Question about podcasting

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:40 am

Jackal wrote:How is "multimedia" a buzzword? And exactly how does it not mean anything? Lets see what multi media is:

1. Of or relating to the combined use of several media: a multimedia installation at the art gallery.
2. Computer Science. Of or relating to an application that can combine text, graphics, full-motion video, and sound into an intergrated package.

Now lets check out the word itself. Multi = multiple, Media = a conduit for communication.

Seems pretty spot-on to me. But then again, I'm not an idiot.

You've highlighted exactly what I was saying. Multimedia doesn't apply to newspapers, does it? Yet that's a form of media. Does it apply to music? Maybe, if it's on the PC. So does it apply to media specifically on a PC? Again no, a piece of C++ code is unlikely to be considered multimedia.

Multimedia was a buzzword designed to describe, loosely, a PC with the ability to play DVDs, or surf the internet. But it's meaningless.

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:41 am

+JuggerNaut+ wrote:
[xeno]Julios wrote:
Foo wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

Hope this helps.
yea that's the first place i looked - didn't help me understand what people meant about the new ipods supporting podcasts.
all iPods support "podcasts". two versions ago (5.0), iTunes started supporting podcasts.

what?

how can something NOT support podcasts? As far as i understand, a podcast is simply an mp3 file. The only thing that makes it distinct and worthy of a different name is that it is a recording of a streamed event.

It's like saying - the new itunes now supports rock and roll music, whereas before it only supported techno music.

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:42 am

and hey look... one quick google search and I find a quote from a professional obvious working in the field of multimedia who states that the term multimedia does not mean 1 thing:

There are many definitions of multimedia -- some of us can remember when multimedia meant using a slide-tape program, where a beep signified the display of the next 35mm slide (others might remember flannel boards or 8-track tapes, but we won't go there)! For this class, we will define multimedia as the integration of text, graphics, animation, sound, and/or video.

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:43 am

[xeno]Julios wrote:
+JuggerNaut+ wrote:
[xeno]Julios wrote: yea that's the first place i looked - didn't help me understand what people meant about the new ipods supporting podcasts.
all iPods support "podcasts". two versions ago (5.0), iTunes started supporting podcasts.
what?

how can something NOT support podcasts? As far as i understand, a podcast is simply an mp3 file. The only thing that makes it distinct and worthy of a different name is that it is a recording of a streamed event.

It's like saying - the new itunes now supports rock and roll music, whereas before it only supported techno music.

By 'supporting' it means the program itself will take an RSS feed address and you will end up with MP3s on your player.

This is what 'support' means in this case.

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:43 am

[xeno]Julios wrote:
+JuggerNaut+ wrote:
[xeno]Julios wrote: yea that's the first place i looked - didn't help me understand what people meant about the new ipods supporting podcasts.
all iPods support "podcasts". two versions ago (5.0), iTunes started supporting podcasts.
what?

how can something NOT support podcasts? As far as i understand, a podcast is simply an mp3 file. The only thing that makes it distinct and worthy of a different name is that it is a recording of a streamed event.

It's like saying - the new itunes now supports rock and roll music, whereas before it only supported techno music.

you can subscribe to podcasts within iTunes. pre 5.0 you could not. therefore, it is now officially supported.

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:44 am

sigh - what the fuck are rss feeds and why are they important for distributing audio files?

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:44 am

[xeno]Julios wrote:a recording of a streamed event.

Most music files are recordings of streamed events.

The uniqueness of podcasting is tying MP3 files to XML, and having players which understand this link.

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:45 am

+JuggerNaut+ wrote:
[xeno]Julios wrote:
+JuggerNaut+ wrote: all iPods support "podcasts". two versions ago (5.0), iTunes started supporting podcasts.
what?

how can something NOT support podcasts? As far as i understand, a podcast is simply an mp3 file. The only thing that makes it distinct and worthy of a different name is that it is a recording of a streamed event.

It's like saying - the new itunes now supports rock and roll music, whereas before it only supported techno music.
you can subscribe to podcasts within iTunes. pre 5.0 you could not. therefore, it is now officially supported.

subscribe?

how can you subscribe to an mp3 file?

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:45 am

[xeno]Julios wrote:sigh - what the fuck are rss feeds and why are they important for distributing audio files?

Read about RSS on wikipedia or such. If you don't understand one of the 2 parts to the whole podcasting thing (namely MP3 and RSS) then you're going to have a hard time understanding it, aren't you?

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:46 am

Foo wrote:
[xeno]Julios wrote:a recording of a streamed event.
Most music files are recordings of streamed events.

The uniqueness of podcasting is tying MP3 files to XML, and having players which understand this link.

Why bother changing it to XML whatever that is? Why not just keep it plain and simple

Here - i have an audio recording i wish to share. Hmm let's see - let's convert it to rss and xml and all this nonsense, and then get people to download software so that they can then turn it back into mp3

Can you see why i'm confused?

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:50 am

Yeah I can see why you're confused. Instead of going away and reading on the key technology you need to be reading about (RSS), you're getting ahead of yourself and asking questions about podcasting which will be resolved once you understand RSS.

...

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:55 am

Foo wrote:Yeah I can see why you're confused. Instead of going away and reading on the key technology you need to be reading about (RSS), you're getting ahead of yourself and asking questions about podcasting which will be resolved once you understand RSS.

...

I tried reading up on RSS a while back, and i even subscribed to one inadvertently. I still don't get what it is!!

Perhaps it's because i know absolutely nothing about web design or whatever.

Can someone here try to offer an explanation of what is so special about podcasting?

Here let me frame the quesion this way:

I have a website and I wish to share mp3 files with the community.

I decide to upload the mp3 files to my webspace so others can download it and listen to it on winamp/mp3 players

Someone else comes along and says:

"Dude! Get with the times! Use podcasting!"

I'm like

"why? - what is the advantage of that?"

Now someone please fill in the blank with his response.

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:58 am

You wouldn't use it if you were just dumping some MP3 files one-time. You would use it if you were and adding mp3 files regularly, like in a series. For example, if you were running a daily blog but instead of typing it, you monologue it instead into an MP3.

The advantage is that a person comes to your site one time. 'subscribes' to your RSS feed... then never needs to come back and check to see if you've posted another audio clip.. because his/her RSS reader downloads it automatically for him whenever he/she checks his 'feeds'.

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:05 am

thanks

so it's basically like a mailing list?

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:08 am

[xeno]Julios wrote:thanks

so it's basically like a mailing list?

RSS is like a mailing list, yes.

With 2 main differences:
1. The person on the receiving end is the one doing the requesting. Their client connects to your site and gets the information on their demand. Rather than with a mailing list where it's sent out and sits on a mail server until collected.
2. You never know who's subscribed to your feed. See point 1 above for why.

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:12 am

I see - so this is an efficient way for people to be regularly updated when they want to.

Now podcasts are simply mp3 files that have been embedded into the RSS stream? and thus integrated into the XML format or something?

Now if something officially supports podcasting, it means that it can extract the mp3 file from the rss feed right?

So what exactly would you do with a new ipod that supported podcasting?

Plug ipod into computer

open up rss reader...

what next?

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:17 am

riddla wrote:its funny watching this spiral into more confusion.

actually, thanks to foo's patience, I am starting to really understand what I wanted to from the start.

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:18 am

[xeno]Julios wrote:I see - so this is an efficient way for people to be regularly updated when they want to.

Yes

Now podcasts are simply mp3 files that have been embedded into the RSS stream? and thus integrated into the XML format or something?

Nearly. The RSS feed simply contains the MP3 address on the web. Then the client software automatically downloads this MP3.

Now if something officially supports podcasting, it means that it can extract the mp3 file from the rss feed right?

Yes. Or more to the point.. it extracts the location of the MP3 from the feed, then goes and gets said MP3

So what exactly would you do with a new ipod that supported podcasting?

As said earlier... it's iTunes that's been changed to support podcasting, and therefore as a whole we can say that 'iPods now support podcasting' even though actually it's just a small feature addition to iTunes.

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:20 am

[xeno]Julios wrote:
+JuggerNaut+ wrote:
[xeno]Julios wrote: what?

how can something NOT support podcasts? As far as i understand, a podcast is simply an mp3 file. The only thing that makes it distinct and worthy of a different name is that it is a recording of a streamed event.

It's like saying - the new itunes now supports rock and roll music, whereas before it only supported techno music.
you can subscribe to podcasts within iTunes. pre 5.0 you could not. therefore, it is now officially supported.
subscribe?

how can you subscribe to an mp3 file?

go get some new deodorant.

Post by **PHILAMONSTER** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:23 am

wow julz, you're subscribing to the podcast which has the location of the mp3 embedded in it.

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:25 am

so then Itunes downloads the mp3 from the location embedded in the feed, and uploads it into the player right?

So it just saves time - if you didn't have the latest version of itunes you could still use other software to figure out the location of the mp3, download it onto your harddrive, and then upload it to your mp3 player right?

Post by **Foo** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:29 am

[xeno]Julios wrote:so then Itunes downloads the mp3 from the location embedded in the feed, and uploads it into the player right?

So it just saves time - if you didn't have the latest version of itunes you could still use other software to figure out the location of the mp3, download it onto your harddrive, and then upload it to your mp3 player right?

Yep. Dead on.

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:30 am

riddla wrote:go look at the battlestar galactica podcasts page in my earlier post. ITS JUST FUCKING LINKS TO MP3 FILES.

Holy fucking shit man.

right - but that doesn't explain what it means when one says: "Itunes supports podcasting"

Post by **[xeno]Julios** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:31 am

Foo wrote:
[xeno]Julios wrote:so then Itunes downloads the mp3 from the location embedded in the feed, and uploads it into the player right?

So it just saves time - if you didn't have the latest version of itunes you could still use other software to figure out the location of the mp3, download it onto your harddrive, and then upload it to your mp3 player right?
Yep. Dead on.

awesome - i understand now

thanks.

Post by **mjrpes** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:32 am

Foo wrote:You wouldn't use it if you were just dumping some MP3 files one-time. You would use it if you were and adding mp3 files regularly, like in a series. For example, if you were running a daily blog but instead of typing it, you monologue it instead into an MP3.

The advantage is that a person comes to your site one time. 'subscribes' to your RSS feed... then never needs to come back and check to see if you've posted another audio clip.. because his/her RSS reader downloads it automatically for him whenever he/she checks his 'feeds'.

Cool, I thought I knew what 'podcasting' mean but you've shown that I was wrong. And I now I know its correct defintion. What a fucking wonderful day.