published episodes and can start a download by clicking on 'Get' button. Once an episode is downloaded by iTunes, it can be synchronized to your iPod or iPhone. iTunes will automatically start downloading the latest episode as soon as you subscribe to a podcast.

VocaTalk Podcasts on iPod Touch/iPhone

After you download your podcast episodes in iTunes, you can easily sync your unlistened episodes with your iPod/iPod Touch/iPhone device. These are real photos of VocaTalk episodes on an iPod Touch. Click here to see the video recording.

Subscribing to Podcasts in Zune

When you open the podcast folder in Zune, you see the published episodes and can start a download by clicking on 'Download' button. Once an episode is downloaded by Zune, it can be synchronized to your Zune device. Zune will automatically start downloading latest episodes as soon as you subscribe to a podcast.