LDS General Conference Podcast
Latest News:
The October 2008 conference sessions are now posted. Enjoy!
About this Podcast:
Have you ever wanted an easy way to get the LDS General Conference on your iPod? If so, I’ve setup a podcast just for you.
How do I get the podcast?
If you’re using iTunes, you have two options:
- Search the iTunes podcast directory for “lds general
conference” - Or click the menu “Advanced”, then “Subscribe to podcast…”, and paste this in:
http://thesmithfam.org/podcasts/lds-general-conference.xml
If you’re using other podcast software like amaroK, gtkPod, or Juice (formerly iPodder), just use the URL above. If you run into trouble, just leave a comment or email me.
How does it work?
The LDS church makes its general conference sessions available as downloadable MP3s, which is great, because my podcast simply tells iTunes how to download the conference sessions as mp3 files directly from the LDS web site. Then, iTunes puts the mp3 files onto your iPod.
Why a Podcast?
I like to listen to General Conference podcasts for two reasons:
- iTunes automatically puts the newest conference sessions on my iPod every 6 months. I don’t have to do a thing
- If I pause conference on my iPod, and then listen to some other music, when I come back to the conference session, it picks right back up where I left off.
How far back does it go?
The podcast includes conference sessions as far back as April 2004. Prior to that, the Church didn’t make the audio archives of each session available in mp3 format. As the archives become available, I’ll update the podcast to go back even farther.
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Could you set me up a feed for each of the individual General Conference talks instead of each session?
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Sounds like a lot of work.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Do you have any idea how to get other languages of conference onto the iPod- like Samoan for example. You can listen to it online, but it’s a SUPER basic media player that doesn’t give any options to save or download it.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:55 am
You could try using ASFRecorder to download the stream from lds.org, and it will save it to your computer.
You just right-click on the little “16K” audio button on the top-right of the Gagana Samoa page, and choose “Copy shortcut” or “Copy link location”. Then open ASFRecorder, and click File -> Open URL… Then hit Control+V to paste in the shortcut.
It should download and save the conference for you to your computer. I haven’t tested it, though, so good luck!
–Dave
February 15th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Do you create the feeds manually (i.e. typing in each field) or is there software that extracts info from the ID3 tag? Your show description says that the podcast is updated automatically. Does that mean you automatically do it after each conference, or do you have a script/software that does this? Your source code said that the xml file was created in VIM. I’m assuming that this is the updated UNIX VI editor.
Sorry for all the questions. I just like to listen to the sessions as individual talks, but I would like to have it in a podcast format so that I can get the benefit of having it start up where I left off and easier download/cataloging. If there was a way to automate or semi-automate the creation of a “conference talks” podcast, I would like to try and do it, but I don’t know much about podcasting/rss feeds/xml. I’m pretty computer literate, but no very web programming literate.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:20 am
I update the XML file manually after each General Conference. I looked into writing a little program to pull out the conference talks, but the HTML on lds.org is not very computer friendly, so I just opted to do each session manually in my XML file. And yes, I used Vim, the world’s best editor.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Thanks for the info. Starting with your XML code, I’ve begun a feed that lets me download the individual talks. I’m currently listening to the April 2006 talks, so this is where I began the feed. Eventually I will expand to make it current.
One question, your XML file has a “length” flag. I’m assuming that this refers to file size. Did you have to download each file to get this data, or is there a way to extract it from the church web site?
February 18th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Matt,
Yes, the length field refers to the size, in bytes, of the MP3 file, and yes, you must download each MP3 file in full before you can know the length. That’s just the way the the Church’s web server is configured apparently.
If you would like me to host your XML file on this web site, I’m happy to do so, if you’ll keep it up to date, and send me revisions as conferences happen. I’ll even get it listed in the iTunes directory for you if you would like. You’ll be famous! ;)
–Dave
March 10th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Thanks for providing this podcast. I am missing Oct 07 Sunday PM, is it missing from the podcast or is it just me?
March 10th, 2008 at 5:43 am
I just answered my own question. I unsubscribed and re-subscribed and the sunday session showed up. Sorry for the bother!
April 14th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Thanks for the info. I’m trying to figure it out in German, but after I downloaded ASFRecorder, I got stuck. It downloads in a zipped file, and when I got to unzip, there are a bunch of files and none of them does anything. Maybe it doesn’t work for MacBooks?
Other suggestions?
April 14th, 2008 at 6:38 am
The German conference sessions are posted as mp3′s so there’s no need to use ASFRecorder. Just go here and click on the little “mp3″ icons to download each session:
http://lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-4-853,00.html
April 15th, 2008 at 1:04 am
That works to bring up conference, but it doesn’t download it to my computer so I can put it on my iPod. I have to be online to hear it.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Those are mp3 files, which are exactly the same kinds of file that this podcast uses. All you have to do is right-click on the mp3 link and select “Save as” and choose a place to save it on your hard drive. Then, go into iTunes and select “File” -> “Add File to Library…”. Choose the mp3 file and you’re good to go.
After that, the next time you sync with your iPod, the German conference session will show up right on your iPod, no need to be online. This podcast basically does those steps automatically for you, but you can still do them manually.
Good luck!
June 7th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Thanks muchly Dave!
As a new member of the church I’ve spent the last month collecting all the LDS audio I could to listen to at work
I’ve spent the last 3 days absolutely DREADING having to downloading these files individually!
THANK YOU!
June 7th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I subscribed to your the LDS conference podcast but the only session that it will download is April 8 Sunday PM session. How do I get all of the April 2008 sessions?
June 8th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Brent,
If you’re using iTunes, there is a setting under Edit, Preferences, Podcasts that lets you tell iTunes to download ALL new episodes of a Podcast, instead of just the newest one. Enable that setting and you should be good to go.
Alternatively, click the little “GET” button next to each conference session and it will download that session.
Good luck!
–Dave
June 9th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Hey Dave,
you seem to be missing April 08 Sunday AM
I unsubbed and resubber but it’s not there
it’s 404ing
check your link maybe?
July 16th, 2008 at 10:05 am
The Church’s i-tunes podcast link is just missing the .xml extension so if you want to use the Church’s podcast that seperates the podcast into INDIVIDUAL talks click here: http://feeds.lds.org/LDSGCComplete_eng.xml
Does anyone have old conference talks setup in individual talks?
October 8th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
It looks like the mp3 files are available for 10/08 conf.
http://www.lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-1-947,00.html
Could you update your feed for us? We love it btw.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Okay, October 2008 conference is posted.
October 26th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Has anyone created a feed that is divided into individual talks and songs, instead of one continuous stream?
October 26th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Josh,
Yes, the church has put up a podcast now that has all the talks separated:
http://feeds.lds.org/LDSGCComplete_eng
–Dave
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:01 am
That is Awesome Dave, thanks for the info
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Dave,
You seem quite seasoned in podcasting and I’m very new to it. I was wondeirng if you could answer a question: I’m trying to subscribe to a video podcast of the Oct. 2008 conference. I saw a link and tried to subscribe to it (http://feeds.lds.org/LDSGCComplete_eng_MP4) –
but it wont bring up anything to download in my itunes -it leaves an error message. Am I doing something wrong? is there a specific sequence to subscribing and getting video of GC on my ipod?
Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide,
Jeff
December 4th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Jeff,
It looks like your link got the last three letters capitalized somehow. These links are case sensitive, so try this one instead:
http://feeds.lds.org/LDSGCComplete_eng_mp4
That link worked for me. Good luck!
–Dave
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Is your podcast of general conference audio only or is the video there too?
I want to hear and see general conference on my itouchl. Can this be done?
How? Thanks
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 pm
My podcast is audio only, but I imagine it would not be hard to make a video version, provided the Church publishes videos that can be viewed on your iPod Touch (which I also have). I’m not sure if they do, though. I believe that, normally, to view a video on the Touch, the video has to be in Quicktime format, which I don’t believe the Church uses.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:32 am
It will be great to have General Conference on the ipod. Thanks for the info.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Thanks for your efforts in doing this. Makes it really nice when on the road.
I see that the Priesthood sessions are available as mp3s. Will you be updating the podcasts to include those? Can you go back a couple of years?
Thanks.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:52 am
npk_techguy:
Actually the Church does not publish the mp3 files for the Priesthood sessions. Sorry ’bout that.
August 12th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
I’m very grateful to have the podcasts to put on my iPod. Unfortunately, several of them crash my iPod, causing it to reboot. Does anyone know how to fix that?
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
If a session has already been downloaded, will the computer recognize this and not duplicate it? (I’m 79 and not very computer literate.)
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Darlene: Yes. It should only download sessions of conference that it has not already downloaded.
September 10th, 2009 at 6:33 am
Any plans on adding the priesthood sessions? I see that the individual MP3′s for at least April ’09 are now on LDS.org. Thank you for providing this great service – it makes it nice to be able to go by session.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Thanks Steven for pointing that out. Previously, the Priesthood session MP3s have not been available. I’m adding them now.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Steven, I was able to add Priesthood sessions for April 2009, October 2008, and April 2008. Farther back than April 2008, there aren’t MP3 links on the Church’s site. Thanks for the tip!
September 10th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Thanks for getting the priesthood sessions added to the podcast. Sorry that I wasn’t clear about it earlier.
September 10th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
I had added the links for the mp3s in a reply post back in the summer but I see now that it didn’t go through, or wouldn’t go through because the links were part of it.
Thanks for your efforts.
September 16th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Thanks, this is great.
October 4th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
So I am subscribed. It looks like it is automatically uploading the Oct 09 PM session. How do I get all the other sessions, all the way back to April 04? Thank you so much for doing this. What a great way to share.
October 4th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I keep getting errors while trying to download things from 2004. I guess I will see what all is not available when it is done at which point I will pass it on to you.
October 4th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Brittany:
If you are using iTunes, it has a “Get All” button that will start downloading all the sessions. It will take a while. :)
Yes, definitely let me know which sessions give you errors. I have downloaded them all, but things could have changed on the church’s side since I did that. Thanks!
–Dave
October 11th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Can I download the VIDEO streams of GC to my iPod? If so how?
October 14th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I have subscribed to the Mp4 versions of general conference for the past year and loaded them onto my Ipod Touch without problem, but all of a sudden I cannot get the October ’09 (which I can watch on my computer) to load onto my Touch. Any suggestions?
October 29th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Kate I too have the same problem.
Oct ’09 conference Mp4 will play fine on the iTunes player but won’t let me add them to my iPhone. Error message says “it won’t play on this iPhone”. If anyone has an answer I would be greatful.
October 29th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Jared,
The video file is probably in the wrong resolution (i.e., number of pixels tall and wide) to fit on the iPhone. You probably need to “transcode” it into the iPhone resolution. Try using Hamdbrake on your Mac to do that.
–Dave
December 5th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Hi Dave
Thanks for these podcasts, they are great. But I can’t find the General Relief Society one… is it missing?
Sarah
July 4th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Thank you. I was wondering how to get talks to my iPod. If you don’t get on your blog anymore maybe you won’t get this question. But there’s a chance that you still look at your comments the way I do mine, though mine isn’t updated either (melodychapman.com). Anyway, Where do I go if I want non-conference talks? Like Sheri Dew talks and stuff?
July 4th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Melody, though I don’t know for sure, I’d be surprised if they are not available somewhere on lds.org. Have you looked there?