Podcasting

A podcast is like a magazine, but with sound or video. You can go to a web site to view or listen to podcasts and download them. To make things easier you can subscribe to a podcast and have it automatically delivered to your computer so you can watch or listen on your computer or a digital media player (like an iPod).

Getting Podcasts

The easiest way to consume a podcast is to go there on your computer, but to take full advantage you'll want to subscribe to your favourites and get them automatically.

• If you use iTunes (for Mac or Windows) you can click on the Podcasts link which shows up to the left when you have iTunes open. This opens a guide that lets you find podcasts with audio or video. If you have an iPod, you will already have iTunes and depending on the model that you have, you can have the latest podcasts show up automatically on your iPod.
• Miro  (for Windows or Mac or Linux) is a free video player that will play almost any format of video and will also let you subscribe to and view video podcasts. It has a guide that will help you find videos and podcasts to watch and subscribe to.

Creating Podcasts

You can create podcasts with your computer, a digital camera, a sound recording device or a video camera. At some point you'll have to get the video and audio into a computer (if you haven't recorded it on a computer) and then you can upload it to web for the world to see it.

• Audacity (for Windows or Mac or Linux) is a free audio editing program that will allow you to record (if you have a microphone either built in or one that can be connected to your computer) and edit audio. You can even add effects to the sound and clean up noise a bit too.
• If you don't have a video editing progam on your computer you can edit your video online with some of the free tools that are available:
  • JumpCut lets you upload and edit video for free. You can trim clips, add titles, effects and music to you video as well as use photographs.
  • EyeSpot lets you easily upload, create and share video with trimming, effects, titles and music. They even have clips available to use.

• You can share audio that you have (and also find podcasts) for free with Odeo.
• blip.tv provides great free and flexible place to keep and share video that you have created. They make different versions available and it's very easy to add video that have at blip.tv to a blog, another site or even get it ready for a cell phone!