I've actually been looking to switch off Downcast and use some kind of centrally sync'd podcast app/service. Great to see that Plex might actually be my solution. It would certainly make things easy for me.
That being said, and I'm aware this is still beta, here is my feedback on what's missing for my use cases:
- Podcasts being automatically downloaded/cached on my Plex Server so they are accessible as long as my server is up. I'm currently very far behind on my podcasts and some of the feeds I use no longer list the episodes I still have to listen to. I'd basically need to keep everything cached locally until listened to, then it can be purged (manual/automatic process for purging locally sync'd podcasts once they are mark as "watched/listened"
- Ability to create automatic playlists based on criteria. Example: Include all un-watched episodes from Podcast A and B, sort oldest first
- Ability to sync podcasts and playlists automatically from Media Server to mobile devices when they connect to my home network where my Media Server is (this will reduce data usage for me if my phone flips over to cellular data, WiFi isn't available or my internet is down at home). Ideally this would be a per device setting. For example I'd have my iPhone sync automatically but not my iPad or Laptop.
- Pre-defined skip forward/back intervals 30sec, 1min, 2min. Makes skipping ads on certain podcasts easier with out the need to scrub/fast forward
- Subscribe to new podcast button (manually) should be front and center and easily found. I've subbed to one podcast manually and now for the life of me cannot find the button to add another podcast (turns out this was a bug and a refresh of the WebUI brought the button back)
- Ability to manually mark podcasts as played/unplayed
- Ability to mass mark podcasts as played/unplayed
- Ability to customize dashboard and hide 'Categories' and 'Recommended' yadda so it only shows my content