Proliferation of Video Podcasts

There is undoubted increase in the number and variety of video podcasts. The introduction of "high definition" resolution of video, the iPhone, Apple TV, YouTube as well as the entry of broadcasting corporations has helped to stimulate interest, particularly in the consumer market.

An increasing number of broadcasters are now producing video podcasts based on their normal broadcast material. In the UK, the BBC has been conducting trials of their iPlayer - an internet based technology that allows the user to download an earlier broadcast and watch this at a later stage. Is this tody's equivalent of an on-demand video recorder? Another exciting development is the digitizing of the BBC's massive archive of broadcast material - offering huge potential to revisit past productions in the future.

The video podcast revolution would appear to hold no bounds although there is concern about the increasing bandwidth requirements, especially amongst ISPs with the prospect of the launch of the iPlayer. Another problem appears to be the range of different formats and screen sizes adopted. The new and improved variants of the MP4 format are welcome (such as the new H.264 video with AAC audio - producing a video file with the .M4V extension).

To cater for some of these changes, we have recently introduced a wide screen version of our podcast player to cater for some of these new video podcasts.

With the onward march of technology wherever next?

Video Podcasts, iTunes and Apple TV

With the launch of Apple TV, it is likely that there will be increased interest in the creation and publication of video podcasts as the podcasting features within the popular iTunes are fully compatible.

So what is the advice to those of you interested in incorporating more video podcasts in your RSS feeds so they can be used with Apple TV?

Fortunately, Apple have included details in a section devoted to this topic within the latest version of their technical specifications. The video podcast section provides good advice on formatting the video for the specific format needed to optimise the video for both Apple TV and the iPod.

Good news?

Well "yes and no". As video buffs will remind you, as well as video compression formats there are also different screen aspects to take into consideration too - widescreen (16:9) or normal (4:3). Once you have decided on the format for the video source, the rest is relatively easy on a Mac. Choose a method using the built-in iPod converters of Compressor ("H.264 for iPod"), QuickTime Pro ("Movie to iPod") or iTunes ("Convert Selection for iPod"). To achieve the best optimisation, the minimum width for your video source file should be 640 pixels. The result of the conversion process will be an .m4v file using the H.264 codec that is compatible with Apple TV and iPods.

So will Apple TV find a home in the classroom of the future? We will all just have to wait and see!