>>>>Are the podcast episodes locally downloaded or streamed?
Streamed I guess? This is how I do it: I search for the podcast and click Subscribe, it gets added with the list of all the episodes available, and then I double click on the episode title to listen to it. I see if you right-click on an episode title there's an option to download it, but I never use it.
For example one subscription link is
http://rss.acast.com/theoffensive>>>>>how long are you leaving it paused for?
That's my point, if I leave it paused for just a few seconds, no problem, when I click Play the episode resumes from the point I had reached. But if the pause lasts longer (I made some tests, waiting like 5-10 minutes) then when I click Play the episode restarts at the beginning.
Since this never happens when I listen to my local music files on MB (everything works fine with them), I wonder if this is due to the fact that podcast episodes are not "stored" locally on my computer (in other words, there's no solution to this issue and I just have to get used to it).