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Podcasting Primer
On demand, personalized audio programming is just a click away. We show you how to find what's out there and how to create your own podcast on the cheap.

It could just as descriptively been called audioblogging, but the obvious play on the word broadcasting and the ubiquitous iPod digital media player made podcasting stick. What podcasting is can be said in a single breath: It's Wayne's World for radio.

Anyone who can speak into a microphone, has access to a decent personal computer and has a basic website to post their recordings can podcast. With thousands popping up daily faster than wildflowers after a spring rain, it may actually be harder to find a podcast you like than to create one from scratch.

In this article we'll take a look at several ways you can download and enjoy your favorite podcasts on your personal computer, your digital media player, your Windows Mobile or Palm handheld computer ÷ even your cell phone. Then we'll show you how you can create you own podcasts using inexpensive hardware and software accessories.

PODCAST DIRECTORIES
It's official: as of this writing there are exactly one bazillion and six podcasts for you to choose from. Topics range from the erudite and scholarly to the profane and absurdly trivial. Let's face it. The vast majority of podcasts aren't worth the bandwidth they consume nor the disk space they occupy. They are like the dreaded vanity websites of the late 1990s, the online equivalent of those screamingly awful family newsletters everybody sent out during the Great Desktop Publishing Scare of the late 1980s: self-indulgent, humorless, and stupefyingly boring.

Yet there are a quite a few incredibly great podcasts produced by both professionals and inspired amateurs. Some of these are so good you'll wonder how you ever go along without them ÷ and they're free!

So how do you filter out the intergalactic noise to find some signs of intelligent life in the podcast universe? Podcast directories. These useful sites offer brief reviews of podcasts both new and old, category searching capabilities, and even sound samples. All make it easy to subscribe to new 'casts with a single click. Here are three good ones:

  • www.iPodder.org
  • www.PodcastAlley.com
  • www.Podcast.net

    These are general-purpose podcast directories for all computer platforms. You can link to individual podcast feeds one at a time through your web browser, but that gets unwieldy really fast. Better to download and install a podcast aggregator such as the free iPodder for Mac or PC (www.ipodder.org). If you happen to use an Apple iPod on your Mac or PC (or even if you don't) then be sure to upgrade to iTunes 4.9. It contains a fantastically well-designed and quite comprehensive podcast directory. With a click, you can subscribe to any current podcast as well as choose from any back Îcasts you may have missed within the published series. The audio files are downloaded and synced to your iPod just like your music and audiobooks files, existing in their own Podcasts menu on both iTunes and iPod. Don't have an iPod? You can still download iTunes free from Apple (www.apple.com/itunes) and use your computer to subscribe to, download, and listen to podcasts. The latest version of iTunes raises the bar for podcast software so high, it's doubtful any other software developer will ever be able to catch up. This is world-class stuff and you sure can't beat the price.

    PORTABLE MEDIA PLAYERS: PMP IT!
    While iPods are clearly the ideal device for listening to digital audio in any form, there is no particular reason why you cannot use any device that is capable of playing standard MP3 audio files. There are dozens, if not hundreds of MP3 players our there to suit any budget, from ultra-high capacity hard drive-based devices from Creative, Rio, and Samsung, to tiny flash memory players the size of your index finger.

    A new lass of device emerged in 2004, generically referred to as a Personal Media Player or PMP. Microsoft's variation on this theme is known as the Portable Media Center (PMC), Sony calls their device the Playstation Portable (PSP), while pioneering Archos uses the term Pocket Media Assistant (PMA). Many industry watchers predict Apple will come out with an iPod Movie (MoviPod?) later this year, at which point the name thing will stop wobbling around. Until then, let's just call them PMPs.

    These devices are hard drive-based handheld devices with large displays from 4 to 6-inches diagonal and a simplified user interface designed more like a piece of home consumer electronics than a personal computer. You connect your PMP to you computer and load it up with any kind of digital media you have on hand: music, videos, still photos, and even some standard computer documents such as Word, PowerPoint, and PDF pages. These machines make fine podcast playback units, as their high capacity comes in quite handy for big podcasts and they tend to deliver good-sounding audio, too.

    SMARTPHONES, PDAS, AND MOBILE PHONES
    Let's not neglect to mention good old handheld computers. Most late model Pocket PCs and Palm OS units can play MP3 files quite well. Though the internal memory of these machines tends to be somewhat limited, they all accept flash memory cards that can hold many hours of podcasts. High capacity Compact Flash (CF) and Secure Digital (SD) cards are a particularly good deal theses days, with some one-gigabyte cards available for less than $100.

    The major limitations of using a handheld computer for audio playback are the lack of excellent podcast aggregator software and limited battery life. Quick News for Palm OS (www.standalone.com) and FeederReader for Pocket PC (www.feederreader.com) are serviceable but currently lacking in convenience features and overall polish. Smartphones, which tend to run on Windows Mobile, Symbian OS, and Palm OS, are subject to the same limitations as their big brothers, only more so. Most tend to have even less storage capacity and shorter battery life due to their smaller physical size. The exception, of course, is the Pocket PC Phone Edition machines, which have everything you need but are bulky and expensive.

    The industry has been buzzing about an iTunes-compatible ăiPhoneä co-designed by Apple and Motorola, but as of this writing is has not materialized. There is so much evidence to support its appearance his year that I believe it will come sooner rather than later. The iPhone will connect directly to your copy of iTunes with a USB2 cable to your Mac or PC, just like an iPod does. Digital audio files you've playlisted for your iPhone will sync up into the phone's flash memory and there you are. What will almost certainly not be happening ÷ at least at first ÷ is wireless availability of iTunes audio downloads, as the bandwidth required for multi-megabyte music, audiobooks, and podcasts is too extreme to be practical. As high-speed 4G cellular networks light up nationwide and new handsets support them, bandwidth will be far less of an issue. Podcasts tend to be huge ÷ far bigger than a typical song download, so it'll be a while before we use our phones to snatch a quick podcast from the sky. Even if we could cost-effectively download them from on high, the storage capacity of the first generation of music-phones will be far too limited for holding many podcasts.

    Meanwhile, there are a few audio-capable phones trickling onto the scene from Samsung and other makers, but they are hard to find, very pricey, and extremely limited compared to your other current options -- like a nice iPod mini, for example. A year from now it'll be a whole different ballgame, but today, beware.

    CALL NOW AND YOU CAN BECOME A PODCASTER OVERNIGHT!
    Well, it might actually take you a little longer, but with a dream, a small wad of cash, and enough Red Bull, it's possible.

    You'll need a concept for your show, something you think someone besides you and your buddies will find informative ÷ or at least entertaining. Length is a non-issue with podcasting, but the longer they are the longer they'll take to download and the more the bandwidth will cost you. I recommend keeping your episodes under 30 minutes.

    Next, you'll need to assemble a little recording studio. Folks who are serious about podcasting tend to use Macs for audio production, but there's no reason why you can't use a good Windows box and get good results. Because musicians and other creatives tend to prefer Macs, there are more excellent audio tools for the platform. That said, podcasting is very basic compared to full-on multitrack music production, so simple tools will do the trick on either side of the operating system fence.

    In its simplest form, you can just yak into the built-in microphone in your computer, capture it in a simple audio recording application, save the file as an MP3, and you're done with the production aspect. But just as typing this story into my text editor doesn't constitute creating and publishing a magazine, there are many further steps to get your masterpiece into shape and out to your adoring public.

    Recordings made using cheap microphones sound like they were done in a tin can. They are also noisy to the point of distraction. If you want anyone to listen for more than 30 seconds, you need a decent condenser mic, a solid desktop mic stand, and a clip-on pop screen to keep your ăpä and ătä sounds from blasting the mic and sounding like little explosions. You'll also need a quiet, comfortable place to record like a closet or basement, far away from any audible distractions. Don't' bother with fancy stereo mics; record in mono and your files will be half the size and sound just as good. Three excellent online sources for recording equipment are:

  • www.sweetwater.com
  • www.musiciansfriend.com
  • www.amazon.com

    If you're really strapped for cash, your friendly neighborhood Radio Shack will have basic items that will do the job until you can afford the good stuff. As with everything in life, you get what you pay for. Each component in the audio recording chain will either add or remove quality from the final recording, depending on how much you paid for it.

    Once you have your mic set up and your recording space ready to go, you need to try some software. Mac users can't do much better than GarageBand 2.0 recording application, which comes on every new Mac or can be purchased as part of the iLife '05 suite for $79. You can mix multiple audio streams, such as a background or other voices on separate mics, as well as add acoustic effects such as reverb or echo to add spaciousness to your sound. There are a three free utilities to route audio with Mac OS X that are worth having for special situations:

  • SoundFlower: www.cycling74.com
  • LineIn: www.rogueamoeba.com
  • SoundSource: www.rogueamoeba.com

    Engadget.com has published a fine tutorial on creating a podcast with Mac OS X: www.engadget.com/entry/5843952395227141/

    Apple has posted two excellent podcasting tutorials for GarageBand 2.x and QuickTime 7 Pro: www.apple.com/support/garageband/podcasts/
    www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/podcasting.html

    Windows XP users have similar options available to them. One of the most popular free audio editors is Audacity (www.audacity.sourceforge.net). Definitely worth a download.

    Another popular Windows-based tool for creating podcasts is GoldWave (www.goldwave.com), a feature-rich audio editor that cost only $45. Another promising application is PodProducer (http://radix.com.mx/podproducer/en/) currently in beta but looking good.

    If you need lots of simultaneous tracks and want to use gobs of audio processing effects or layered MIDI keyboards, check out the full-featured Magix Music Studio 10 Deluxe ($69.99 www.magix.net).

    O'Reilly has made available a superb tutorial on using Audacity to create a podcast under Windows XP: www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/04/05/create_podcasts_with_pc.html

    PODCAST HOSTING: SINGING THEM OL' BANDWIDTH BLUES
    Whether you use a Mac or XP, once you have your podcast ready to send out into the world, you've got to find a host that's set up for RSS 2.0 feeds. There are so many options available to Îcasters, and they are changing so fast, that I recommend you Google ăpodcast hostingä and shop around. Contact other podcasters whose work you admire and ask them where they host their files. I wish there was an easy, plug-and-play solution I could recommend, but by the time you read this it will have morphed into something else, so it's Google time.

    One thing that's unlikely to change much in the next month or two is the cost of bandwidth. Many early podcasters were blown away by the spiraling bandwidth bills they received when their programs suddenly became popular. I suppose one way to avoid thousand dollar bills from your web host is to create a lousy show that almost no one wants to hear, but if you want to be The Next Big Thing, be prepared to shell out some dead presidents. Consider it the price of fame.

    --David MacNeill


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