Video Podcasting

I've recently started a new project: video podcasting. While there are other folks trying their hands at video podcasting, it's still pretty open out there in this digital frontier; and I would love some discussion and feedback.

DiveFilm video podcasts are available through the iTunes Music Store—and they're free! The latest episode is Eric Hanauer's digital short film on the P-38 fighter plane that rests in 130 feet of water off the coast of Del Mar, California. You can get to the podcasts by going to DiveFilm.com and clicking on the podcast image. That will launch iTunes (version 4.9 or higher for either PC or Mac) and take you right to DiveFilm's Podcast Video page at the iTunes Music Store. From there you can subscribe to the video podcasts, and download the episodes. Video podcasts can be viewed on compatible handhelds (video iPods, etc.), or in the iTunes window on your computer.

Hope you enjoy them!

Hi i like the idea a lot ...

I have just started playing with this myself .. but not of dive videos.

Does the site have an RSS feed for the vid podcast ? or can you only subscribe through itunes ?

Giles

You can subscribe using any *video-compatible* rss aggregator or podcast subscription program. The feed can be copied and pasted into the appropriate subscription program field. The rss feed URL is:

http://divefilm.com/podcasts/podcast.xml

One of the many issues I encountered early on in the learning curve was selecting the best "tags" for the podcast feed. The tags I'm using are optimized for iTunes, but seem to work fine with the other "podcatchers" or rss news aggregators I've tried.

Hope this helps!

where did you learn about doing / making this ?

any handy or good resources ?

Happy to share info on this. This is what I would like to see more of (sharing info)! BTW, this is not a commercial enterprise! It's a labor of love at this point, as is my website Divefilm.

First, understand that I totally love the whole idea of streaming images, communicating images, transmitting images. The whole thing enthralls me. So when I discovered that there was such a thing as video podcasting, I had to learn how to do it. I thought about coding myself, looked into learning xml. Pretty steep, but I had to figure out how to do this video podcasting thing.

Then a friend turned me on to a couple of simple programs that did a lot of the work for me, but those programs optimize the tags for iTunes, which has very specific requirements to get listed. I found, though, that the additional tags don't really interfere with using the rss feed on other "podcatchers" or rss aggregators.

The programs I use to "publish" the podcasts is something called "Podcast Maker." They have a free demo, very cheap. It does all the coding for me, generates an .xml file, and then FTPs the new episodes up to my server where my streaming video website is hosted. You have to have a web host somewhere, like for your website if you have one, and one that gives you enough bandwidth handle the downloads.

Now, encoding the videos for handhelds is a separate thing. Enough for now?

good for now ... i have sort of looked into pocasts for mp3 ... or wav or whatever ... i am wanting to do some personal video though soon for my personal website ... and am hoping wordpress can cope with it all

I want to be able to teeny tiny edit the video before uploading ... and obviously optimise for size ... i'll have a play over the next few days .. let you know how i get on ... it's all new to me ... this video stuff !!

From what I've just heard, the new Apple iLife 06 includes a version of Garageband that allows you to make a podcast, record audio, add music, etc., and add images. Then you can upload the podcast to your website, or wherever you're hosting your podcasts from.

My only question is whether you can use video as the image track for these podcasts (making them true video podcasts) or whether the images can only be stills, in which case that would be what's called an "enhanced podcast" that's actually a fancy version of an audio podcast that also shows stills as the audio track moves along.

I've ordered the new iLife and will check into this. But the issue, of course, is that this would be limited to Macs—the most expensive dongles in the world? I love my Mac, but I also recognize that some folks are dedicated PC people, and I don't know much about programs out there to make video podcasts that work on PCs...I'm sure there are some.

So, what does RSS mean anyway?

RSS is "Real Simple Syndication." There's a thorough write-up of it at this Harvard Blog. But don't let that article make it sound more difficult than it needs to be.

Maybe someone (eric?) who understands this better than I do will give a real simple explanation of RSS?

This is a really good article on RSS:

http://contentious.com/archives/2003/10/18...should-you-care

Yes, that's an excellent resource! Thank you, Eric! I've also added a couple of information links to my "More About Podcasting" page on DiveFilm.com, including some pretty simple wikipedia definitions for podcasting, RSS and XML stuff.

There's a good article on the significance of video podcasting at TV Technology, 2005: The Year TV Broke Out of the Box

And, of course, it would be great if everyone would go to the DiveFilm Podcast Video page at the iTunes Music Store and click on the "Subscribe" button (it's FREE!) as it will help the podcats stay listed on the "Featured Video Podcast" page a little longer!

If you have iTunes on your computer, this link will launch iTunes and take you directly to the video podcast page.

Hi Mary

Liked your last podcasts you posted.

Mike congrats on the shark story...nice pics there. has the bracket got you you yet?

My XML podcast page was hit over 14,000 times last month and so far this months it up over 4,500 hits.