Convert JW.ORG medias into an audio RSS Podcast

Description

There's a wonderful pool of spiritual resources on JW.ORG. This program makes it possible to follow them easily using the practical features of a podcast player.

This will create a channel for each main page containing media resources on JW.ORG.

Quick installation

The file default_config.ini contains samples of the fields you need to add, especially the source for the medias.

• rename default_config.ini to config.ini
• run main.py (python3)
  • python3 main.py
• you can add this line to your crontab to check for updates every week for example

The resulting URL will be http(s)://<general_url>/<podcast_file>.xml The XML file being locally copied to <general_local_path>

Add this URL to your podcast player. The podcast player will then reads the MP4 video directly from JW.ORG as audio. The lower quality (240p) is used, the size is almost the same as if it were pure audio (so it appeared useless to convert to audio).

Tested successfully with Podcast Republic

Personal installation

To find new sources you'd like to add yourself, go to:

• JW.ORG / Library / Videos
• Click on one of the Video categories (Family, Programs and Events, etc.)
• Click on See All for one sub-category (Annual Meeting, Special Programs, etc.)
• Extract the JSON main index storing all the information for this page:
  • Right-click : Inspect (Chrome)
  • In Inspect, click on the Network tab
  • Reload the page
  • Find a b.jw-cdn.org page starting with VOD (hover over the filename to see the full URL of the resource)
    • Right-click then Copy / Copy link address
  • Click on that resource: it should contain a category section, containing a media section.
  • The media section contains a list of resources, with items like title, firstPublished, etc.
  • That's the page you want to add to config.ini, in the jw_url field

TODO

• maybe a module extracting the VOD JSON index from the public JW.ORG page