Film and Digital Media @ Messiah

History and Factoids about Podcasting

History of Podcasting @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)
It’s the syndication of the media in an audio or video Podcast that makes it different than basic streaming media. The use of a syndication protocol (like RSS) allows the media to be accessed on many kinds of devices, most importantly handheld devices like iPods, PlayStation-Portables (PSP), PDAs, Internet capable mobile phones, etc., as well as computers. One thing to be kept in mind when designing Podcasts is the target audience. Since the market in portable media players is dominated by iPods (72.7% of the market was the latest figure listed by Bloomberg), my own thought is to design for the iPod (this means using MP3s for audio and MP4s for video). I imagine the students at Messiah are representative of the general market, and so the majority own iPods.

Atom syndication protocol (a more recent and less popular protocol)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_%28standard%29

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Recording your Audio Podcast

Audacity (a crossplatform freeware audio recording/editing program)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
The one drawback with Audacity is that it won’t directly save MP3s (this is because the MP3 file format is copyrighted by a German company, Fraunhofer-Gesellchaft). So you will need a plugin to Audacity called the LAME MP3 plugin which can be downloaded here: http://spaghetticode.org/lame/. When you download this plugin, you should put it in the plugin folder inside the Audacity folder. The first time you export an MP3 file, Audacity will ask you to locate the LAME plugin, so you can simply look in the Audacity plugins folder to find it.

To record your Podcast you will need a microphone that will connect with your computer. The best microphones to use are USB mics rather than the mike-jack microphones. These mics give better voice recording and are generally of higher quality. You could purchase one for about $30.

Here are steps to record using Audacity:

1) Connect the mic to the computer, then start Audacity
2) Check the Audacity Preferences to make sure the record input is set to your microphone (many computers have multiple audio inputs, so you will need to check this to make sure recording is taken from your mic).
3) Click the record button and begin to talk. It’s best to have a script rather than sketchy notes so that you avoid “umms” and inconvenient pauses.
4) When you’re done click the stop button.
5) Cut any extraneous audio you want to excise by choosing it in the audio track and selecting EDIT > CUT
6) Choose EDIT > SELECT > ALL to select the entire recording. Then select EFFECT > NORMALIZE in order bring the recording into a “normal” audio level. You can experiment with the settings in the Normalize effect to hear what works best for you.
7) Use FILE > EXPORT MP3 to export your recording to an MP3 file. (Your first time exporting, Audacity will ask for the location of the LAME plugin)

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Uploading and Syndicating Your Podcast

You will need an online syndication platform — the easiest to get is a blog. Messiah offers all faculty and staff free blogs (I’m not sure if all students can get a blog, although some students have them). See the Web Staff Feedback page to ask for a blog to be set up for you.

Once you have your blog set up, click on the Site Admin link in the right column. This takes you to an administration page. Click on the Write a post link. This takes you to a page where you can create a post for your blog. The top of the page has a text-area for typing text, while further down the page is a section to upload a file for the post. Scroll down until you see this section, then click on the Choose File button. A window will open allowing you to browse through your computer’s hard-drive to select your MP3 file.

Find your MP3 file and click Choose. The file will be uploaded to the blog (depending on how big your file is it may take some time). You should see the name of the file as a link in the upload section after the upload is complete. Click on the link to view the options for the file. Select Send to Editor. Scroll up to the text-area and you will see an HTML link displayed there. Click the SAVE button to save the audio Podcast on your blog. This automatically registers the Podcast for RSS syndication from Messiah’s blogging server. Hurrah! You’ve posted your first Podcast!

IMPORTANT - Posting the Podcast as above is all you need for its syndication. Your Podcast will be syndicated for download to iTunes and mobile devices with only the steps above. There is no need to do anything else for RSS to function. The next steps are only to make the blog look and function better for web browser users, not mobile device users or other RSS users (iTunes users, etc.).

There are other programs (for which you must pay) which streamline the Podcast process for you, some of which come with server space included so that recording and RSS syndication is very easy. Look here for other (more expensive) options: Podcast Alley

For an alternative method of audio podcasting on both Windows and Mac OS X using QuickTime Pro see Podcasting for Windows and Podcasting for Macs.

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Extra for Advanced Blogging

Note that if you look at your blog in your web browser, the only thing you will see for your Podcast post is a link to your Podcast, not the Podcast itself. If you then click on the link a new page opens with ONLY your Podcast on it (or worse some funky MP3-player launches, complicating the user experience). This is not very convenient for the computer user. It would be better if the Podcast appeared directly in the blog page, rather than on a separate page by itself (or in a completely different MP3-player). This can be done, but it requires a bit of HTML to make it work. So how is that done?

We need to use an object-embed tag pair to instruct the Document-Object Model of the web-browser that there is an MP3 file embedded in the webpage. Here is the actual HTML code:

Copy and paste this HTML code into a text-editing program, like Notepad on a Windows computer or TextEdit on a Mac. Then go back and edit your Podcast blog post. Look in the text-area. You should see something like

Select the URL between the quote marks — in this case http://blogs.messiah.edu/wp-content/blogs/13/uploads//BAOBS1.mp3 — and copy it. Switch to your text editing program and paste this URL where MYURL occurs in the HTML snippet. It should be between the quote marks to work correctly.

Now select the entire HTML snippet and copy it. Switch back to your post editing page, select everything in the text-area and paste the HTML snippet into it. This should replace the old code in the text-area with the HTML snippet. Click the SAVE button to finish editing the post.

Now if you click on the View Site link at the top of the page, you will be taken to the blog page and you will see your Podcast itself, ready to be played by the blog-reading public. Note that using this HTML snippet requires the user to have QuickTime installed. This is not an onerous requirement, since almost all of Messiah’s PCs have it installed and, if a user installs iTunes, then QuickTime is automatically installed as well. Many, many folks have iTunes installed on their computers.

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Video Podcasting

Video Podcasting (sometimes called Vodcasting or Vidcasting) allows recorded AV media to be syndicated over RSS or other syndication protocol.
For more generic info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_podcast

Rather than typing all the notes out here, I decided it would be better to make the section on video podcasting into a series of video podcasts. RIght now podcasts 1a, 1b, 2 and 3 are posted, but I foresee two or three more to complete the series. Take a look at:

http://blogs.messiah.edu/film/category/etc/

for the video podcast series I’m doing on Video Podcasting! Click on the links to view the individual posts.

I mention the following pieces of software and hardware in the podcasts, so for ease of discovery, I include the URLs for them here:

LogiTech QuickCam and QuickCam software (I use the QuickCam Pro 4000 in the podcast)
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/webcams/&cl=us,en

Microsoft Windows Movie Maker (generally comes installed as part of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx

Apple QuickTime Pro (most PCs at Messiah have QuickTime; to purchase the Pro license is $30; IT’S WORTH THE MONEY FOR VIDEO PODCASTING)
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/pro/

MediaWorks (an alternative crossplatform video authoring tool that does slightly more than QuickTime Pro for about $75)
http://www.mediaworkssoftware.com/products.html

Apple iSight Firewire Webcam (a Firewire webcam that Apple no longer makes, since it now builds them into all of its newer Macs)
http://www.apple.com/support/isight/

For more info see also http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/videopodcasts_win.html and http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/videopodcasts.html

I will keep the ETC posted as I am able to complete the two or three more video podcasts on video podcasting.
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How do People Subscribe to Your Podcast?

There are many programs that allow RSS subscription to a Podcast. Each one would have a slightly different way of working, but basically the program needs to know the URL where the syndication feed exists. The RSS Podcast subscription program will query the feed, find out what audio and/or video is available, and then let the user know what has been discovered. Depending on user preferences and the capability of the software, the audio and/or video may be automatically downloaded, or may be downloaded manually by the user.

iTunes is by far the most widely used software that allows subscription to a Podcast. You may subscribe to audio and video podcasts in iTunes by:

* 1. Selecting Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast
* 2. Typing the URL, http://…………………… (whatever the URL is)
* 3. Selecting OK

Then whenever the user opens iTunes and clicks on the Podcast icon in the left hand navigation column your podcast will automatically be queried and the user notified of what ever audio/video you’ve posted. If the user then syncs an iPod to iTunes, your podcasts will be downloaded and transferred to the iPod to be listened to or watched on the go.
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Yet Another way to do Podcasting

There are websites that make recording audio and video possible through a web-based app. These make things very easy for the user and interface with existing blogs, but can be expensive. Two of the slickest are

Userplane
http://www.userplane.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=apps.webrecorder
The Userplane model is supported by advertising so all your podcasts will be used as ad-vehicles for them unless you pay at least $500 upfront and $100 per month for ad-free service.

Hipcast
http://www.audioblog.com/index.htm
There are no ads on Hipcast except for the service itself. Accounts start at the basic Unmetered Standard Podcaster for $9.95/month. This includes Unmetered bandwidth, 500MB Disk Space, Unlimited Podcasts, Unlimited Blogs.