How to make a podcast that doesn't suck - Marco.org I never expected to acknowledge podcasting on my site because I figured it would be a temporary fad, like blogs. Apparently I'm not always right. Since podcasts have proven to be surprisingly useful in certain circumstances, such as while exercising, sitting on mass-transit, and driving on long car rides, it's time for its talent and production to develop a higher quality standard. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that most of these guidelines are taken from radio production. Get a friend Ever wonder why successful radio shows always have multiple people, and why you always fall asleep when one person is giving a long PowerPoint presentation alone? It takes a very, very good speaker to be interesting for very long without conversation and variety from others. Don't do your podcast alone. But don't go overboard. Use audio level compression Ever notice how the songs on the radio never have the quiet-to-loud dynamics that you hear in the CD version of the same song? Use Skype sparingly
Geocaching Podcast > A Weekly Call-In Geocaching Show How to Create RSS / XML Feed for Podcasts This tutorial will talk about how we put together our MP3 file for this podCast and then more importantly about how to create a proper RSS / XML file for a podCast. Hardware Used Computer: Mac G4 Ti 500 MHz Powerbook Microphone: Andrea Anti-Nois USB NC-7100 (Came with IBM ViaVoice - <$100) Software Used Editing / Recording: GarageBand ($49 w/ iLife) MP3 Conversion: iTunes (Free from Apple.com) RSS / XML Tutorial For now lets assume you have a great MP3 and you are ready to share it with the world as a podCast. If you are like me and you felt you were one of only 20 people in the US that did not have a political blog of some sort in 2004, this whole RSS and XML thing can seem very daunting. Title, Description, Link & Enclosure With a few more items thrown in for good measure. <itunes:owner> <itunes:name>Rob W</itunes:name> <itunes:email>rob@podcast411.com</itunes:email> </itunes:owner> <itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit> <itunes:author>Rob @ podCast411</itunes:author> rss.scripting.com Rob,
Creating more engaging media In the past 2 weeks I have spent most of my waking hours (and some non-waking hours) on designing an online training course for our online faculty, or scrambling to keep up with the work load in my doctoral program. The online faculty training program was actually written by an expert in online education, and good friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Robert Woods. He is a professor in our Communications department, and a heavy duty researcher and writer. He was kind enough to give me permission to use/modify/hack his faculty training course (for communications faculty) into a more generic version for all other SAU online faculty. In an attempt to model the use of a variety of technologies, and engage faculty’s interest, I have created narrated presentations of some sections of the various workshops. Tools used for the presentation: The opening slide of the presentation was re-purposed for this presentation.
Podagogy How to Podcast - Pt 1 of 3 This week's How-To is a three part special complete with our first Engadget "Podcast" MP3. The first part is how to get "Podcasts" on your iPod. So what's a Podcast? Doc Searls may have said it best: "PODcasting will shift much of our time away from an old medium where we wait for what we might want to hear to a new medium where we choose what we want to hear, when we want to hear it, and how we want to give everybody else the option to listen to it as well." For the second part of the how-to you can listen to a Podcast we made featuring Lenn Pryor and Phillip Torrone. The third part of the how-to is about making your own Podcast. Getting Podcasts on your iPod Here are the Mac and PC ways to download the Podcast MP3s, with listings for some different feeds (audio shows) following. Mac On the Mac side of things, there? PCiPodder.NET is a media aggregator that automatically downloads content to your machine. The Feeds Once you? Now, if you don? Adam Curry? Dave Slusher? Dave Winer? We? Comments
Windows Media Enhanced Podcast Apple's AAC format allows podcasters to create "enhanced podcasts" complete with embedded photos at publisher defined points throughout the podcast. These files are only compatible with iTunes and iPods, leaving a large universe of listeners out of the picture. Microsoft's Photo Story could easily create something similar, with a voice track narrating beneath a series of images, but the WMV file created in Photo Story isn't compatible with most portable music players. One alternative that bridges the gap and maximizes compatibility is to create a script enhanced WMA file, These WMA files with embedded scripts play just like a normal WMA anywhere scripting isn't supported. The great potential for this feature is to provide people with a walking tour of Websites associated with whatever you are talking about. To create a Windows Media enhanced podcast, you need an app with support for Windows Media script editing. Download WM Encoder free from Microsoft.
Podcasting - Jake Ludington - MediaBlab Recording environmental sounds like singing birds, wild animal calls, water running through a streambed, or the chirp of baby birds is one of the more fascinating (and challenging) aspects of audio recording. Some of the same audio recording techniques apply when recording things like car noises, lawn mower engines and other man made sounds, but you don't always get a chance to do a second take with nature like you do with machines. Getting started in recording nature sounds requires three basic things: 1) A recording device, like a MiniDisc recorder, Compact Flash recorder, or other digital audio recorder. 2) A stereo microphone or stereo microphone pair 3) Headphones for listening to what you're recording The big reason to use a digital recorder is to avoid the hiss that comes with using a tape recording medium. You also need a good dose of luck and patience in order to find the specific species of bird or animal you're hoping to record.
Flash Movie Conversion for Mac OS X In a recent discussion about options for sharing movies as Flash FLV or SWF format files, we were trying to find the most cost effective way to convert files for Mac OS X. I wrote about my favorite method for Download FFMPEGX You also need to download some individual file dependencies from the two locations listed below. This adds both playback preview functionality and the ability to work with MPEG-2 video. After installation, locate the video you want to convert and drag it into the source format section of the FFMPEGX interface. By default, FFMPEGX converts all flash movies to 320x240 at 12fps and 200 kbps bitrate. 12fps is a bit jumpy for full motion video. Audio defaults to MP3 at 56 kbps. Once all settings are configured, hit the Encode button. Upload the FLV to your server using your favorite upload app or by using the upload feature of your blog software.
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