Podcasts in Zune Software

[mhobby]

The only reason I have itunes installed on my pc is for a couple of video podcasts that I'm subscribed to. I'm trying to get rid of the itunes bloatware by using the zune software to subscribe to the podcasts (I view them on the pc and not the zune).
One thing I haven't been able to figure out though. I knew when I subscribed to the podcasts from the zune software that it wouldn't know what I had already viewed so I expected it to get listings for quite some time back. It did as I expected. I marked all the old podcasts as viewed and to stop downloading. When I open the zune software up again, it starts downloading again those I've already marked as played. It even starts downloading those that I have watched in the zune software which I though it would "know" about and not try to download again. What can I do to prevent this?
Also, I tried deleting those listed, but not downloaded, that have a link to download that I had previously watched, but the next time I open the software, it retreives that listing again and even will start trying to download them again.
I assume there is a setting that I have not set or set wrong but not sure what that is. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

[Jason Dunn]

I don't do much with podcasts, so I might not fully understand your problem, but when you're in COLLECTION > PODCASTS, and you've clicked on one of your subscribed podcasts on the left, you'll see SERIES SETTINGS in the bottom right. Click on that button and you can control how many podcasts are downloaded. It also controls which podcasts are synced to your Zune - I think both your problems can be fixed here, though unless you changed the defaults, it should never put more than the three most recent podcasts onto your Zune, and only unplayed and partially-played episodes.